Hoi An Revisited

After a year and many travels, Daphne and I got on a train in Saigon and came back to the place where we took our first trip together, Hoi An. We left Sunday evening after teaching my last class and rode for fifteen hours through the night and morning. There were four beds in our cabin, but after the first stop the other two occupants got off and we had the place to ourselves for the rest of the trip. The train itself contained no new technology that it couldn't have been built in the 1920's and the rooms reminded us somewhat of a jail cell in their style. Having said that, it was by no means run down or dirty and the trip itself was smooth. The rhythmic sound of the tracks below us were meditative and the trip didn't feel as long as it was, except that Daphne managed to finish reading The Good Earth.

When we got into town that afternoon, we decided to avoid another headache hunting hotels and went straight to the same hotel we were at last time we were here, Thanh Binh III. The power was out and the sounds of generators were humming in the streets. Rainy season is slow to start this year and being that half the power in Vietnam is hydroelectric this means that scheduled power cuts are a norm, even in Saigon. Amazingly, the clerk at the front desk of the hotel remembered us and gave us a good rate on our room. Hoi An beats the rest of Vietnam when it comes to hotel rates for value of accomodations.

The following morning, our friend Melanie, who sings at the Hyatt in Saigon, came to join us for a day. We decided to do the walking tour of the Old Town again with her, which was fine because there was a lot we hadn't seen the first time around. For one thing we found a local government building devoted to gathering swallows nests for the use in a popular Chinese dish, Bird's Nest Soup. I haven't tried it myself, but I hear its good.

[And you complained that your government had too many bureaucracies]

[Birds' Nests]

Also, now that I could find it, we got to see the folk performance that we had come in late to last time we were there. It was quite charming, though short.

[Supposedly, this dance is about fishing, but I think its a metaphor for an old man who wants two young women]

[These bars mark the flood line of every flooding season. Last year looked pretty bad]

[Boy showing off his water puppet. Me showing off my photoshop]

We had agreed to save the shopping for later when it cooled down and we were done sightseeing, but it didn't stop Melanie from leading us into every shop along the way, which is pretty much every building. Even I spent a Dong or two on gifts. Later, we went to a tailor to get some clothes made. The tailor we had last time was gone, but fortunately we found a new tailor at Trinh 95 who did fantastic work for cheap. Daphne even designed a pair of pants of her own imagination that came out looking great.

The next morning, we left early for the beach since Melanie had to leave us at noon. When she did leave, we spent the rest of the day there.


The beach had gotten more crowded and loud since the last time we were there. Not as bad as the beaches in Thailand or [god forbid] Vung Tau, but not as good as we remembered. Plus, they were setting up for some rock concert that evening which, by the sound of things, wasn't going to impress.

On the way back to town, wanting to find some new ways to experience Hoi An, we stopped by The Sleepy Gecko where an Aussie guy, Steve, runs motorbike tours through the nearby countryside. We signed up for one two days later and then Daphne, who was in yoga withdraw, asked if there was anywhere where we could practice. Steve gave us direction to An Bang beach, which turned out to be closer and less visited than the better known beach of Cua Dai, and told us to talk to Sam at La Plage.

The next day, we decided to check out An Bang and were pleasantly surprised by how few people were there. There were a few seafood huts set up, as well as an Aussie bar called Phattie's on one end and the more chill themed La Plage on the other.

When Daphne asked Sam about the yoga classes, Sam told her that she doesn't teach the class but instead just does free practice with dvd's and a tv outside. Upon hearing this, of course, Daphne offered her services, free of charge, to teach a class the upcoming Sunday. And with these plans laid out, we went to the sand and laid out for the second full day in a row on the beach. The water was so clear that we could see that this time there were jellfish everywhere, where as last year there weren't. Our stay in the water was always limited to the first jellyfish sighting, at which point Daphne was ready to get out until the memory of it faded and we were back in again. The solitude of the beach during the day was great and as the sun went low, locals started coming, setting up mats and makeshift sun-shields to block the last rays. They swam in their clothes and food was cooked and sold not ten feet from the water.

[We're taught to wait 30 minutes after eating before we swim?]

[Beach Boys]

And, just like last year, the sun said its last goodbyes with a light shower and a rainbow.

[Nice]

The next day, we went to the Sleepy Gecko to do our motorbike trip. I was a bit disappointed that I had to drive an automatic motorbike and only became more so when I found out what the trip demanded out of it. The majority of our party for the trip was made up of funny old Aussie men who can't tell a story without making a joke out of it and being as indirect as possible with giving honest details about their lives. Aussies would make excellent spies.

The trip started simply enough with a countryside drive. Steve showed us some farms, taught us about what was planted, how its done, how they fish, etc. Then, he took us to a small canteen and proceeds to give us beers, rice wine[note:wine read 'vodka'], and snake wine, where in a snake is put into the jar that holds the rice wine.



After ensuring that everyone had a good buzz, he leads us to an area that is heavily flooded for farming and then makes us drive across several rickety bamboo bridges that look like something Indiana Jones would struggle with. Fortunately, no one was hurt though we're told that it happens. A few of those later he took us to see how they make beach mats and the women let us have a go at the weaving process. I was a natural, Daphne did...alright.


For the climax of the trip, Steve took us to a secluded beach where we had a short dip. For the finale, we then had to drive along the coast, on the sand, in our less than capable motorbikes. Needless to say this was no easy task, especially with two people on a bike and especially on an automatic Yamaha. We must have driven one kilometer before we got to the road again, by which time we were completely drained and ready for a cold beer. We were so wiped out though, that we were in bed that night by 9.

[The catch of the day]

The next day was my birthday! We rented a bike and, since we had only seen one of the Marble Mountains the last time we were there, we drove out to see the other four that we missed. We found when we got there that the other mountains had a lot less attractions than the main one, so after visiting two of them we aimed our sights at the mountain called Monkey.

To get to Monkey, we had to drive 20 km up the coast of Danang, the third largest city in Vietnam, which was lined with empty beaches and massive would be resorts that were waiting for the coming tourist boom. Monkey had only one finished road and it was all uphill. It took most of the remaining gas to get to the top. The winding road was hypnotic and we had to pop our ears several time for the quick changes in elevation. At the very top was a government complex that had two big white domes on a couple of their buildings. The place looked like something from an old Bond movie and we were turned away at the gate, never knowing what the place was for anyways. Just below that there was a lookout point where we could overlook the South China Sea and get a temporary reprieve from the sun.

The way back we did with the engine off, since it was all down hill and I was low on. In fact, I ran out of gas right in front of a gas seller on the street shortly after we got off the mountain. On the way back, we stopped in to Phatties at An Bang beach for a seafood lunch and a couple of beers.

[Daphne stole a fedora]

After being undercharged for unknown, and uninvestigated, reasons we headed back to the hotel for a shower and out on the town for some wining and dining.

Not surprisingly, we spent our last day on the beach again, worn out from two days of adventuring.

[They are very serious about their boat]

At sunset, we set out some yoga mats at La Plage and Daphne led a class with me and three, much more capable, women.

It quickly turned into a spectator sport, as a crowd of locals, tourists and even dogs came to watch us. I earned a lot of laughs from the locals.

[These kids show off their own skills while we practice]

Our last morning, we took a last swim in the hotel pool before heading to the train station. The train doesn't arrive into Saigon until 5am the next day.

And here, a sadness, for this was to be Daphne's last day in Saigon. Those that read of our first trip to Hoi An may be experiencing a deja vu, for again she left for Singapore and again with no promise of return[well...maybe a hint]. The reasons I won't get into. I'll only say that it was not for a lack of love on either of our part but instead had to do with those nitty gritty details of our lives that no amount of love can erase. And so, once again we say goodbye.

[And we wait]

Hoi An: Conclusion

Delay delay delay. For some reason my internet's been giving me grief, blocking only my blog site and nothing else. But without any further further delay I bring the conclusion of the Hoi An trip, thanks to the wifi in the Highlands Coffee downstairs in my building[no, nothing like the one in Cincy, this place is like the Starbucks of Vietnam].
Instead of boring you with minute details I'm going to shorten this last entry by focusing on the most entertaining chapter, our trip to the Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains are five small mountains in an otherwise flat landscape that have seen centuries of Buddhist temples, shrines and statues as well as marble excavation. Five mountains for five elements. Our plan was to visit all of them, having lunch after the first one. It was an uneventful 22 km drive north, just outside of Danang, and the mountains weren't hard to spot. But the entrance was. We passed a thin concrete bridge facing one end of one of the mountains. It certainly didn't look like much of an entrance, but we figured it was worth a shot. We parked the bike on the side of the road under a tree and went to have a look. There was a Buddha sculpture in a shabby state that made for a pitiful entrance and it didn't match the description in Lonely Planet for any of the five mountains. We didn't even know which one we were on. The strangest thing we noted was the lack of tourists, in an otherwise touristy location. But as we walked towards the base we found even more sculptures, covered in some family's drying laundry.


Under one structure there was the family, keeping shade and having a meal. Daphne and I debated over what mountain we were on, how to get up and whether we would have to turn back and find another route. We approached the family and pointed to the guide book.


The family pointed straight to the mountain and then nominated their three year old daughter to lead the way. The little girl, who was absolutely adorable, led us to the sketchiest little climb.

[Daphne didn't even see this sign]

When we reached the top we found...a lot. First there was a serene little Buddhist temple tended by a wide grinning midget monk and a couple other care takers. Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, looked over the remaining Marble Mountains and the town below.


As we climbed on, tourists started to appear as we found more temples, statues, caves and even someone dressed as Monkey God trying to charge for photo ops. We later realized that the reason nothing in the guide book seemed to make sense was because we were doing the mountain backwards[and not paying the admission fee, apparently]. It's hard to give the mountain the justice it deserves, there is just too much stuff on it. Hopefully some of these pictures hint at its beauty.

[Caretaker napping in the temple shade]

[Daphne tries to find out which mountain we're on]

[Entrance to a really cool cave with a giant Buddha carved into it]

[Guanyin carved into the rock face]

[We crawled through a tiny cave system to come out the top of the mountain and got a private view of the ocean and the surrounding countryside]

After four hours of hiking up and down the mountain, which we finally realized was named Thuy Son for the Water element, we knew we wouldn't have time to even set foot on any of the other Mountains.
And having done the whole mountain on only breakfast and in immense heat, we dragged ourselves back down the mountain to the bike and went on the hunt for a very late lunch. Choosing the beach road back we finally found the dingiest little hole in the wall, where they dipped the glasses in a tub to wash them clean. The food was cheap and pretty good, I left a tip bigger than the price because it seemed like no one had been to this place in ages.
That night, after a bowl of wonton noodle soup, Daphne and I sat at a river side bar in Hoi An, reflecting on the last week and writing notes to help me remember what to write in this blog. Drinking our 4000 VND[.2US] beers, we laughed when we remembered the Salsa Club, not noticing that the American who worked there was right behind us. As was the French couple we had met at the cockroach restaurant. 'Ici il n'y a pas des cancrelats, ne c'est pas?'
This was also the first night I noticed I was feeling sick. The next day I drugged up and went to the beach where I felt fine doing nothing but laying out and swimming. But that night, which was our last, we went to a wine bar and that's when I really started to feel it. It was an otherwise pleasant evening, the music was good, we had the place mostly to ourselves, a bottle of champagne and the power in the city kept going out adding to the charm and romance of the evening. But after a couple glasses I felt pitiful and spent the rest of the bottle with my head in Daphne's lap. The climax of my illness was the next morning when I woke up with the biggest fever I've ever had. Daphne ran downstairs and got some Ameflu from the front desk and brought it back with a cup of tea. Luckily, two of these did the trick and my temperature was back down with the quickness.
Ok. That was a not-so-brief entry I suppose, but there it is, that was Hoi An. Unfortunately, I'm sick again just two weeks later and after having completed my induction for school I'm starting my first class on Tuesday. I hope to be in better health by then.

Hoi An: Days Three and Four

Day Three
My Son
After breakfast and some procrastination we rented another motorbike for the day. This time I scrutinized it much more heavily because we were about to go on a 55km trip and everything had to not only work but be comfortable. Destination: My Son, the ruins of a Hindu temple set in a tropical valley. Ruined even more in the seventies with the help of American bombers, but still an impressive site to see.
It was the longest trip I'd ever made on a motorbike thus far, but it went relatively smoothly, minus an awkward sunburn that made my arms red down to my knuckles, where my fingers were completely white from holding the handle bars. Not much to say about the site itself except to show some pictures:

[Note the Sanskrit on the left column and the linga in the middle]

[If my understanding of Hindu symbolism is correct, then I am a dick]

The site was rather small, but it took us a while to figure it out as we looked at the map in our guide book and tried to figure out where the rest of it was. Our timing getting there and leaving was exactly the same as a small group of French tourists. So much so, that when we left and decided to stop for lunch about 10km out we incidentally stopped in the same little pho place. As we were leaving lunch, we noticed some serious storm clouds coming our way, with another 40km or so to go. We hopped on the bike and decided to race the cloud back to town. Lucky for us the cloud wasn't bringing rain, but unlucky for us it brought wind. Strong wind. In a very dusty area. We only had one pair of sunglasses between us, which I had let Daphne wear, but it got to the point where I had to steal them from her. We felt it was in both our interests that I kept my eyes opened while I drove, Daphne hid her her head and closed her eyes. We made back alright, but I think I still have sand in pores even today.
That night, Daphne and I decided we were done with the tourist bar scene and opted instead for a romantic sit by the river. In one quiet spot on the 'Vietnamese' half of town, there were straw mats laid out with a foot high table in the middle. An old lady comes and brings out cane juice. That's it. That simple.

Day 4
Old Hoi An
We waited until half way into our trip to finally do a proper tour of the town. Since its pretty much about seeing and buying, I'll spare the history lesson. Suffice it to say that the Chinese influence here is[or was] big and the hotels and souvenir shops know it. Here are some pics, they'll do the talking:

Our last stop on the tour was really hard to find. After several hours in the heat already we circled the same block five times trying to find a craft warehouse to watch a music and dance performance. When we finally made it we only got to see five minutes of the show[which was only ten minutes long anyways]. After that I refused to ever step foot on that block again, deciding that in five times, I had seen more than enough of it.

Fine Dining
We picked a recommendation from Lonely Planet called Des Amis. Its the most expensive place there, which doesn't say much, and there's a set menu that changes every night, depending on what the cook feels like doing. It was four courses, and really good, but it had one fatal flaw that didn't rear its head until after the bill was paid. Cockroaches. They slowly started coming through a window that faced a dark alley, and was right between us and the stair case leading out. Did I mention they can fly? I've never seen a cockroach fly in the States, but these do. Flip flops went flying too, as we fought our way through. I'd never seen so many in one place. So, while the food was good, I would recommend taking an early dinner if you every plan to check this place out, unless you're going for dinner and a show.

Hoi An: Days One and Two

Wow, so after typing up the first two days, I can see that I'm going to have to do installments so here's day one and two. Please forgive me if the style here is a little bit rushed. I do have stuff to do.
Day 1
Getting There
It was a short hour and a half flight from Saigon to Danang. The airport was so small it looked more like an office space. Outside, Daphne and I grabbed a taxi to the bus station, paying twice as much for the fair as Lonely Planet advertised. They need a disclaimer on their cover that prices go up on all of their recommendations immediately after publication.
Danang itself seemed to be a rather soulless town. Industrialized but sprawled[Daphne's reminded of LA] and amazingly bare of people. The place just seemed off, but luckily we weren't staying around. An hour ride on a rickety bus and we were in Hoi An, turning our map in circles trying to figure out where to go for a hotel and waving off motodrivers trying to make a Dong.
We sat down for some fresh squeezed cane juice as we planned our route, but a driver wouldn't stop hastling us. Convinced that Daphne was Vietnamese, he kept trying to talk to her and wasn't put off by her English one bit. Not until she laid some Mandarin on him did he realize he made a mistake.
Old Man in the Red Helmet
We left the juice stand and headed towards the river where we hoped to find a hotel as close as possible to the old town. Along the way, a motordriver in a red helmet stopped us and promised a hotel with pool and wifi for 10 a night. He wanted to put us on his motorbike to take us there, but with our luggage we wouldn't fit and were unwilling to split up and taken one by one. So we followed him on foot for five minutes to a really nice hotel....that was booked. No problem, at least according to him, he'll just take us to another hotel. But we decided to try our own luck, as there were plenty of really nice looking hotels lining the streets to choose from. But every place we checked was booked and the old man in the red helmet kept meeting us outside waving us to come with him. We agreed to follow him, but we couldn't help stopping in to hotels here and there to try our own luck. For a good twenty minutes we walked like this, until we realized that he was taking us to this big, soulless hotel we saw on the way into town that was just too far out of town. We finally divorced ourselves from the driver, it was rather difficult but he moved on and found new tourists to solicit. As we continued checking booked hotel after booked hotel, he kept reappearing to try his luck, but we pushed on and found a really nice hotel for $22 a night. It had an inner garden pool, Chinese influenced interior wood decoration and included breakfast. Settled and showered, it was time to check out the old river town, have some dinner and see what its all about.
The Town
What can I say about Hoi An that your guide book hasn't already told you. Well unless your going to Vietnam you probably don't have one, so I'll try to be brief. River town. Quiet. Charming. Heavy Chinese influence in architecture. Cheap fitted clothing and shoes. Really good cheap food. 20 cent 'fresh' beer. Tourist town[mostly French]. Close to the beach and other really cool sites. That should do it.
The People
Generally friendly, the only annoyance comes from the motorbike drivers and restauranteurs hollering for customers. Everyone there seems to speak pretty decent English and French, a result of heavy tourist traffic. As for the tourists, we had a tendency of running into the same people over and over again in the oddest ways, but more on that later.
The Perfect Fit

["I'd like that in gecko, please"]

There's definitely something addictive about being able to custom make your clothes. If you go to Hoi An your going to need a few days, while the clothes will be done in just one day you'll probably need something changed. Our clothes took about four days of tweaking, especially Daphne's chamsaras that she had made. I had a total of six fitted shirts, three pants and a pair of black crocodile pattern and suede shoes made. The shirts and pants were only $12 a piece and the shoes were $25. Daphne got three chamsaras[a traditional Chinese style outfit], a skirt and a pair of pants.

[Too big, too small, too long, too high...]

Day 2
The Beach
After the intensive month of study that we had undergone, the beach was an obvious first stop for the two of us. No agenda, just go, swim and take our time. For $5 we rented a motorbike for the day and drove the 4k there, trying to use the breaks as little as possible as the screeched worse than the horn did. The beach itself was really nice. Fine sand, calm waves, clean water with an almost pleasant taste to it and really quiet. Actually, it was kind of an eerie quiet, the tourists here in general were a quiet sort but that wasn't all. It wasn't until our third beach trip that we realized what it was. No seabirds. It's amazing how something so simple could make such a big impact on a beach experience but that's how it was.
One thing worth noting about the swimming, however, is that there were stinging microbes that lived in the water. Not that big of a deal, the stings were small, invisible and only hurt a little and for a few seconds. Except for every now and then when you'd get five stings in a row. Or in unpleasant locations.
A swim and a rest later, we were ready for a seafood lunch. We walked along the beach past restaurants that were sandwiched together. You get to one someone runs up with a menu and starts soliciting than when you get to their 'border' there's the server for the next place waiting and you can see the next three on down the way that you'll have to say no to. All the menus are the same and pretty expensive considering the prices off the beach. But at the fifth such restaurant, when we said no they ran back to us with another menu, all the same stuff on it but with half the price. Before heading back to town we had a long siesta under a leaf umbrella, waiting out a rain storm.
The Night Life
Well, it is a tourist town so of course there are some bars to check out on the river banks. That night we went for a couple drinks to a place called 'The Salsa Club'. Ironic, considering less than a third of the music they played was salsa and the other two thirds was Shakira. The oddest thing about the place was the fact that the person who came up to solicit us to come in was a skinny American guy. And he didn't own the place, nor was he friends with the owner. He just came there for holiday one day and decided to stay. Got a job at a local bar to make ends meet, I suppose.