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Published: February 24th 2011
Nha Trang After a short stop in Da Lat of just a day, we were eager to arrive in Hoi An where we hoped to meet up with some friends so we spent just a few hours in the beach side town of Nha Trang. We took an overcrowded minibus on yet another windy, hilly, bumpy road with gorgeous mountain views.
Travel by bus in Vietnam is very easy and affordable. You buy a ticket from HCMC to Hanoi with stops along the way and you can get on and off buses as you wish. The only trick is that you can only travel with the company you originally booked through. When we were leaving Da Lat, our company, Hanh Café, had no buses going that day, so they put us on the Sinh Café bus. When we arrived 4 hours later in Nha Trang, the travel agents from Sinh Café insisted that we purchase a new ticket through them to get from Nha Tran to Hanoi because “Hanh Café is too far away”. Not wanting to pay another 20$ for bus tickets, we decided to make the long walk to Hanh Café, which turned out to be a
short 4 block walk away! Phew! We booked our onward tickets to Hoi An for that night and rented a motorbike to tour the city for the 6 hours we had until our bus.
We started with a delicious lunch of beef and veggie soup, then jumped on our bike (5$ rental) to check out the sights. Our first stop was at Long Son Pagoda. At the gates we were scammed into paying 10,000vdn (about 50c) to park our bike in a “secure” location. 10 steps away, inside the gates was free visitor parking. Anyway to make a buck, I guess! It was starting to become very evident to us why tourists always talk about the scamming in Vietnam and how it can sometimes take away from the actual experience! Inside the temple, a “monk” (pretty sure he was not a real monk) made a big deal about me not having my shoulders covered, which I quickly fixed by putting on a sweater. Two seconds later we started the steep climb up to the Giant Seated Buddha and I sweating profusely! The “monk” followed us around a bit trying to sell us prayer books and asking for money. All
these were things our guide book warned us about so we knew better than to be got again!!
The Giant Buddha was at the top of 150 steps and had magnificent views over the city and the beach. The temple itself was very picturesque and refreshing with a nice breeze from the top of the steps. We managed to escape the temple without any more scams and made our way next to the Po Nagar Cham Towers, the ancient ruins from the 7th century of a Hindu worship spot. the crumbling red brick buildings were nice and inside each was a shrine to some deity. Unfortunately, the main buildings were under construction and covered in scaffolding, but it was quite impressive to see the original etchings on the buildings that survived 14 centuries of war and natural elements. These ruins also offered great views of the harbour and waterfront housing.
We took to the beach next and cruised along the road running parallel to the beach. In a truly touristy turn, the entire road was covered in western style hotels, restaurants and developed beach space with loungers and activities for rent. We settled in at the Louisiane Brewery
for a homebrewed white beer on the beach. The beach itself was relatively unimpressive, but being rainy season, it was not the best season to be at a Vietnamese beach. Compared to the Philipino beaches we had just come from, these beaches were hardly worth a second glance – that is, until we saw the full rainbow stretching out over the horizon! The perfect finish to the day – rainbows and beer!
After returning the bike, we hit up a popular Italian restaurant for some uber delicious fresh pasta and pizza then wait for our 7pm night bus to Hoi An. This time we actually got a proper sleeper bus but it rained through the night and there was a leak in the bus beside Mike’s bed, which was already too small for him, so needless to say, he had a miserable night!!
Hoi An Arriving in Hoi An at 7:30am, we walked around for a while checking out a few hotels before settling in at Hoa Binh where we paid 13$ for a private room with bathroom and balcony!
Hoi An is a beautifully restored old town with evidence of history at every turn. In
the heart of the historic district, no vehicle is allowed with more than 2 wheels, leaving the streets peaceful and perfect for exploring on foot. To see the sights in Old Town, we bought a ticket for 90,000vdn (about 4.50$) which gets you into 5 of the many sights plus a few free things.
Our first stop was at the Japanese bridge, a covered wooden bridge with a itsy bitsy temple inside it. Since the bridge’s construction was started in the year of the monkey and finished in the year of the dog, one end of the bridge is guarded by each of the two animals. Next we wandered around the small produce market and walked along the river where an old woman in a small row boat caught us taking her picture, turned and smiled while we took another picture and then proceeded to take off her hat and hold it out to us to give her money – we should have known better! That was the last time we fell for that one and took pictures of locals much more discreetly!
Next we toured the Fujian Assembly Hall, one of a few Chinese assembly halls in
town. It looks similar to a temple, with incense, shrines, dragon and lion statues. The Assembly Halls are very colourful and bright! Shortly after this the rain starts and it hardly stops for the next 3 or 4 days. Determined to not let the rain get us down, we put on our trusty ponchos and wade through the ankle deep water flooding the streets to check out the Tan Ky Old House. This is a still-lived in wooden house that is filled with history and beautiful wooden carvings. Perhaps most impressive was the water damage lines on the walls that showed flood levels over the years. The highest line was higher than I could reach on my tippy toes and dated from just a year earlier (Sept 2009)!! We asked what they did when the floods got that high and they said, so nonchalantly, that they simply moved all the furniture to the second floor and lived there til the water went down! They said it like it was the most normal thing, which I suppose it is when it floods every year, it IS a normal thing!!
Over at the Handicraft workshop we saw locals making all sorts
of souvenirs and handicrafts including lanterns, pottery and wood carving. We also were treated to a song and dance performance by local dancers which was excellent! We also went to the Cantonese Assembly Hall, similar to the Fujian one, but with bigger and better dragons! We also got lucky that over lunch time, the ticket checkers were off eating and therefore no one was mending the entry into the sights, so we managed to get into a few extra places on our ticket!
Finally, the rain let up for a short while and we met up with some friends, Ben and Lindsay, whom we had met in Shanghai. We went to Café 43 for dinner which is absolutely the BEST restaurant we ate at in all of Vietnam!! Their food was delicious and cheap and we got to taste all the Hoi An specialty foods as well as down as much Bia Hoi as we could! What is Bia Hoi? Well, it is simply the cheapest and freshest beer you have ever had! Did I mention it’s cheap? Try 3,000vdn, or about 15 cents for a glass! And it’s brewed on site every day so you know it’s fresh!
MMMMMmmmmm…I want some bia hoi now! We chowed down that night on fried wontons, tomato and beef soup, beef cooked in banana leaf and pork spring rolls – BEST. FOOD. EVER. Anyone going to Hoi An, HAS to go here, seriously!
October 15 we wake up to pouring rain and no power. After some debate, we decided to rent a motorbike and drive in the pooooouurrrring rain down the flooded highway to Marble Mountain, about 1 hr down the coast from Hoi An. The drive was cold, wet and long, but once the towering marble cliffs came into sight, it was all worth it! The Marble Mountains consist of 5 mountains, each named after an element and we climb up the “water” mountain (ironically). There are paths to follow around, up and down the mountain, through caves and temples. We felt a little like Indiana Jones climbing through these caves and around the rocks and had a great time! There were so few other tourists around given the weather so we had free reign of the mountain! The view from the top of the mountain was amazing! We could see the huge waves crashing on the beach to one
side and the flooded plains to the other side of the mountain.
We stopped for a snack on our way back at a small local food place where no one spoke English, but they were so generous and eager to serve us delicious mystery meat soup, which once you forgot about the mystery part, was actually quite good! They even turned off the Vietnamese karaoke songs to put on Tom & Jerry cartoons, their idea of Western popular TV!
Back in Hoi An, we wandered the city, so lovely lit up at night with lanterns and old lighting. Unsurprisingly, the rain came back full force so we retreated to Café 43 for more Bia Hoi and good food with Ben and Lindsay and spent the night playing cards and drinking beer! That night we enjoyed fish cooked in banana leaf with coffee and cao lau, a delicious local specialty.
We LOVED Hoi An and would have liked to stay longer, but the rest of Vietnam was beckoning on we must move on!! We spent one last night here and then got on a bus at 7am going 4 hours to Hue.
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