Blogs from Dong Hoi, North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia

Wednesday and it was time to travel to Dong Hoi which is a small city on the coast about 375 miles South. We had checked all the options with a very long overnight coach trip, an overnight train journey or fly an hour and 15 minutes! We choose to fly and got tickets for £30.00 each. Dong Hoi is off the normal tourist route so that is why we wanted to come here to see what it would be like. It is going to be boom town Dong Hoi soon as they have just discovered the Worlds Largest Cave which is about 25 miles away. We arrived at Hanoi Airport and the check in was really easy and were aboard before we knew it and off in the air bang on time. Just over an hour ... read more

09/09/10 We have moved on again and are hoping that tomorrow will we see our very first beach a) in Vietnam and b) of our trip. I guess, if we are being strictly technical about it, we have actually already seen beach on one of the islands in Halong Bay but it had the feel of imported builders sand about it and the water was pretty murky so my vote is that that one didn’t count. Dong Hoi is described by the Lonely Planet as a “simple seaside town” from which tourists are wonderfully absent and as a decent place to break up the journey between Hanoi and Hue. So far, I wholeheartedly agree. It has broken up a journey and for that we are eternally grateful. It takes 8 hours on the Reunification Express to ... read more

Tuesday morning rolls around and we’re all packed and ready to country hop. The group of us (sans the American girls who did something else) hike down to the bus stop and pile on for the 7-8 hour journey to Hanoi. The ride was lovely. As soon as we got away from the cement sidewalks of Nanning, fields are bursting with different shades of green. The farmland seems to extend for miles, circling large mountains of limestone. The area is known for it’s limestone topography—had I been more adventurous over the weekend I would have gone and checked it out, but sometimes it’s nice just doing nothing. We arrive at the Chinese border where Juhani and I assumed we’d be returning to the same bus and both left our books on board. I have carried Anna ... read more

I have been working myself ragged which is maybe how I got sick. I went to the pharmacist and mocked some coughing and nose blowing and then rubbed my throat (glad I didn't have any diarrhea to act out). So she gave me cold/flu medicine that contained stuff I recognized and then four different meds that she indicated were for my throat. I didn't want to buy them all so I grabbed one and went home to look up the active ingredients. Evidently, it's a drug only found in Vietnam. It's still sitting unopened in my drawer... Mom will be glad to know that besides the random cough I'm better. I worked a bit on Saturday, but devoted Sunday to the Sun Spa Resort. It's about $5 USD a day to swim in the pool or ... read more

On Wednesday I visited Chay Lap Village, the location of our pilot community-based tourism project. A lot of progress has been made since I was last involved last summer. A CBT Village Management Board has been set up and they have been busy. As with everything in Vietnam, there have been many bureaucratic hurdles to get past, but now the focus is on constructing the homestay buildings and training the local people. One household was chosen for the pilot. We'll start small and develop more as everyone learns. Two traditionally styled wooden houses are being built on the family's property. They chose an excellent location, pretty far off the road (nobody gunning their motorbike engines at 5am), in the shadow of beautiful green mountains and surrounded by the family's gardens and fruit tree groves. The houses ... read more