Hội An and Đà Nẵng: Lanterns and Beaches

Friday, April 11 - Arriving in Hội An

The tour bus we took from Hue drops us off on a street at the edge of the Hội An's Old Town neighborhood. The place we're staying for the next couple nights, the Harmony Old Town Hostel & Pool Bar is just down a side street from here. We walk the rest of the way and check into the hostel, which has a pretty funny setup. The reception desk is right at the entrance to the lobby, but just beyond this initial vestibule is the too-blue swimming pool, completely open to reception. A line of bean bags separate the pool from the walkway leading back to the stairs. Just past where the stairs branch off and up, this big room continues and turns into a bar/restaurant area where the hotel folks say breakfast is. There's a pool table, a bunch of tables with benches, and an opening to the street on the other side of the block! We go upstairs and drop our stuff off in the room, then head back down the street to get an early dinner. We decide on a place called A Little Kitchen Restaurant which is in Old Town and only a 10 minute walk away. Old Town is really cute! Most of the buildings are a nice yellow color. There are streets busy with foot traffic between open shops, and clean alleys connecting these streets. This restaurant is in one of these alleys! We have a really nice meal. Kaila and I each get cao lầu noodles, which is a regional dish with signature rice noodles that have been soaked in lye water to give them a particular texture. They were thick and almost doughy, reminding me of udon noodles.

After dinner, we continue exploring Old Town. I get a sun hat with the Vietnam flag on it. Evenetually it starts to get dark, and the lanterns start coming on for the new moon celebration! Some of the shops still keep their electric lights on, but it seems like there are still more lights off than would otherwise be on in the area. We head down to the river, and decide to take a little boat ride to see all the lights better.

When we're back on land, we cross a busy bridge (there are actually people everywhere so it's kind of just busy in general) over to the street on the other side of the river. The side of the street opposite the water is lined with bars with seating in the street and the other side has cart after of street food. We find an irish pub with a live Vietnamese rock band and ciders for Kaila to drink, so we stay for a couple drinks while I contemplate getting a barbecued frog from a cart only a few feet away from us. Luckily I don't because we weren't there to see the frogs get cooked, and by the time we leave to head back to our hostel, we see the cart's attendee packing all of the cooked frogs into a tupperware which makes us wonder how many times the frogs have been taken out of the same tupperware to be displayed...

Saturday, April 12 - Coconuts and cao lầu

In the morning, we have breakfast in the hostel consisting of fried rice, eggs, and fruit. We go back out to the Old Town to walk around some more, and I get a cool silk button-up shirt with some multi-colored fern fronds. On the bus yesterday, Dan recommended a tea house called Reaching Out Teahouse, which is run completely by deaf and mute people. We sit in a lovely garden courtyard and our server shows us the system they use for communication: paper slips/menus for marking your order, and a series of common words/phrases printed out on blocks (along with some blank pieces of paper if these words don't suffice). We order a flight of local coffees to share, and I also get some coconut cookies. It's fun to try some different coffees, and the overall experience is lovely and unique. They have a shop of crafts in the back made by local artists, so we look through there on our way out and find some gifts for our families.

After the tea house, we continue exploring the town. We're planning on going to the beach later, and so far all my reading has been on my iPad, so I find us an English bookstore where I can find a physical book that I'll feel more comfortable having near sand than my iPad. The bookstore is up an alley and in a little cafe, and consists of four or five bookshelves of used books. It really adds to the vibe of the coffee shop I think. The pickings are pretty slim, but I do find Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This book was spoiled for me, but I have spent the last ten or so years trying to forget the spoiled part so I could read it and be surprised. I try force my brain to change topics any time the book comes up with the hopes that I won't build any new reinforcing memories about the spoiled part. This is the first time I give the book more thought in a long time, and it seems like I've adequately forgotten everything about it, so I feel comfortable giving it a shot.

After the bookstore, we see that there's another location of Bun Cha Ta, the place we first tried bun cha in Hanoi, here in Hội An! It's only a 20 minute walk, so we head over and get some tasty bun cha. The owner is there, and he tells us about his restaurants and we tell him about how great our experience has been in Vietnam so far. He's really nice, and as a thank you he lets us try some of his rice wine that he sweetens with apples.

We walk back to the room and are feeling extremely hot, so we think it's a good time to go to the beach. We get changed and get a Grab, and find some chairs to rent for a few dollars. We get some coconuts and take turns reading and swimming.

We go back to the room, change, then have more cao lầu noodles for dinner at A Little Kitchen Restaurant again. Today I try the pork, and it's definitely one of my favorite meals of the trip!

We end our day walking around the town again to try to get an idea for how different it is on a night that isn't the new moon. It's definitely still busy, but not nearly as packed as last night, so we feel like we can enjoy walking some more. There are a crazy amount of geckos here, so many that I start counting and get up to 31 before we call it a night and head back to the hostel.

Sunday, April 13 - Ancient ruins

Yesterday while we were walking around, we saw a sign advertising personal drivers, which we thought might be a good way to see Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary a temple complex nearby. Kaila messaged the WhatsApp number advertised, and we arranged for a driver to pick us up from our hostel at 7am, drive us to My Son, wait for us, then drive us to our hotel in Đà Nẵng after, since it's just as far back to Hội An as it is to Đà Nẵng. The driver also will keep our stuff in the car while we explore Mỹ Sơn.

There are many temple sites at Mỹ Sơn built by the Cham people who inhabited much of the land that is now Vietnam from the 4th to the 12th century. Some evidence like inscriptions date all the way back to the 4th century, though the temple ruins don't date that far back because early temples were made of wood. Not all the temples were built in the same time period, with later Cham kings adding their own temples. The oldest site in Mỹ Sơn dates back to the 7th century ( Mỹ Sơn Site E).

Unfortunately, many of the sites were damaged in the American-Vietnam war, so they are in various states of disrepair. Regardless, they are still beautiful to see, and we spend about three hours walking admiring the red stone contrasting with the lush forest around us, listening to our audio guide tell us about the sites.

In addition to the ancient ruins, we also saw some really cool nature. Lizards, birds, butterflies, etc. We even saw some kind of huge wasp carrying an even bigger spider up the side of one of the ruins!

After Mỹ Sơn, our driving brings us to our hotel in Đà Nẵng, called Sea Horse Tropical Offices and Hotel. We found it funny that almost all the reviews were raving about the doorman, Dan, that is until we pulled up and there was Dan, this tiny Vietnamese man, grabbing BOTH of our huge backpacks and bringing them into the hotel for us! He brought them over to the elevator, then sat us down at the cafe in the lobby. Reception let us know that our room wouldn't be ready for about an hour, so Dan got us some hibiscus tea and we hung out in the lobby, getting some more coffee and some blog time in.

Once our room is ready, we check it out and it's probably the nicest room we've stayed in so far! Big soft bed, a couch, windows with a view over the city, a big painting which under closer inspection appears to be painted directly on the wall, a little kitchenette, and a big fancy bathroom with a shower in a separate stall (something we have learned is rare in this part of the world). We hang out in the room for a bit, then we go to the roof to check out the pool and read for a bit.

When it's time for dinner, we go to a vegeterian restaurant that has allergens listed on the menu, which is awlays nice for Kaila! I got a green banana curry and a cheesy mushroom appetizer and Kaila got yellow curry. The food was just okay but at east it didn't make Kaila sick! We walk back to the hotel after and turn in for the night.

Monday, April 14th - Museums, massages, and mollusks

Our intention today was to sleep in. That unfortunately did not happen because our hotel is doing some renovation work and there are very loud construction noises echoing through the building. We still stay in bed til the late morning, but it's kind of awful to be in the building right now so we get some coffees to go from the cafe downstairs. While we're waiting, Dan brings us some water and crackers which is very nice! We get our coffee and we head off to the Han Market, which is just a block over from us. The market is bustling, with food, snacks, and ingredients on the first level and clothes on the second level. Here's a cool shot I got from the second level:

Next we are off to find some mỳ Quảng noodles, a regional dish with noodles served in some broth flavored with turmeric. Lots of options for the kind of meat to get with it, but I'm looking for some frog noodles. Kaila found a spot recommended on Reddit, Mỳ Quảng Bà Mua, so we head there. On the way though, we were talking about rats for some reason (I think we saw some of our first Vietnam rats the night before and were discussing our surprise that we saw them here but not in Hanoi) and a woman overheard us and said something back then we started chatting. Her name is Niecey and she's also an American from Virginia Beach, and we bond over stories about DC rats. She tells us about her experience doing the digital nomad thing, renting hotels for about a month at a time and traveling through Asia. She's in Đà Nẵng because of it's proximity to a Disneyworld-type amusement park (which tracks with the mickey mouse necklace I notice she's wearing. Niecey is the first Black traveler we've met in our own travels, so it's interesting to hear how experience here compares to ours. She said she has had a good experience, and feels like people are excited about the color of her skin here, inviting her into their shops and even homes, giving her free tea and food. Different and maybe even opposite to the way many people treat her in the States. She heartbreakingly said that she thinks every Black girl in the States should travel to Asia so they can experience what it's like to have people think your skin is beautiful. We continue chatting with Niecey for nearly an hour, then split off and continue our walk to get out noodles.

When we get to the restaurant, Kaila shows the server her GF restaurant card and she brings it back to the chef, and Kaila is excited to learn that she can also get mỳ Quảng! Hers comes with a mix of meats including chicken, pork, a boiled egg, and a fish cake. I got my frog noodles! This is the first time I've eaten frog and it mostly tastes like chicken, although the texture is a bit flaky, almost like fish. One more note about this restaurant: all the tables had little trash cans on the floor below one side. Very convenient if your meal is full of bones to pick out!

After lunch, we take a breather at the hotel, then go off to an art museum. There's lots of cool stuff here, including lots of interesting wood prints! Some of them are extremely detailed. One exhibit in particular shows some the detailed wood carved portraits by Trần Thanh Long. There's also a room of watercolors depicting the American-Vietnam war, all by artist Hà Xuân Phong, a soldier and painter during the war, interesting to me because I don't typically think of scenes of war depicted in this medium.

After the museum, we have a couple hours free before a dinner Kaila made us at a fancy restaurant. We decide getting massages sounds nice, so since they are cheap here, we find a place by our hotel with good reviews and go there. They give us some tea, and bring us a menu with some options for massage types. We don't really know what to go with, so we each choose "dry Thai massage", mostly so we won't get all oily and need a shower before dinner. This ends up being a bad call, because we did not know how rough Thai massages are... We go in a room together, change into silk robes and shorts, and these two small woman come in and start throwing us around! They are standing on the table, and pushing into our muscles hard and using the leverage of our own bodies and theirs to pull us in different ways. At one point, the woman giving me a massage puts her feet behind my knees while I'm on my stomach, grabs my wrists, and pulls me backwards. The whole time I was mainly just breathing through it and waiting for it to be over, hoping that if it hurt this bad, I must be about to feel great after. I realize I probably could have asked her to be more gentle, but it didn't really cross my mind at the time. Once it's finally over, they leave the room and we change back into our clothes and go out to the lobby and pay, and the receptionist brings us some sliced mango to eat. Definitely the highlight. I didn't even end up feeling good afterwards, just sore for a few days.

After the massages, we have just enough time to walk over to the dinner restaurant. The place is called LUK LAK. We're not sure if the server was confused about gluten, but Kaila didn't actually have very many options for what to eat. She ended up getting a papaya salad and some roasted eggplant. I felt like I needed to try something off the wall, so I got the snail platter, which consisted of snail meatballs wrapped in betel leaves, snail egg rolls, a snail salad, and a snail soup that came with bun noodles. It was pretty good, although the snails in the soup and salad were pretty chewy. The meal overall was still goo, just felt overpriced compared to the quality of other food that we have had at a much lower price point.

After dinner, we take a Grab over to the area of the city that's supposed to be the party area. We walk around, and there are definitely more people out than the rest of the city, but it's still pretty quiet. It is a Tuesday, but so far that hasn't really made much of a different for other places since the day of the week doesn't matter so much for people traveling. We get some ice cream, and take a Grab back to the hotel and go to sleep.

Tuesday, April 15th - Upgrading out hotel game

Today we're woken by the construction noise even earlier at 7:30am. It's even louder today. We were considering staying another day in this hotel so we could spend some more time on the beach, but instead we find a hotel that's actually on the beach and looks even nicer than this one. So we go get some coffee and snacks at one of the Highlands Coffee shops we see all over the place. They seem to be like Vietnam's Starbucks. I look them up & they're actually owned by the Filipino fast-food chain Jollibee. We go back to our current hotel, pack up, check out, and bring our bags to the next hotel. It's too early to check in, but they let us store our bags while we literally cross the street to get to the beach. Pretty ideal! We get some more chairs on the beach, but it's actually feeling a little chilly to swim, so I decide to run a couple miles on the beach so I can heat up and feel better about getting in the water. I swim for a bit, then I join Kaila and we get some coconuts while we read.

We start to get hungry so we walk to a lunch spot called Emo's Homecooked Vietnamese Cuisine where I get some fish sauce chicken wings and kaila gets some pork lemongrass skewers and shrimp spring rolls. A great lunch! By now it's about time to check into the hotel, so we walk back and they let us up to the room. This one is even nicer than the last hotel. We're really balling out here, and it's still only 40 USD for the night.

We cool off in the room for a while then decide to go float and hang out by the hotel pool, which is also nice and only a few other people are doing the same, so it's quiet. Once we get antsy again, we go for a walk on the beach. I took a picture of our hotel, it's the building on the right:

The sun is starting to get low so we go back to the room. Throughout the trip so far, I've been keeping track of the things we've been spending money on, but I've mostly been spending most of my energy with that trying to catch up copying our into a spreadsheet (which I have been recording in my pocket notebook since my phone croaked), so I haven't actually gotten to the point of putting the data into a format that we can get any insights from. Kaila suggests we find an app that will let us see some kind of chart immediately, which I have been resistant about until now (mostly because of pride) but I finally do some research and find a promising app called Cashew, which lets you track purchases by category for multiple accounts, create multiple budgets, lets you import and export data from spreadsheets, and even lets you convert currencies, which is basically perfect for this trip. It's even open source! Basically Kaila was right all along & this app is way better than anything I could have come up with on my own. It also has a really easy interface for adding new purchases. I would highly recommend it if you're looking for some kind of a budgeting app!

We're starting to get hungry but don't really feel like leaving, so we decide to try the hotel restaurant. Kaila gets pho and I get a burger, figuring the hotel is a good place to get a western meal without missing out on local cuisine. Kaila says the pho is good though so maybe that would have been the better move! After dinner, we turn in for the night.

Wednesday, April 16th - Sneaking in a last beach day

Today is our last day in Đà Nẵng! We are flying into Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. We start with the wild breakfast buffet at the hotel, which feels like it has everything. Eggs, meats, potatoes, fruits, kimchi, a whole congee station with all kinds of mix-ins. Some of the hotel staff even recognizes Kaila from last night and brings her a few different special gluten free items: vermicelli noodles, beef with glass noodles, and a whole plate of a kind of sweet, almost candied fish. It was really good but also pretty random. This was the first time I've ever had the rice porridge congee, and I like it. All the savory mix-ins make for a nice, warm meal that I think knocks sweet oatmeal out of the water. I liked the dried fish in it best, but I also got some more towards the end of the meal to eat with some of the sweet and savory fish the staff brought out to Kaila and that was also very good.

Since it's out last day on the coast in Vietnam, we decide we want to get some more beach time in. This time we leave all our stuff in the room so we can both swim at the same time without worrying about it on the beach without us. We walk along the beach for a bit before getting in, then enjoy the water for an hour before we have to go back to the hotel to pack up before the 1pm checkout.

After we check out, the hotel lets us stash our bags in their luggage room When we get hungry, we walk back to Emo's for lunch. Kaila gets some more pork skewers and I get a grille dmeat and rice dish I saw some other people order yesterday (and was jealous of). By the time we get back, it's time to leave for the airport.

Thanks for reading!