Exploring More Of Vietnam

Exploring More Of Vietnam

Sitting next to river this lady had an interesting range in clay whistles for sale.

We have visited Vietnam 5 times during the last six years. So I guess we would have to say we do like this country. Actually during this time we have noticed many changes taking place. We missed out getting to Vietnam last year, when the opportunity came our way for cheap flights to Danag with Air Asia in June, we couldn’t resist. We have planned to explore the middle of Vietnam for a number of years and now here was our chance. We had a window of 8 days, so we decided to go back to Hoi An, for 3 nights before travelling on to Hue via Hai Van pass for 4 nights finally back to Danang and flying home to KL. A small window of time giving us an opportunity to visit one old favourite and one new place.

Hoi An.

The beauty of  Hoi An. 

During our first trip to Vietnam we spent a few days in Hoi An, staying out Cua Dai beach. We loved this area and found the local people delightful. Hoi An is a world Heritage town, mainly due to its 16^th century Japanese bridge. This is very interesting and worth spending sometime exploring. The town has an old part with a number of significant Chinese heritage buildings and a section of shops that have a strong French influence.  It is easy to lose yourself in these areas as you soak up the history and enjoy the large number of interesting shops. The market near the river is very interesting as are all markets in Vietnam towns. In five years this town has grown and at the moment there seems to be a lot of local people doing quite well due to the tourist dollar. Between Danang and Hoi An there has been major development along the beach.  We stayed at a small resort called Bamboo Village in Hoi An. This was a hidden treasure of Hoi An, it was away from the main part of town but close enough so that we could walk into town. We also hired their bicycles for a day so that we could ride around Hoi An and explore it as we wanted. In the afternoon when it got rather hot we returned and cooled off in the swimming pool at Bamboo Village. We took the bicycles back out for our evening meal.  We used the reception staff, who willingly arranged a tour out to Cham Islands and they found us a driver who drove us over to Hue.

Ruth negotiating a pedestrian bridge with the Japanese bridge
in the background, bicucles are a great way to explore Hoi An.

The river is always an ideal place to spend time watching the life
of Vietnam. It doesn't matter where you are there is always a river.

The river ferry takes a load of passengers across the river.
What an enormous load.

Our Cham Island tour was interesting but a little disappointing. It included a walk around the local village at the main jetty. This included a visit to an old temple. From there we went by boat to the tourist beach which was just in the next bay. Some of the group elected to stay here while the rest of us went to snorkel amongst the coral. Sadly there was no live coral where they took the tourists. It was very disappointing to swim in an area that looked very dead and was obviously suffering from the damage of years of fishing. I am afraid that if this is indicative of the snorkelling and diving at Cham Islands I would not advise people to waste their time and money visiting here. We returned to the beach for an excellent lunch and a cooling swim in the sea. This part was good and it was interesting to see somewhere new.

We take the walk across the padi on Cham Island.

Fish drying out in the sun at the local market.

Hai Van Pass...to Hue.

This journey is worth the effort tha views at the top of the pass are spectacular. We got out and spent some time enjoying the view and taking some photos. Well actually Ruth took the photos and I practised because when we got back in our car I realised that I had left my memory card in my laptop and all of the photos I thought I had taken did not exist. At the bottom of the hills on the northern side was Lang Co. This beach looked really nice and I noticed there were a lot of accommodation options. I think this would be a great area to spend a few days. Maybe next time!

(Sorry Team No Photos from me for this stage of the journey.)