VIETNAM: Hue (July 26th - 27th)

We continued traveling up the Vietnam coast line, this time by bus, as we left Hoi An and made our way to Hue for a one night stop.  This portion of the journey also marked our passage from south Vietnam into the northern part of the country which is more mountainous and even more beautiful.  The drive provided some great scenery of the coastline as we ascended the hills.  Hue is said to have more of a culural, artistic feel to it, which it certainly did.  It reminded us a little more of Cambodia with its ancient temples and ruins and less city builidings.

After checking into our hotel we met back in the lobby to take a motorbike tour of the city.  This was a lot of fun and a great way to see some of the beautiful sites.  We had lunch at a nunary, drove through the country side to an agricultural museum, stopped at a lady's house who has one arm and make hats (apparently she's famous in Vietnam), visited a tomb of an ancient king, went to a lookout point above the Perfume River, toured their most sacred Pagoda (like a temple), and saw their Citadel which is a massive castle like fortress that served as the headquarters for the northern Vietnamese arm during several wars.  It was a lot packed into one day.

 

 

VIETNAM: Hoi An (July 24th - 25th)

Our sleeper train was about six hours late arriving into Hoi An.  Emily was so anxious to say the least because if Vietnam is the holy land of shopping.....Hoi An is heaven on earth.....and that means six less hours she had to shop.  Hoi An is actually a really awesome little town, very clean, laid back, great little restaurants, and felt really safe at night.  It's full of shops and tailors where you can get your own clothes, shoes, coats, purses, etc....designed and made for a fraction of what it would cost in the states.  Definitely a highlight among all our stops, and probably Emily's favorite overall. 

One of the first tailors we visited had a silk farm upstairs.  They showed us the entire process of how they raise silk worms, harvest the silk, and begin using it to make their different colored fabrics and items they sell in their store.  We took a break to have diner at an amazing Vietnamese/Italian restaurant, which gave us enough energy to continue shopping until almost 11:00 that night.  We met with our group (now becoming our good friends) at a little wine bar so everyone could swap shopping stories...that's when Emily found a tailor across the street called Mr. Xe's.  Mr. Xe is a little Viatnamese man (well....their all little) who is as queer as a four dollar bill and takes his profession VERY seriously.  It's like if the soup Nazi from Seinfeld had been played by a small, gay, Asian man.  Anyway, Emily and a few of the other girls spent a good three hours in there with Mr. Xe's design team, going through magazines, getting measured, picking out materials...having a ball.  I went across the street to see how she was doing....next thing I know I'm being measured for a suit....it all happened so fast, I still don't quite understand it.  A really fun experience though.

The next day, since Emily wanted to continue her conquest of Hoi An, and being the good wife that she is, knowing I probably wouldn't want to shop all day (aka: "slow her down"), we decided she would do her thing with the girls and I would do a bicycle tour of the local Hoi An villages with the rest of our group.  The tour was great as we got to visit a fishing village, see how fish sauce was made, stop at numerous road side huts for true Vietnamese food, sugar cane juice, rice wine samples, and just see the beautiful countryside.  Our guide for the day took us back to his place for a bbq on the river.  Emily had a blast as well with the girls, a fun-filled day of literally pointing at pictures in magazines and knowing they would be tailor made and ready to go later that night.  When we met back up at Mr. Xe's later that evening she was still going strong and I think was honestly trying to figure out how we could stay in Hoi An for the rest of our trip.  She even suggested I continue on with the group and I come back through and pick her up in week.....but she was kidding....I think. 

Pics from Jon's day in Hoi An

Fish heads.....the men in the village spend all night on the boat fishing, the women spend the whole day preparing the fish to be preserved and sold...tearing of the fish heads by hand, one by one, is part of the process.

One night's catch

Making fish sauce....much like making wine

A bamboo bridge we crossed on our bicycle tour....doesn't look like much but felt like a matter of life or death.

I honestly can't describe how beautiful the green it in this country.

Pics from Em's Day in Hoi An

 

The one the ONLY Mr. Xe!!

Em and her DESIGN TEAM in action!

         One of the finished products



VIETNAM: Nha Trang (July 21st - 23rd)

Our sleeper train arrived in Nha Trang early in the morning.  Our hotel rooms weren't going to be ready for awhile so dropped off our luggage and everyone scattered around the city to find breakfast.  Em and I were really starting to crave western food so we walked for a ways until we found a place that made pancakes and eggs benedict....and they were goooooood!

Nha Trang was another beach stop on our journey, located on the southwest coast of Vietnam on the South China Sea.  But, unlike all our other beach stops where they were more like small, laid back beach towns, Nha Trang is a big hustling and bustling city thats built right up to the beachfront.  Kinda had a Miami feel to it.

Our guide William had a local Aussie friend whose Vietnamese wife, Fong, took us to a beach outside the city for the day.  It wasn't a quiet, secluded beach like some of the others we had been to, but still a lot of fun.  Fong had a huge bucket of ice and loads of drinks ready to go, then spent the day grilling seafood and kabobs, making rice and noodles, and keeping us fed as long as we were hungry.  We mingled with the locals a lot more here.  Some high school aged kids had never played with a frisbee so they had a blast with us out in the water, and later we played some beach volleyball with some other locals nearby (volleyball is insanely popular in Vietnam).  We're starting to sound like a broken record......but it was another great beach day.

The next day was a blast.  We took a gondola/cable car to a huge island called Vinpearl.  It's a famous vacation spot for Vietnamese people, kinda like a smaller, Asian version of Disneyland or Seaworld.  There is an amusement park, aquarium, dolphin show....all that kind of stuff.  But the best part was the water park.  You have to remember, this is Southeast Asia....things like saftey codes and building regulations  don't really apply plus the rides are ready made for the Vietnamese not us huge americans.  So believe me when I say these were some of the fastest and scariest water slides we have ever been on.  They were insane!  On each slide it was almost guaranteed that you'd get to a point where you really started to question if you were gonna make it down without serious injury at best.....not to mention your own life.  We were actually physically sore that night and the next day......but what a rush!  We would have stayed all day, but we had to head back to the hotel, shower up, grab a quick bite to eat, and head to the train station to catch another overnight train.  Oh the life of the weary traveler.....

 The main beach in Nha Trang

 The local beach we went to with Fong

A small taste of SoCal

Cabel car to Vinpearl and the waterpark on crack

 View of Nha Trang from the cable car

 The white letters on the side of the hill say Vinpearl ( very hollywood style)

 Again, we would have loved to have had an waterproof camera.  Here are some pics we grabbed from the web of some of the waterslides we rode.

The spaceship looking slide we referred to as the toilet... when you slid down to the bottom it shot you out into the massive spaceship portion and swirled you around like a toilet bowl before dumping you out of the bottom... it was so crazy.

Jon rode the green slide.... I was not about to ride either :)

Another one Jon rode and i veiwed from the bottom.