Advertisement
Published: September 7th 2008
So we all know how tired I was from our nights out in Halong Bay. Stupid us decided to hop straight on the 12 hour bus to Hue (on the north central coast of Vietnam) and we decided to not purchase a sleeper bus- only a seat! Well the bus was cheap ($10.50), but you get what you pay for. It did have air conditioning, but it stopped too many times and seats are just not comfortable to sleep in! I was super claustrophobic cause the seat in front of me reclined too far into my personal space and since Jeff's knees didn't fit, he was using party of my area too!
We arrived tired at 8am the next morning and trekked it to our hostel (getting lost of course). We decided to only stay one night in Hue and then head four hours down the coast to Hoi An the next day. This gave us about 28 hours to get all our sightseeing done. We found a boat trip down the Song Hong (Perfume River) that also let you take in most of the major sights in Hue. We also found that we could split this into two days.
We would immediately do the afternoon party and then wake early to do the morning the next day and then hop on a bus by 2pm. So we had a couple hours to relax before a bus picked us up at 11:30am to head off to the royal tombs. We decided to only pay to see 2/3 of the tombs, which I think was a good decision. The first was the Tomb of Minh Mang built in 1820. I don't know if we are spoiled by our China experience or if these types of things just aren't appealing anymore, but I was not too impressed. The temple was nice, but we have seen WAY better in China and Tibet. We weren't sure if we would even go in the 2nd one, but then why did we come on the tour? So we did pay to get into the Tomb of Tu Duc. This tomb was better- there was a nice lake and the building looked super old, but still nothing spectacular. The first day of the tour ended with a cruise down the Perfume River, which too was kind of disappointing (but we had just come from Halong Bay). Apparently,
we are just becoming snobby travelers. Since we were exhausted, we made it an early night and got ready for the second day of the tour.
The second day of the tour was equally as bad. We went to the Citadel, which is the Vietnam version of the Forbidden palace in China, but not as cool. From there they took us to a pretty cool pagoda, which had the car that a monk burned himself in to protest Vietnamese control of religion. If you are familiar with the Rage Against the Machine album cover that is what it was. After that it was off to Hoi An.
Four hours later we arrived in Hoi An, a charming European type city on the beach. We were able to get a nice room for the three of us in a hotel with a pool for less than $7/person/night. Good deal. The thing to do in Hoi An is get clothes tailored so we immediately went to a tailor shop that was recommended to us. I cannot tell you how fun it is to sit with loads of books in front of you and begin to pick out clothes you want
made for yourself. I decided to get two dresses made, a pair of shorts and a shirt. The boys each got a pretty cool military style jacket and a few pairs of shorts made. We picked the fabric and all that and would have to come back numerous times for fittings.
It was nice, but honestly, the clothes did not turn out how I hoped they would. I guess it just may be asking too much at the price they offer things for. The fabric is really bad and I think that is why everything turns out different than you expect, but it was definitely a fun experience. When else will I ever get clothes tailor made for myself?
We found some great restaurants in Hoi An for a very cheap price. The food was generally great there. We spent the days walking around the historic old town (which is now a World Heritage sight) and going to the beach in the day. The beach there was really nice and you could rent a lounge chair on the sand for about $1 for the whole day. The only down side is the mass loads of Vietnamese people trying
The Citadel in Hue
The Vietnamese Forbidden Palaceto sell you things while you are relaxing on the sand. Generally they are pretty friendly though and you just strike up a conversation with them and it is super entertaining. We have really learned to love the Vietnamese people.
We ended up meeting up with Kevin, our Irish friend from Hanoi and he will probably be traveling with us into Cambodia. Chris now has his wingman and Jeff and I have some couple time.
From Hoi An we took an overnight bus to Nha Trang, another beach town on the central coast of Vietnam. The bus ride was an experience in itself. We had paid for only a seat and were skeptical when they put us on a sleeper bus. We wanted to establish that we would not have to pay more money for this bus. After that was decided, they tried to shove the four of us (Me, Jeff, Chris and Kev the Irish man) into this bottom area that I think was meant for luggage. You couldn't sit up and the boys couldn't extend their legs. We were NOT going to sit there for 12 hours overnight. So we protested and ended up forcing ourselves
into sleeper seats. This was only after being yelled at (and probably cursed at) in Vietnamese from the bus driver. The ride only got worse, as I think the driver was drunk. He was driving the bus way faster than he should have been and swerving from one side of the road to the other. I just closed my eyes and prayed he wouldn't run us all off the road.
We made it safely to Nha Trang at 6:30am the next day and set off to find a hotel. We heard there were good deals near the beach so we headed in that direction. I guess we didn't realize how many hotels there actually were. We split up to see who could get the best deal at the best hotel. I found the Nice hotel, which offered us 2 double rooms for $9/room. We had our own bathroom, nice bed, air conditioning and a semi ocean view for less than $5/person. Not bad...
Nha Trang is generally just a beach town, which was fine by us. We spent most day at the Louisianne brewery, where we could rent a chair on the beach and use their pool. The
whole beach in Nha Trang is filled with Western style beach clubs without western prices. We spent two days lounging there and that was exactly what we needed. Jeff also found heaven when we found a lady on the sand selling these huge plates of fresh seafood. One plate consisted of 5 crabs, 5 lobsters, 4 sea snails, and probably about a million shrimp (not really a million, but at least 20). The lady would let you pick which ones you want then boil them and BBQ them on her beach side BBQ. She served it with chili and lemon sauce. This whole thing was less than $15 so we found this Canadian couple and split it with them. It was such a cool experience. I don't even like seafood and I ate everything! It was so fresh and delicious. Her husband had caught everything that morning. Yummy! We talked Chris into getting some too!
That night, we decided to go out for drinks with the Canadian couple we had meant. We went to a beach resort with an indoor dance floor and chairs outside right on the sand. It was happy hour and we had our first experience with
The monk on fire
This is the pic on the Rage Against the Machine album buckets. I assumed it was a bucket of beer, but it is this large drink with lots of fruit juice and alcohol. I guess they are popular in Thailand too. After drinking a few of these and making friends with the British bar owner, who gave us plenty of free shots, we started a dance party! It was a fun night!
We also were able to take a boat cruise in Nha Trang that took us to four different islands. It was a good mix of young people and locals. The staff on the boat cruise was hilarious. They were dancing and calling ever nationality up to sing a song. Of course, me and two other Arizona boys represented the US and they picked the song "Yellow Submarine" for the US. Random, but fun! The water was nice and we were able to do jumps off the boat. Pretty good time!
Our favorite part of Nha Trang was an American restaurant called Texas BBQ. It was owned by two American guys who probably made us the best food ever! The first night we ate there we had quesadillas, nachos, chili dogs, hamburgers, onion rings, salad with RANCH DRESSING
and fries. We spent way too much money, but it was well worth it. The owners even brought us out a free plate of hot wings that were excellent! Of course, we went there again the next night, but didn't go as crazy. That night the owner bought us a free round of beers and brought us free ribs. Everything was so good and definitely the comfort food we needed. We love Vietnamese food, but sometimes it's just nice to have some familiar food that was actually legit and good!
Then it was off to Saigon to enjoy our last Vietnamese city!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 38; dbt: 0.0702s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
nins
non-member comment
omg who needs cancun
i officially like those straw hut beach palapas better! you are amazinnggggggggg and i wish i was there!