Vietnam's Hoi An underwater but undeterred by flooding

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Having been assigned to come to Da Nang in central Vietnam to cover the APEC Economic Leaders Week, I thought it fitting to visit Hoi An just 30 km away – an important port on the ancient Silk Road and now a thriving tourism hub.

Chinese and Japanese merchants are said to have considered it the best trading port in all of Southeast Asia. UNESCO made the old town a world heritage site in 1999. Its mix of well-preserved Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and French colonial architecture, excellent restaurants and handicrafts, have drawn tourists in increasing numbers.

The morning wet market moves to higher and drier ground. /CGTN Photo

On an earlier visit, I recall seeing etched on the wall of a historic house the high-water marks from previous floods, most notably one above my head from a couple of Novembers before.

So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see the rain hammering down and that the river had spilled its banks and flooded the first street of the UNESCO zone when I arrived here Saturday night.

Locals I talked to said they expected it to worsen. They were right. I awoke the next morning to find the road in front of my hotel had turned into a stream, complete with current.

The hotel provided a boat to shuttle us to drier ground. Two of the four streets in the old town were still dry enough to walk on, but the two closest to the river were under more than a meter of water.

The only way to see and shoot the streets, normally full of throngs of tourists, and bustling restaurants, was to jump in a boat.

The rain continues to hammer down all day Sunday. /CGTN Photo

But still the rain kept hammering down. Merchants in the other streets tried their best to raise their merchandise as high as possible.

With water lapping at its doorstep, my hotel evacuated and shifted us to a drier sister hotel. When I returned to the old town Monday morning, the entire heritage area was under water at least waist-deep.

Tourists chartered boats to tour the flooded historic zone. And while the boat operators made a bonanza, others are just getting on with lives, seemingly in good spirits despite the waters that have engulfed their town.

Clearly, they are used to this, although from the previous high water marks, this flood is exceptionally deep.

Locals say it also happened much faster than usual with the water from an upstream dam burst.

Hoi An and its elegant building have survived centuries of prosperity and doldrums. From its heyday as a thriving port on the Silk Road, through two centuries as a forgotten backwater, through colonization and war, and then rebirth as a popular tourist spot.

No doubt Hoi An and its people will bounce back again quickly once the flood waters recede.

2786km