Flight to Da Nang, A Walk Through Hoi An, Vietnam (Saturday, November 12th, 2016)

Now that it's time to leave our hotel here in Ho Chi Minh, I finally had time to take a few pictures of it in the daylight.  Our days are so busy that it's hard to find the time.

Notice the very narrow little buildings by our hotel.  They are very common in southeast Asia.  Our hotel is lucky enough to be a double-wide.

Here is a picture of the dining room where we enjoyed our complimentary breakfast each morning while we were here.  Notice that there is a television on the far wall.  This was our only way to get news.  They would usually have CNN turned on.

The view from the dining room.  Unfortunately, it shows the pollution, but I really don't think it's that bad for a city of 10 million people and six million motorbikes.

The pool area on the 3rd floor.

The gym, also on the 3rd floor. Unfortunately, we never had time to use either.

We also had a few minutes to take in some of the sights around our hotel before we left, so we headed back over to the market for a quick stroll.  At the door we found this map of all the stalls in the market.  Wow, it's even bigger than we thought.

I took a picture of this at the market to ask Helen if she knew what it was.  Apparently, it's a type of lotus root.

Have you ever seen so much stuff?  How do they find anything?

Juice oranges, green on the outside and orange on the inside.

Just like in Thailand, they exercise in the park in the morning.

We left the hotel this morning and headed to the Ho Chi Min City Airport to catch our flight to Da Nang on Vietnam Air.  Da Nang is the largest city in central Vietnam.  It is one of Vietnam's major ports, situated on the coast of the South China Sea, or as the Vietnamese refer to it, the East Sea (they don't like China very much).  

As you can see from the map, Da Nang is about half way between Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi.



We were leaving the bustling city of Ho Chi Minh behind.

Our flight on Vietnam Air wasn't crowded, so everyone spread out and enjoyed a relaxing flight.

Especially Sarah!

Before we knew it, we were flying over the rural city of Da Nang along the central eastern cost of Vietnam.

It was very cloudy and humid when we landed in Da Nang, not to be confused with the pollution of the big city.

Da Nang has a population of 2 million people, and is a very new city, with all of it's taller buildings being only 10-15 years old. There is currently a lot of growth in the city.  The streets are nice and wide, and traffic is very light compared to Ho Chi Minh City. It is a very clean, modern city, but Khanh told us that there is nothing for tourists to see here (other than the Marble Mountain), so tourists land here and then make their way to Hoi An (south of Da Nang) or Hue (north of Da Nang). The Da Nang airport was built during the war and was used for military purposes until the war ended.  

There is a beautiful beach in Da Nang called My Khe.  It was originally known as China Beach, but it is illegal to say China Beach (because the Vietnamese government is really not fond of China, did I already say that?), so they must call it My Khe.  We stopped there for a few pictures and a little time in the surf before continuing south to the town of Hoi An.  The large white statue to the north end of the bay is a lady buddha.

If you ask me, this beach alone is reason enough to stay in Da Nang.  It is absolutely gorgeous, and no one is here.

There is a beautiful yellow bridge in Da Nang called the dragon bridge.  We could only see it from a far since we were crossing a different bridge.

Along the way to Hoi An, we drove through some beautiful rural country where we saw oyster beds and canoes.  Such a beautiful sight.

We checked into our hotel, and had a short time at leisure before we met up for a walking tour of the old town.  

When we got to our room, we were very pleasantly surprised, so we spent our short amount of time just enjoying our beautiful room.

It's so funny, from hotel to hotel you never know what to expect. They are all very nice, but some of them tend to have little quirks.

Our friend Helen told us that in our hotel in Cambodia they didn't have enough water pressure in the shower to wash her hair so she ended up sitting on the toilet and using the bum gun to wash her hair.  The bum gun is supposed to be used for washing your tushy, not your hair, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Stories like that made this hotel an even more pleasant surprise.

The ancient town of Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was one of the most important trading ports in Southeast Asia in the 15th century.

The first stop on our walking tour was the Phuoc Kien Pagoda, Since appropriate dress is required in all temples, palaces and pagodas, our knees and shoulders had to be covered  to enter.

The most fascinating thing about this pagoda were these large spiral incenses.  The are hung by a person who lives a busy life and will not be able to get back to the temple for a week.  These incense are designed to burn for a week.  The person writes a prayer on the yellow piece of paper and hangs it in the middle of their incense, and as long as the incense burns, the prayers will go up to their god.

When we left the pagoda, we made our way further down the street, taking in the sights and sounds that the town of Hoi An had to offer.

As we entered the old quarter, it was clearly marked that no motor vehicles were allowed.



The town's Old Quarter has a beautiful display of temples, pagodas, shop houses and private homes from it's ancient past.  A ticket must be purchased to enter the Old Quarter.  It costs about 120,000 dong ($6 per person).  The Old Quarter is only about 5 blocks long, so we thought it was interesting that we would need a ticket to enter. It is filled with upscale shops and restaurants.  The price of a beer in the Old Quarter was about $95,000 dong (about $4), and if we moved just one street away from the Old Quarter it was only 25,000 dong (about $1), I guess you know what we did!

There was a fire in one of the Old Quarter shops while we were there, so all of their merchandise had been moved to the street.  No one touched a thing, they just walked around it.

As the sun was setting, we spent a few minutes by the river. Although it was a very busy place, it was still quite beautiful.

Eventually we made our way to the 400 year old Japanese covered bridge.

Just across the bridge was the Ancient House.  The Ancient House was built in 1780 and has watched 8 generations grow up.  It is made of beautiful teak wood, which is able to withstand the flooding of the river during November and December each year.

The family now runs a embroidery business out of their house.

We stepped out of the sliding doors to see the view of the old quarter below.

Once we enjoyed our time at the Ancient House, we had a little time to ourselves to explore a little more before dinner.  Steve and I were a little overwhelmed with the old quarter, so we left and tried to find a quiet place to sit and relax.  It was just a little too commercial for our liking!

We found this wonderful little restaurant about a block away from the old quarter.  It was peaceful and quiet, and all of the locals we just hanging out having a good time.  So we found ourselves a table with tiny little kindergarten chairs and ordered a couple of local beers.  As we were enjoying our beers, we noticed that if you want another one, you don't order it, you just get up and get it yourself. They are right there in the cooler for the taking.  When it's time to go, they just count your beer bottles and that's your bill. To us, this was so much nicer than the hustle and bustle of the old quarter, and among other things, we learned how to order an additional beer in Hoi An.

They were grilling something that looked really good, but we had a group dinner to attend, so the yummy grilled goodness would have to wait for another day.  It looked like grilled eggplant, but one never knows.

After our quiet little pre-dinner beer, we made our way back to the old quarter where we met everyone for dinner at the Citronella Restaurant.  They had a very nice family style dinner for us, so we enjoyed great food and company in the old quarter of Hoi An.

After dinner, we made our way back down to the river to watch people setting lanterns afloat.  When we got there, a lot of lanterns had already been released, but we were lucky enough to catch one last girl releasing her lanterns.

This part of Hoi An obviously appeals to the masses, with it's lantern adorned streets and beautiful shops, but for Steve and I we enjoy the simplicity of everyday life without all of the tourists.  I definitely recommend seeing Hoi An if you are in Vietnam, but be ready for large crowds of foreigners.