Blogs from South Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 3

Arrived here 28 March for a few days R'n'R for Lyn after10 straight days of meetings, fairs and agent visits including weekends and night events. She was ready for a break. We hadn't been to Da Nang so didn't know what to expect except that we knew there was a long coastline of sandy beaches and we had booked a hotel on the beach, or across the road from the beach. Sure enough, there was the beach stretching for kilometres and our hotel was right there. All the hotel staff have name tags with an English name on it - Martin, Lucy, Annette, Jonathon and so on. Our young guy at reception was Elvis but when I burst into the opening lines of "Heartbreak Hotel" on arrival he had no idea! I think he thought he ... read more

Me revoilà... Avec ce souci de Travel Blog j'aurai au moins pu apprendre certaines choses : convertir un fichier excel en word... faire des groupes avec vos adresses, ajouter à chacune d'elle un ; et un espace... faire un copier coller dans le Cci du message que je souhaite envoyer et l'affaire est dans le sac... tout se fait en un tour de main ! comme quoi les voyages forment aussi l'esprit et que mon disque dur WindowsZ (pour les intimes...) tourne encore bien ! Continuons donc par ce voyage qui d'Hanoi nous mène en avion à Hué... Notre chauffeur Shanti Travel nous attend à l'aéroport et nous mène à l'hotel... Un repas vite pris au sein même de celui-ci car mine de rien... le soir on est contents de retrouver un bon lit ! les ... read more

Qui Nhon Sadly I didn't venture out much in this city because I was sick from seafood poisoning (it got worse). Luckily my room (at Ngoc Quy - a wonderful guesthouse) had a smart TV so I got into Netflix and watched Ken Burns' Vietnam pretty much nonstop for 2 days. When I did leave the hotel for food and walks on the beach, I got stares and hellos on every block. There are hardly any Westerners or tourists. I've never seen so many coffee shops, and they all seem to do well. Good coffee is easy to find anywhere in Vietnam. The beach is vast and usually empty. During low tide, it's absolutely ideal for soccer matches (see photos). There were even some organized games going on. The water is a bit murky and people ... read more

My hostel was on the far northern end of China Beach (yes, that China Beach but My Khe in Vietnamese), near the Lady Buddha statue, where the fishermen still matter. I shared my run on the beach with a fair amount of garbage and defunct nets in the dark sand and a ubiquitous rotting fish smell. A half mile toward the scores of lounge chairs on the better, lighter swath of sand, and I've never seen so many pickup soccer games in the early evening when the sand cools. I turned around at the skyscraper hotels and resorts and lounge chairs that you can only use if you buy a drink, saving that stretch for the next morning. This was a day after getting mild food poisoning (the fish bowl photo in my last entry) in ... read more

Considered one of the most interesting and instantly recognizable creations of Vietnamese people, Basket Boats are known locally as “Thung Chai” or “Thuyen Thung”. They are very important to the local fishermen in the central coastal regions of Vietnam. Affectionately referred to as the “Right Arm” of the fisherman and the “Child” of the mother boats, “Thuyen Thung” is an inseparable part of a fisherman’s life. It is a multi-purpose vessel – used as a very effective lifeboat in case of emergency, a singular boat to catch fish close to shore and a small, lightweight means of carrying cargo and people to and from the larger boats anchored offshore. There is little official documentation about the origins of the Basket Boat. However, it is said that during the French Colonial Era, a variety ... read more