It was time for our first domestic flight, so we headed south to the historic city of Hoi An. This place was absolutely charming and had tons of old world character. There is kind of a melting pot of influences going on here (Japanese, French and Chinese) in everything from the food, to the architecture to the people. It is the polar opposite of the bustling, much larger, Hanoi. It is quiet, it is serene and just what we needed at this point.
flying towards hoi an
bridge connecting the islands
Holy cow, did we hit the jackpot on our hotel! We stayed on an island across river from the old town. The place was a lush, tropical oasis that had this warm infinity pool right on the river. The thing about Vietnam is you can score a 4 star hotel in certain locations for under a hundred U.S. dollars, it is insane! Not to mention the service and friendliness was just top notch at every hotel we stayed at, no matter how much it cost. The humidity was still a bit of an issue for us at this point, so we spent our days in Hoi An exploring in the morning and lounging around the pool in the afternoons until it cooled down. It was a good opportunity for my swollen feet to finally deflate. Ah, who am I kidding, it was a great opportunity to drink beers around the pool and do NOTHING!
our hotel
old town riverfront
island side riverfront
normal to make rice paper on the street
baos
moto ferry
'Culinary mecca' is what we have heard about Hoi An, and man did it not disappoint! Doing our research beforehand we found that this lady Ms Vy was a pioneer in the food scene of Hoi An and we ate at several of her restaurants. They served her mother's old recipes which consisted of mainly street food made with fresh local ingredients, all of which had started to disappear in the local food-scape in favor of fusion and more modern dishes. Ms Vy just couldn't let that happen, and we are glad she didn't! Her little restaurants were so damn good we even ate at the same place twice which is not something we normally do on a trip since there are so many places to try out. I will spare all the food photos this time mainly because it makes me sad to see them knowing I will never have them again :(
Got this specialty only available in Hoi An called Cao Lau which as legend states, is only made from the water from an ancient Cham well right outside of town. Who knows if this is still the case but I enjoy the thought of eating ancient water noodle dishes! Kind of had a Chinese flare to it and consisted of noodles, slices of pork, bean sprouts, greens, a crispy wonton thing atop a tiny bit of well water broth (allegedly).
uber tourist
old town entrance
As night falls, Hoi An is something to behold....the entire town is lit up by thousands of lanterns. Store fronts, restaurants, parks, anything and everything is lit up. I only wish my camera could capture how gorgeous it was at night there. Children line the riverfront selling floating tea lights to make a wish as you release them into the water while ladies provide private cruises in their canoes and couples from all over the world steal smooches from each other on the bridges. The whole place is just aglow. Just a very romantical setting <3
twin lantern vendors
frizzy glow
restaurants
On our first night we stumbled upon a chaotic scene along the river and could not for the life of us figure out what was going on. A man and a woman chanting back and forth singing songs etc. This, my dear friends is Vietnamese bingo, and if you haven't seen it, you really need to. We watched several games completely cracking up.
BINGO!
Hoi An closes down early. Not just the businesses but the actual city officials shuts the lanterns and bridge lights off around 10:00 p.m. The island on the other side of the river from old town has a few loud backpacker bars bars if you are desperate enough to hear the likes of Shakira and Pitbull at decibels that surely promote hearing loss. Us, being those desperados partook in this and ended up meeting a hilarious Irish couple and stayed up way too late with them. So late in fact, we got to our hotel and the poor girl working reception had made a bed under her desk and was sound asleep. We had to wake her and she didn't even get up, we just saw a tiny hand slide a key towards us while she mumbled something.
i am not amused by this music, jimmy's chest hair might be
Our second day we woke up and rented bikes and rode through rice paddies to a beach a few miles away.
rice
beach lounging
the right idea
nerd on a bike
biking the paddies
propaganda
heading back to town
Hit up our pool area where I tried to write this blog and gave up after a few minutes looking at what the alternative was. Infinity pool + caipirinhas > blogging. Fact.
buckets of local beer
lovely
rough life
adorb besides that college mistake floating on my back
jimmy asked me to pose sexy. this is the result.
Visited the local night market where a very enterprising vendor had our favorite quote of the trip "Open your heart open your wallet". Haha! While he did not get our business he got quite the laugh from us. At least he was having fun with it.
lanterns!
bridge @ night
hoi an hustle
we are here
lantern vendors
I am not sure if I mentioned that the World Cup games were on at 11 p.m and 2 a.m. in Vietnam. Regardless of the time, the bars, streets and house-fronts were always jam-packed with tons of people to watch the matches. We saw a rowdy group of Dutch dressed in crazy orange outfits and followed them to an outdoor club on the river and watched the game with them for a bit until the strobe lights and disco balls overhead nearly gave us seizures. Not recommended!
vietnamese pinata = breaking open a clay pot of goodies
There is nothing more fun than renting a moto in another country, just exploring the backroads and wandering off the beaten path to all sorts of places. Our last day in Hoi An we did just that and took in the countryside, fishing villages, rice paddies, islands and even saw some water buffalo.
me & my hog
fishing boats
selfies while riding a moto
locals
my hops clearly need some work
lotus fields
my awesome helmet
moto gang of two
bamboo boats
standard home in the countryside
drying fish (very stinky!)
loving life
According to Anthony Bourdain, a man we both love, the best banh mi in Vietnam is right here in Hoi An. We have been steered wrong by Mr. Bourdain in the past. If anyone read our Indonesia blog the babi gouling he suggested was a disappointment of epic proportions. But Tony knew what was up with this banh mi, it was absolutely fabulous! It may not look like much but this sandie was packed with so much fresh ingredients and flavor and was definitely the best we have ever had. One interesting note about the banh mi sandwiches here is that most places serve them with pate'. We chose to skip that though as the pate' log was always just sitting in an unrefrigerated case with flies on it.
simply the best
banh mi prep kitchen
fresh ingredients
So this was Hoi An in a a very small nutshell. We could have relaxed there for quite awhile but it was time to head to the beach, one that everyone said was one of the best in Vietnam. Me thinks we might have to disagree.
Our last morning in Hanoi we were woken up by men moving piles of bricks below our balcony at 2:45 a.m. followed by 6:30 a.m. political rants/bizarre music being broadcast on the loudspeakers lining the streets and a lone rooster crowing in between. But this was OK we were heading to Halong Bay, what was sure to be the highlight of our trip!
happy
This was THE excursion we were most looking forward to! To sail through emerald waters surrounded by massive limestone cliffs of a UNESCO World Heritage Site should be on anyones bucket list afterall. We decided on a 2 day trip aboard this old restored treasure junk boat that would house only 10 people max and were so ready to sail the 7 seas (not quite that far, but you get the picture).
amazing
Got picked up in a flashy, decked out Luxury Van (not being pretentious, it literally said luxury van on the outside(!), picked up 4 Aussies and we were on our way. About a four hour drive to the coast was split with a pit-stop at a marble sculpture garden. We opted not to buy the 200 pound marble tiger though.
giddy up
Arrived at the harbor and met the last few guys from New Zealand that would round out our group of 9 we would spend the next couple of days with. Side note: these 3 guys were only 20 and already in their third year of medical school. Ummm what??! At 20 I was waking up with taco bell hot sauce packets stuck to my cheek after a rough night. Clearly the American education system has failed me!!!
let's go!
safety first
our treasure junk
Got into a tiny motor boat that brought us to our anchored junk boat, our home for the next couple of days. It was gorgeous, complete with sun deck lounges, a bar and dining area. Our room was awesome, we had silk robes waiting for us in the closet and the shower had a peephole to the ocean. We couldn't have asked for better people to be with on this excursion, everyone was super nice, funny and had interesting lives to talk about. Time to party!
fishing boat
sundeck
ominous skies
karst formation
We set sail through the misty and extremely humid Halong Bay and were promptly served lunch on the outdoor deck. Holy Vietnamese-seafood-pig-out. I lost track of the amount of courses that were placed in front of us but every bit of it was amazing. Shrimp soup, squid, clams, sea bass and a cute, scrumptious baby crab, you name it we were served it.
pleased to eat you
dining al fresco at it's best
croakie lover
Fat and happy we sailed out to a beach island where we did a bit of cave exploration, swimming in the absurdly warm water and finally some sea kayaking. Kayaking around the bay, we were SO happy and thankful in that moment.
stoked
super coordinated
the crew
barges
private beach
ancient cave
paradise
birds eye view
teamwork
kayaking the karsts
We both said this was the exact experience we were hoping for, the food, the sights, cool new people to hang out with...and literally two minutes after we said that we kayaked back to the beach and were told some pretty shitty news....there was a typhoon coming and we had to go back to the port. Like now. Like party is over...*crying inside ensues. Hmphhhh.
Sailing back, the disappointment was more than evident in the 9 of us. Talk about a buzzkill. I wanted to just throw my Singapore Sling right into the bay! We were supposed to visit a fish farm and floating villages, fish for squid at dusk, check out a pearl farm, celebrate with new friends, and feast on who knows how many more courses of delicious local foods. The highlight of our trip will never be unfortunately.
local fisherman
heading back
pre-thyphoon
sad to leave, but still handsome <3
We were supposed to fly out of the port area city after the boat excursion ended in a couple of days but the storm quickly came on and the power went out in the entire city. It was super creepy looking so we opted to go back the 4 hours to Hanoi, ditch our plane ticket, find a hotel for the night and regroup.
Back in Hanoi we drowned our sorrows in some bia hoi while sitting in the rain, followed by a late night world cup match in a smoky pub and decided we should just be thankful we at least got to see Halong Bay, if not for a short time. I think we are still trying to convince ourselves this though.
Next up, the charming little city of Hoi An...and the not so charming breath of our cab driver to the airport! Woof!
