We have been all over the place since our last post, so much so that we have either been on the go or knocked out! We spent a couple days in Hoi An, then moved on to Hue where we have been the last couple of days. Hoi An is a beautiful city with well-preserved architecture and some rich history. It was originally a major port city, but the river sanded up long ago and if not for tourism, there would not be much left of the city. When we arrived Sunday morning after a very bouncy, back-of-the-bus night, I think we were a little too quick to let the negatives of our first moments in the city put a cast on our views. We immediately decided we did not like it much. We arrived around 7am and it was a scorching, soggy underwear long walk until we found a hotel we were ok with. We got settled and made our first round around the city. Every. Single. Street. From one end to another. With peddlers in our faces non-stop, the worst yet. I’m telling you, we just don’t know how to sit still when we should! Well, we finally could go no further so we had fresh juice at a cafe and read a little. Even after sitting there about 1.5 hours, I was still feeling overheated, so we went back to the room and I took a long nap. Oh man, after cooling down and getting some rest, the city seemed much more pleasing! The more time that went on, the more we enjoyed it, could appreciate the beauty, and the less we felt smothered by peddlers. Overall, it still was not our favorite place. Mainly because it does exist solely for tourism. The locals seemed less friendly and more directly reliant on the money we spent, therefore, it wasn’t very peaceful during the day. The evenings were much more peaceful, and very beautiful as silk lanterns hung all over the city.

We were happy that the city center was closed off to cars and we could walk a bit more freely. One thing that we did love about Hoi An – the food! We tried a few new things that were all good, but the very best was a place called Bale Well where they bring out several plates of ingredients including bbq pork, sausage, something crunchy, rice pancakes, veggies, and rice paper. You then build your own spring rolls, which was altogether fun and messy! The taste was fantastic!

We did a lot of looking and a little buying since that was the main thing to do in Hoi An. We are pretty excited about one purchase, we got ourselves a large canvas oil painting! The bus ride to Hue (pronounced Whey) was during the day and only 4 hours. We arrived in Hue at 1pm Tuesday and hit the road first thing to see the Imperial City, an old walled fortress and palace from the Nguyen empire, which only just ended in the 1940s. It is massive, and the Forbidden Purple City where the imperial family personally lived is another walled fortress within the larger. I think we got some pretty neat photographs.

The fortress did attain some damage from the US bombs, but reconstruction and restoration are now underway. The imperial city was close to being destroyed because the Nyugen empire was a fuedal society and Vietnam wanted to forget it. Maybe they were terrible, but what remains is pretty astonishing! Today we decided to rent bicycles and ride about 5 miles each way to the tomb of Emporer Tu Duc. We could have gone to more tombs but the others were farther out. It was so nice for once to be off our feet and an experience to flow with this crazy mess of traffic. Bryan had done the research on the tomb area and I didn’t ask many questions, so I was surprised when we arrived to find out it was much more than a tomb, but was also a retreat where he lived much of his time and used it as hunting grounds, to write poetry, and to enjoy the peace. It was a very large area, again surrounded by walls, and the lake was man-made with a pretty little island.

After lunch we decided to ride another 4 miles out to Thien Mu Pagoda. This was another impressive Buddhist construction and most of it is still in great condition.  The pagoda is well known for where the monk that set him self a blaze in 1963 was from [link].

After leaving the pagoda we decided to take it slow back to the hotel. That was an understatement. Just after we got back on the bikes my back tire blew – the stem of the nozel just cracked open! I’m proud to say that despite being in full sun in the heat of the day and pushing bikes for 4 miles, we made the best of it and stayed in good spirits!

This evening we are off to Hanoi!

I think quite a bit has happened since our last post.  Our first sleeper bus ride went quite well.  We both slept ok but could have used some more sleep for sure.  It didn’t seem the driver was too crazy when hauling down the highway, as we did make it in one piece.

As we arrived around 7am in Nha Trang we were instantly greeted by the peddlers and people trying to show us to a hotel.  Megan and I decided to cut down an alley to lose a straggler that was annoying us, and in doing so we found a pretty nice hotel for $5 a night.  A little family run place that was quaint and nice.  They even did our laundry for $0.75 a kilo since there are not any self service laundry places.  After checking in we headed straight for the beach to take a dip and maybe a small nap.  It was quite beautiful with small islands off in the background and mountains behind us.  I think Megan was having a bit too much fun in the sea.  She would put her arms out like a plane thinking she could fly when any large waves would come in. 🙂

Once we soaked up enough beach time we headed out to venture around town and see what there was.  We stopped in at a few scuba places and by the end of the day we had signed up to take the advanced scuba class.   Woot!!!  Instead of doing PADI ($$$) we went with NDL which certified us for a 40M depth instead of 30M.  The course was supposed to be 2 days and 5 dives.  It didn’t happen like that.  We both needed a bit of a refresher since it has been a while since our last dive so we spent a couple of dives getting re-familiarized.  All in all we did it in 3 days and they let us do an extra dive for free.  I wish we had an underwater camera to show some of the awesome things we saw.  There was a real nice grouper, barracuda, lion fish, etc.. down there.  Our deepest dive included navigating through some small rock tunnels along one of the small islands.  The deepest we went was 26.6 meters (87 feet).  The pressure at that depth was pretty crazy.  It was a pretty awesome experience.  Some of the colors from different coral were amazing blues and purples, which is interesting because we had an ace of hearts with us and at that depth the red looked black.  If you have not scuba dived before you should really look into just a single dive to see what it is like!

After our second day of scuba diving Megan and I thought it would be a great idea to run roughly a 5km run to see Po Nagar (wiki link).  Talk about making you tired after scuba diving, but it was totally worth it.  The temple was built in the mid 10^th to 13^th century.  This is some of the kind of architecture/design I have been wanting to see in person.  There had been a lot of restoration done, but hey it’s a super old site. Its crazy to see these hand made bricks centuries later still there and intact.

For you foodies you will love this.  Meg and I decided to scope out all the street vendor food and settled on a fried bread that had a small hard boiled bird egg in it.  That was pretty awesome.  There was a nice spicy dip to accommodate it.  Next was the cherry on top… a noodle dish with a gelatin like substance on top that looked and very well might have had gold fish inside of it.  We didn’t question it too much and just ate it real fast.  There wasn’t much taste so if you see it just pass on it.  I still sort of cringe thinking about it.  I hate gold fish.  Pigeons of the water world.  Finally we had to have a dessert which was a fried bread with sesame seeds on the outside and that had some kind of honey like substance inside.  That was scrumptious.  We went back the next night for many more of those.

Through our scuba experience we met Brady and Shelly who were finishing up a 1.5 year long trip and are dive masters.  We enjoyed some good times on the boat and before heading out on our second bus we enjoyed an awesome Indian cuisine dinner with them.  They gave us some good advice on traveling through N. Vietnam, Laos, etc..  If you get a chance you can check out their blog [here].

After a great dinner we headed to our second sleeper bus experience…oh this one was great.  As we arrived at the pickup point there were a couple of Irish guys just ripping the lady behind the counter a new one because the bus supposedly left 30-45 minutes before scheduled.  Meg and I started to freak out a bit, but it seemed there was just a communication issue and the bus was just around the block.  Whew….  We got to sit in the very back of the bus that slept 5 people.  Holy hell that gave us a super bouncy ride back there.  The other 3 people were more than entertaining.  All of them hailing from England and complaining about being sore.  One of them pulled out an ointment that he purchased earlier called “Tiger Balm” or something like that.  It apparently heals sores, cramps, small cuts, many other little things and the best of all flatulence.   We were a bit stumped on how you applied it for that issue.  They said the cream smelled like Christmas.  Maybe I should send one your way, Allison!  Once we really hit the road I don’t think the driver knew he had breaks because he was hauling.  I couldn’t sleep if you even drugged me.  We made it in safely to Hoi An at 7 am and we are doing well.

I uploaded quite a few photos to the gallery page so be sure to check them out!

We are coming to the end of our fourth day in Vietnam, and we’re getting into the groove of our new lifestyle.  We are really having a good time now, and I can tell that the change is sinking in and becoming comfortable because Bryan is more relaxed today, and he did a good job of bargaining today!

Since our last post was so short, I’ll give you some more detail about our experiences thus far. Friday, our first day, was absolutely exhausting. After our long walk from the airport, skipping a night in flight, and talking for a couple of hours with a crowd of locals, I laid down at 7:30pm to read my book and didn’t get as far as opening it. By the way, I NEVER fall asleep instantly. Ever. We got a good kick out of that the next day.

Saturday morning as we lazied around our hotel room, I was quite intrigued spying on the family two stories below our balcony in a tiny alley, who were all hard at work. On the floor of a tiled room that opened to the alley (open meaning without walls), a man, a woman, and assuming their adult daughter were cooking up something extravagant that took several hours. Wish I knew what it was, I would love to try it. Living spaces in this part of the city are about the size of my college dorm room, so I doubt they had anywhere but the floor to work off. A young man was busy in the alley folding laundry and washing just about everything else they owned, it seemed. Little kids were playing in the soapy water that covered the ground. It was cool to go unnoticed and watch how differently daily tasks are done.

We visited the War Remnants Museum on Saturday. The grounds contain many of the tools and machines used by the United States, from helicoptors to flame throwers. Prison walls still stand in their place, and these terrible barbed wire cages for holding captured still stick in my mind. Bryan caught some dates and numbers that didn’t quite add up, and the propoganda was a bit heavy, but all-in-all it was well worth the $.75 entry fee.

If that’s not a very good representation of our expenses, Saturday we spent a total of about $4.50 for the whole day on food and drinks.

On Sunday we took a day tour to the Mekong Delta area in Southern Vietnam. Although very touristy, we were really glad we did it because we would not have been able to see and do those things otherwise. The day included many boat rides, a bee and honey farm, seeing how coconut candy is made (much like carmel), and tasting local fruits and teas. We also enjoyed our company, including a just married couple (an American to a Vietnamese) and the family of the American groom. On our way back into the city we passed the restaurant owned by the family of the bride, and we promised we would try it out. We just so happened to arrive just as they did to have a big dinner with both of their families, and despite how busy they were with family, they took the time to introduce us to the traditional “Fire Pot” Vietnamese and showed us how to eat it. It’s a big metal pot they put in front of you on a burner, with vegetables and meat uncooked in a broth, and it cooks in front of you. Then you spoon it over rice noodles and enjoy. We also got a discount for knowing them!

Today we checked out the Cathedral, Buddist pagoda, walked past the American Consolate but couldn’t see it, and then ended up in the zoo. The zoo entry for both of us was about $.75. It wasn’t a very impressive zoo by any means, but it was relaxing.

Tomorrow we will check out a different area of the city, and then tomorrow night we will take a sleeper bus to Nha Trang. Our first sleeper bus experience; wish us luck!

We made it to Vietnam! That was one heck of a flight but everything went well. We hiked about five miles to the hotel to see more of the city. That was quite the adventure in learning just how to cross the roads. Megan and I wandered around just checking out the city within the area of our hotel.  There is a park across the sreet from us that really allowed us to escape some of the heat.  It has been quite some time since we have been somewhere so humid and hot. 🙂  While we were hanging out watching everything around us we had a dozen or more students come up to us asking if they could just talk to practice their english.  That was quite interesting and humerous at times.  One young man wants to become a catholic bishop somewhere in the state of Mississippi. Apparently he really liked the pictures he had seen of the state.