Hội An

Japanese Bridge at dawn, tailor fittings and the Thu Bon at dusk

Spend your first Hội An morning in the old town before the crowds. Be on Tran Phu by 7am with a ticket from a booth such as the one on Hai Ba Trung, walk to the Japanese Bridge while the street is empty, then use the ticket on the Quan Cong Temple, the Fujian Assembly Hall and one merchant house.

Families still live in the back rooms of those houses. Choose a tailor before lunch so the fittings fit around the rest of your stay. In the evening, cross to An Hoi for the night market and watch the candle boats drift on the Thu Bon.

Day two is for wheels. Cycle north through the paddies to Tra Que, the herb and vegetable village whose greens end up in every bowl of cao lau, then carry on to An Bang for a swim and a seafood lunch. Go back for your first fitting late in the afternoon.

On the third day, take an early speedboat from Cua Dai to the Cham Islands to snorkel, or join a morning cooking class and spend the afternoon on a basket boat in the Bay Mau coconut forest at Cam Thanh. Finish with a last walk through the lantern-lit old town after 9pm, once the day-trippers from Da Nang have gone home.

Cao lau, com ga and white rose dumplings

Cao lau is Hội An's own dish: thick, springy noodles with char siu-style pork, squares of fried dough and Tra Que greens over a spoonful of sauce. Tradition says it needs water from the old Ba Le well, off Phan Chau Trinh, and wood ash from the Cham Islands, so purists insist it cannot be made elsewhere.

Mi Quang, the region's flat yellow noodle, comes with shrimp, pork or chicken, rice crackers and peanuts in a little rich broth. Com ga, Hoi An chicken rice, is shredded chicken on turmeric-cooked rice with herbs and pickled onion, a lunch every local has an opinion about. Look too for banh bao banh vac, the translucent 'white rose' shrimp dumplings, which a single family has long supplied to restaurants across town.

The banh mi here is a cult: queues form at Banh Mi Phuong on Phan Chau Trinh, but small carts all over town are just as good. For the cheapest sampling, the food hall at the Central Market by the river serves most of these dishes at communal tables. Cooking classes often start with a market tour, a useful way to learn names you can order later.

My Son, the Cham Islands and the craft villages

Hội An's old town takes two days at most, and the country around it fills the rest of a stay. Three trips are worth planning: My Son, the Cham temple ruins in a forested valley about 40 km inland; a boat out to the Cham Islands; and the craft villages on the edge of town.

My Son, about 40 km inland in a forested valley, is the ruined sanctuary of the Champa kings, a cluster of brick temples built between the 4th and 13th centuries, damaged by wartime bombing and listed by UNESCO in 1999, the same year as Hoi An. Go at opening time or in the late afternoon; at midday the valley traps the heat and the tour buses arrive together.

Out at sea, the Cham Islands (Cu Lao Cham) form the core of a UNESCO biosphere reserve with Hoi An itself. Speedboats from Cua Dai pier take about half an hour, and the day usually combines snorkelling over coral, a fishing village and a seafood lunch on the beach. Trips run best from March to August; in the autumn and winter storms, boats often stop.

Closer in, the craft villages make easy half-days by bike or boat. Thanh Ha, west of town, has turned pottery for centuries and lets you try the wheel. On Cam Kim island, across the river, the carpenters of Kim Bong still carve the timber frames and shutters seen in the old town's houses. Tra Que, between town and the beach, grows the herbs; some farms invite visitors to plant and cook.