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Published: March 5th 2011
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Got up early, ate breakfast at the buffet (almost forgot to take some pics) and caught our 8am flight to Da Nang. Flew out on a small, about 50 seater, prop plane. Ride was pretty smooth for a small plane. One of those deals where they take you out on a bus to the plane.
Arrived in Da Nang about an hour later. Took a bus ride from the plane to the terminal. Da Nang has just about the smallest terminal I've ever seen. I posted a couple of pics showing it. It's about 150 feet from where you walk in to where you exit. No actual gates, just those roll up stairs everywhere. Two baggage claim areas side by side. One thing they do in Vietnam is actually check your luggage ticket against the bags...something I rarely see elsewhere. They are building a new airport right next to the older airport. It will be more like what's at Nha Trang.
Our guide this time is a young lady named Ly (pronounced Lee). She will be our guide for the next four days going around Hoi An, Da Nang, Hue and Hao Long Bay. We'll be on the same
van with the same guide and driver all four days.
The first stop was a marble/jade shop where they make all kinds of statues, vases, etc. by hand. It's pretty noise when they are grinding on them. They have women that work on them doing the smoothing out of the edges and polishing the items. Tons of tourists here...not our kind of place...and they really try the hard sale on everything. We all agreed they should just put a price on the items and let you browse but it probably wouldn't make them as much money.
After that we had lunch at little restaurant on the way to Hoi An. We had some local specialties...a noodle dish and a pork dish. After lunch we stopped at Thang Loi, which is famous for silk. I've seen this place on quite a few shows on tv, including the BBC version of Top Gear. They raise silk worms and make everything from silk clothing to silk paintings that are embroidered by hand. We picked up a few things to bring home from here.
From here we walked into a historical area of Hoi An where you buy tickets to go
through. It has a lot of shopping but also quite a few historical places like 200 year old houses and bridges. The majority of the people in the area are Buddhist, so the temples are really busy. This area has a lot of fisherman and it has a lady that they pray to for safety and in hopes of having a good catch. Today was like a holiday for her and the temple we visited was packed.
I bought some vietnamese type donuts to take back to the hotel. They are sort of a cross between a regular donut and a pretzel. The flavor says donut but the texture is like a pretzel.
We checked into the Green Plaza Hotel Da Nang about 4pm. Ly left after she got us checked in and came back at 5:30 to take us to dinner on the beach. They took us on a tour of parts of Da Nang going to the restaurant. When we arrived it was right on the beach. We ate on the terrace overlooking the ocean. The ocean here is really active and it looks like a good place to surf. The waves are constantly breaking and
the surf sounds are pretty loud.
Dinner was all seafood...shrimp/veggie soup, fried fish in wonton skins, baked shrimp in a sauce, fresh steamed clams, fried rice and fruit for dessert. Everything was really fresh...:-) They had lots of tanks set up with everything from red snapper to lobster to things I've never seen before.
After that we toured around Da Nang for a while and then back to the hotel. Tomorrow we drive up to Hue to sightsee.
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