Hoi An’s Old Town is a UNESCO heritage site, and really quite beautiful and pleasant to walk around. It is clearly a tourist area, but in this case it doesn’t diminish the charm as much as I might normally expect. Notes about town:

• You are supposed to pay for a ‘permit’ to cross into the old town, but it is poorly explained and seemingly not enforced. We never paid, though we always had 120k ready in case we needed it.
• Free wifi is available throughout old town

Our hotel was quite close to the Japanese Covered Bridge, so we passed by it several times a day.

and at night:

The Thu Bon river runs through the middle of town, and the spanning bridges have some nice views.

 

At night (especially on the weekends) there are many vendors selling lanterns for the water.

 

Since it had recently been Chinese New Year, there were special displays in the river too.

 

Hoi An is famous for hanging lanterns which are absolutely beautiful at night.

Hoi An wakes up slowly in the mornings, so few places are open before 8am, making it fairly quiet in town if you get out early.

As the day goes on the bustle increases, especially when buses arrive to drop people off at the perimeter.

 

Of course, most of the town is all about shopping, especially clothing.

Since it really is an old town there are quite a few small back alleys to explore that can be quite photogenic.

Some are little more than sidewalk width!

Hoi An was a lot of fun to explore, with lots of sights, shopping and food – though touristy at times it is still well worth a visit.