Hoi An, Vietnam, one of our favorite cities in the world

Phillip and I are nearing the end of our six nights in Hoi An, Vietnam. This has been our third visit here (here in 2018 and 2023) and Hoi An remains a charming location with great people and a very walkable city area with its Old Town a designated UNESCO Word Heritage site. We are so fortunate to be able to stay in contact with Vi and her family, owners of Denovo Spa in Hoi An. Our first order of business here was to visit with them. Their hospitality and generosity know no bounds. They invited us to have lunch with them at the spa, a delicious beef curry that Tracey, Vi's sister-in-law prepared. We were so happy to meet Moon, Tracey's sister who had been traveling during our last visit. 

We didn't spend our entire time visiting with Moon, Tracey, Vi and the rest of the family, we also revisited locations in Hoi An, such as the river at night with its lanterns and brightly decorated boats.

Phillip got a haircut here. The barber did a good job.

Our hotel, the Hoi An Historic Hotel is quite nice with a large room. 

The grounds are extensive with a lot of outdoor seating in the shade. We will stay in this hotel again on our next visit to Hoi An. 

We ate tasty pho and bun cha.

On Monday, June 1, we took an ATV ride into the countryside. Phillip drove the 4-wheeler the entire tour so I could take pictures. It was evident that the 4-wheelers were not taken care of as well as we took care of ours when we had the ranch. 

The ride was still fun as we passed the bovine road maintenance workers.

We had seen the tractors working in the rice paddies, but this time, we saw one parked near the field and could really look at its rear tires, specifically designed for the flooded fields.

Our guide, Hau, took us on paths thru the rice paddies. They were narrow and sometimes rutted causing Phillip to have to work at steering the 4-wheeler so we didn't end up in the water-logged paddies.

We also went thru the jungle where we saw workers harvesting the trees in an area. I didn't catch the name of the trees, but they were harvested after four years of growth to be made into paper. 

Before the tour was complete, we came up behind the truck taking the harvested trees out of the jungle.

Phillip was the most experienced 4-wheeler driver of the group. We were also the oldest participants, so Hau had put us right behind her 4-wheeler. Several times, we had to stop so that the others could catch up with us! During one stop in the jungle, I noticed this guy on a nearby tree.

After a few hours of 4-wheelering, we returned to our starting point for a delicious barbecue lunch.

Moon invited us to her house for dinner on Tuesday. She lives fairly close to Denovo Spa, but she decided it was too far for us to walk so she took Phillip on her motorcycle and I rode with one of the other family members. 

Tracey, Moon, and the other sisters-in-law prepared a delicious meal! We were all stuffed when we finished. Vi sat next to me and kept sneaking more food into my bowl until I started covering it with my hand! They had watermelon, mango, apples, and dragon fruit for dessert. Phillip and I were so honored to be invited to join the family at their home for such a wonderful meal. 

Today, our last full day in Hoi An, we finally made it the 5 km to the beach. Hoi An is on the river that leads to the beach, but not on the beach itself like Danang is. We took a Grab from our hotel to Hoi An's Cua Dai Beach then walked north. 

Hoi An suffered a record-breaking flood last year, a typhoon brought 3.5 meters of water flooding into Hoi An. The beach area, however, also had wind damage. Not everything has been repaired yet at the beach.

We walked about three miles in the sand.

Once we had to leave the beach for a few hundred yards because construction equipment blocked access. The crane that was pounding in piers is visible in this picture.

We caught a Grab back to our hotel from An Bang Beach, considered Hoi An's northern beach even though it isn't close to Old Town. Now, having washed the sand off of us, we are relaxing in the air conditioning before we head out later for our last evening in Hoi An. Tomorrow, we take a car to the Danang Airport, a plane to Hanoi, and an overnight train to Sapa. Sapa is in the northern mountain area of Vietnam, and the daytime temperature is 77 degrees! 

Our return to Danang, Vietnam

Phillip and I are now over halfway thru this trip, with no more new countries to visit, but we do have new locations in our favorite countries to see before we return home in five weeks. We have been in Danang, Vietnam for the past few days, arriving via a flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand. We've been to Danang before but on our previous visit, we didn't see its famous Golden Bridge.

During our first day in Danang, we walked along the beach and were pleased to see the exhibit of decorated basket boats. I don't know how often they update the paintings, but these were totally different scenes on these bamboo boats than what we'd seen before.

Yesterday, I booked us a tour to visit Ba Na Hills, a resort/amusement park-like area about 20 km north of Danang. This is where the Golden Bridge is as well as the world's longest non-stop cable car. Everyone must take the cable car to the attractions area and the first thing you see as you get to the top, is the Golden Bridge's hands.

It looks like a bridge held up by two giant concrete hands. 

And, several hundred of our closest friends joined us to walk on the bridge for pictures! 

The Ba Na Hills complex encompasses several hundred acres at the top of the mountain. We found another, smaller hand statue in one of the gardens.

Everywhere you turned, there were landscaped gardens like this peacock-themed one.

The complex had an alpine roller coaster and several arcade areas that we did not visit. It also had a multitude of restaurant and an area with a European village theme. We didn't find that very authentic because the cobblestones were too smooth and evenly laid! Next to the Rose Garden (not many roses blooming that day), we found about ten of these guys in a row. Not sure what they were meant to represent.

We also walked by the Helios Waterfall, with its gaudy gold statues. Not a fan at all because it reminded us of someone else who favors garish gold-colored furnishings.

We quickly moved on to another garden area, with stairs leading up to a temple. 

After three hours at the top of Ba Na Hills, our tour group came together again and rode the cable car back down the mountain.  Even the trip down had sights to see, carved into the rock of the mountain.

We were able to also see the construction supply area. A lot of concrete is needed, as more buildings were being added to the complex.

Today, we took a Grab to Marble Mountain, just 7 km away, and toured it on our own. According to the legend, a dragon flew from a nearby beach and laid an egg. A beautiful girl hatched out of the egg and the eggshell broke into five pieces, forming five mountains. These are the Marble Mountains, and they are five connected mountains that jut up from flat land of the area. Pagodas and temples have been built into the mountains for over 400 years. Only one mountain, Water Mountain, is accessible to tourists. We paid for an elevator ride up (15k VND, less than $1) but it stopped halfway to the top. Steps the rest of the journey. We saw many Buddhas, outside statues 

and ones carved inside caves from marble.

Large Buddhas,

and Buddhas in large caves.

And those steps... still hundreds of steps after the elevator. Notice that they are not level or the same height. Also, some were marble (slick) and some were concrete (not slippery).

We walked down from the top of the mountain and returned to our hotel to cool down.

Tomorrow (Friday, the 29th), we head two hours south to stay in one of our favorite locations, Hoi An.

Five Days in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Phillip and I spent five days in Thailand, in our favorite city of Chiang Mai. I did not make a post there because typing while sitting on the bed was just too uncomfortable! We loved our hotel, Cheeva Dee, with its friendly staff, huge modern bathroom, and made-to-order breakfasts, but there was no desk in our room. I waited until moving on to our next hotel to make this Chiang Mai post. We had flown from Malaysia to Thailand on May 20th, with our first order of business to have Thai food. We walked to a nearby small restaurant (all restaurants are nearby in Chiang Mai!) where I had a northern Thai specialty, Khao Soi. It is curry noodle soup and delicious. Phillip had pad Thai. 

Our hotel was within the walls of the Old City, so during our first full day, we walked the Old City perimeter, 1.6 km for each of the four walls around the enclosed square (total: about 4 miles). 

The ancient brick walls are no longer continuous around the Old City, but the streets and moat still define it as a specific area. 

We stopped at a small market area where I bought some fresh jackfruit from a fruit vendor. 

One of the main gates was home to many, many pigeons. People were taking pictures with the pigeons, but yuck! Pigeon poop! 

On Friday, the 22nd, we had a half-day e-bike country-side tour. I figured we wouldn’t pedal much with an e-bike, so we’d be fine. Well, pedaling was involved and I didn’t fully appreciate the effect of a bicycle seat for 35 km. Although most of the rice fields had just been harvested, our guide took us past some lovely spots. Our first stop was at a wat (temple).

He said that this temple was the location for a movie scene a few years ago, so now people are showing up in traditional costumes to make Instagram posts from here. No costume for us, but he did take our picture there.

We did get tired and sore by the end of our ride. Phillip and I both were using more battery than pedal during the last five km. 

the e-bike that I rode

The following day, we waited until the evening before we went out because we were sore from the bike ride. We walked to the Saturday Market and had Chiang Mai sausage for dinner, purchased with rice from a street vendor. Phillip’s sister-in-law, Miriam, made this for us at the ranch one year. It is delicious, but spicy from the Thai peppers.

I saw grilled corn and could not resist. 30 baht is less than $1 and this was coated with coconut milk when grilled. Wonderful!

A major street was closed to traffic for the Saturday Market and the vendors set up in the roadway. Over a km of vendors and crowds of people.

Although Miriam teaches us to cook Thai dishes whenever she visits, Phillip and I took a Thai cooking class on Sunday. A van picked us up and drove outside of the city to an organic farm where they had cooking stations under a large, covered area for us to use.

One of the dishes that I made was chicken with holy basil. Holy basil is spicier than Thai basil. 

Phillip made chicken with cashews. 

We also made curry dishes, and we pounded the seasonings to make the different curry pastes for our dishes, no food processors!

On Monday, we flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, changed planes, and flew on to Danang, Vietnam. We had plenty of time to catch the second plane in Bangkok, so the travel day was easier than I had anticipated. We have four nights here in Danang with activities planned.