Vietnam: Hoi An & Da Nang

Vietnam: Hoi An and Da Nang
27-30 Nov 2009
My travel companion: ABC: Aikheng, Boon & Cham

From the past journal in our first trip together, Aikheng requested that I made the journal more personal. I hardly mention names in my journal, to protect the privacy of my traveling companions, but I would make exception. Anyway, I only share the journals to a bunch of friends whom I really know in real life.

I’m quite disappointed with some of my pictures but the trip had been challenging as my traveling companions had the determination to put me into their pictures so alert I must had and shaky hand I would have.



27 November 2009

Our original plan to stay overnight in the airport was scrapped, so I had to take cab at around 5 am. Doing overtime often, hubby has contact of midnight cabbies, who waive call charges and operate in Mercedes, the more comfortable taxi. They are good because all the driver are friendly, helpful and can read passenger chatting mood. Some cabby would give you the whole load of political views while you struggle not to vomit because of motion sickness, some would tell you they are professional chef but opt to drive a cab for fun, even though they have certain disease that could make them drop dead anytime while driving. As someone who always avoid taking cab whenever I can, I’m grateful. Furthermore, the cabbies are really punctual that they always come 5 minute before the agreed timing.

Reaching airport around 5.35, we shared a very light breakfast in Yakun, then walked to the bus stop where hubby took his way back home. I proceeded to upstairs where my colleagues were already waiting. So everyone was on time or early.

This is the second trip made with this group, my colleagues and boss. Our department only consists of four people, and amazingly we click like..uh..clicker. I looked forward to the trip.

Reaching Vietnam, we proceeded to the smooth immigration process before collecting Aikheng luggage. Outside, representative from our hotel had already waited for us. The journey from Da Nang road to Hoi An took around 35 minute. Along the way, there were many serious upcoming development; Villas, hotels, resorts along the coast line. There must be some huge plan to develop this area in the future; we suspected there will be casinos and all supporting amenities.
We saw memorial tower, Marble Mountain, stadium etc along the way, other than that, Da Nang looked a bit deserted. There were no shops and few houses far and between.

Yellow bus!

Electric pole

Our hotel looked like a nice resort type of accommodation. There was pretty and clear swimming pool in the middle.

Our deluxe room was spacious, on the contrary of what I thought it would be. We booked one room because it can accommodate four of us, and it looks good from the pictures. The two sides of room were separated by shelf partition. On one side we had two single beds, the other side we had one king sized bed. We have one shower+toilet area and another toilet and basin without shower. Both are spacious.

There comes the surprise.

When we looked at the picture on the website, we saw the bathroom picture looks like it had been taken from outside, we could see the bath tub, basin and toilet. There is no way the picture could be taken from inside regardless how wide the camera angle. We joked about the possibility of the wall-less toilet, or open toilet. Okay, it’ not as bad a open toilet, but not better, it has gigantic gigantic clear glass to the bedroom. Height starting from edge of the bathtub to much higher above the head. We stood there mesmerized, alamak, what an inconvenience. There were curtains from outside, but when we tested it out, we could still see the shadows, in detail.
Four of us scrambled around and dragged the bamboo partition and cover it with one of the boy’s external bedsheet, we looped it around here and there, to make sure that we could enjoy our time in the bathroom without feeling paranoid.

Imagine what the shadow would cast..

Clear glass...really clear!

We asked the hotel reception about where could we go. Since almost half day was gone, we wanted to just hang around the town, using the best of everything, our foot. We walked out to the hotel and started to realize that we were hungry. Well, at least I was. We stopped by a small restaurant called White Rose, recommended by hotel receptionist. Apparently white rose is the name of the delicacy there. It’s just wanton or mini dumpling, not really sure how to describe. Anyway, this restaurant didn’t have menu, they only showed us a travel guide book in Japanese language. Eh? I think they only served two dishes; white rose and another, let me call it Vietnamese Pizza because I don’t know the name. It’s crispy triangular shape with topping like sauce, onion, prawn. Both were delicious, we started to appreciate Vietnamese food. I always thought that Vietnamese food was good from my previous trip to Hanoi. But somehow, Da Nang and Hoi An food are different. I couldn’t find the famous Vietnamee beef noodle, instead they served something like instant noodle with beef. There was no delicacy that I recognized and the taste was not fantastic, we also tasted quite a horrible food few distance away from White Rose where we had to wait for one hour plus for the food to be served. The uncle who owned the place looked very tired and pitiful.

Walking along the town of Hoi An, there were shops were selling repeating things; lantern, silk, tailor made cloth, antiques, bags, mama shop (provision shop), tailor, tailor, tailor. The road itself was only around 3 meter wide cramped with buildings on both sides. Old buildings and architectures dominated the whole streets. There were interesting ‘pergola’ roof consisted of barely there structure with numerous plant growth that gave interesting, rustic but fresh look. We didn’t shop at all, because none of the things were suitable to us. We were even pondering what should we do with the free shirt from hotel. So, each of us would get free shirt from one of the shops called Southern Silk, made to measure. Of all monkeys on earth, we probably one of those few who are not suitable/would never/oddly out of character to wear silky shirts. (Apparently the free shirts are formal/office type shirts…fiu.. it’s more relatable to real life, ha… I asked Aikheng to use my share since I still have so many ‘formal’ shirts I wore on my previous jobs and it only collects dust now that I’m working in my current office.)

We strolled around the wet market. We always stumbled to wet market. I suppose if we were to stay longer, we would start to shop for cooking. People around us walked, rode bicycles or motorcycles or Vietnamese cyclone. I like their signature bamboo hats that we could see every so often. I guess it’s much much more comfortable and convenient for tropical weather, too bad it’s only widely used in Vietnam. I wouldn’t mind wearing those in photography outing or sailing or anything that expose me to long and hot sun. As I don’t like to wear a cap in hot weather, bamboo hat would be light and ‘airy’, however, I would look like alien if I wear it in Singapore.

Nice thing when we strolled on the street was the music. Along the street we could hear music with good quality audio system. Sometimes the music sounded very sad and depressing also, depended on how we looked at it. We patronized one and only DVD shop in Hoi An, with not many collections to chose from. We would watch the movies at night in the hotel, to accompany our Scrabble routine. The DVD shop also sells pirated book. Yah, pirated, like photocopied.

Painting shop with beautiful creeper..

Wooden whistle seller

Colorful corner shop

Fruit seller

Love how this lady came into the background with Vietnamese flag


This is where the music came from along ancient road of Hoi An



Wooden stamp seller

Lantern shop

Let's burn VCD in the kitchen.


Going back to chronological story, I felt a bit fooled by the hot weather. I thought end of the year is going to be cooling in Vietnam, at least wind wise. But we had this shiny strong sun on our fore head and only a little bit of wind.

Beside walking along the road, we went to the Thu Bon riverside, a boatman approached us and offered scenic ride with his boat privately for four of us. Costing 150K Dong, equivalent to $12.5, it was a reasonable price for one hour tour. So we boarded the boat and I could feel our excitement.
The river was murky yellow in color, we saw rows of houses, shops, boats along the riverside, and even a grandma peeing into the river.

I liked how the wind blew, finally, and I always like taking boat. The murky river and wooden boat reminded me of childhood, back back back then. Every half a year I would accompany my grandma to visit a temple in far far away island; we had to take this type of wooden boat and sailed through murky yellow river. I always like the journey, eventhough I would be the loner kid sitting at the edge of the boat front, squeezed a fingertip of tissue paper and watched it subsided in the water. I never gave my grandma any noise or trouble, as long as I was within their sight (which was hard to miss in that small boat) she would happily chatting with her friends, those aunties with loud voices.

So, I think, I always like taking boat, as long as it doesn’t give me seasick. If I’m moody, throw me into a sampan and let me row it away, I’d be fine, I think.











We saw a small fishing boat with an elderly couple doing fishing with nets. Upon seeing us, the old man happily threw his net to the river and picked it up, over and over again. I didn’t take much picture because I was worried that they might not like it as I myself a picture sensitive monkey. Unbeknownst to us, they asked for money. If only I knew…

The boatman bought us to smaller river where we saw a bunch of birds on the tree and bunch of ducks playing in the water, some villagers harvesting vegetables, lots and lots of lonely wooden boat. The boatman kept pressuring us to take a longer route by paying a bit more, but we declined.











After that nice little getaway, we alighted at the same place we boarded and walked into the wet market.

We stopped by a local ‘alfresco’ coffee shop and had our drinks. It was mostly patronized by locals and full of smoking customers. The place was a bit dirty and other patrons were staring at us. Most of the time, we always saw foreign/Western tourists, there were not many close to none Asian tourists around Hoi An.

We sat there for a while trying to figure out how to walk back to hotel, circling through the longer route in search for… instant noodle and luncheon meat! Our almost ‘must-have’ menu, after we got spoiled by Kuching trip. Apparently, we couldn’t really find decent-sized convenient shops around, let alone supermarket. The only mama shop that sold can foods had can-beef only, and from the look of it, it might have been expired since… ugh…since…since?

The afternoon walk was quite pleasant, the weather was not as hot, along the way we could actually saw riverside again and some villager’s life.

We had our dinner in hotel restaurant, while waiting for it to be served, we played pool together. Cham went to shower; it was still a new idea to us whether it would be inconvenient to shower in the perverted bathroom, although we managed to cover everything.
I had seafood fried rice, the safer choice, and it tasted alright. The rest had steak, noodle and spaghetti (if I remember correctly) and they said it’s ‘acceptable’.

We closed our day early that day and soon all of us were in part of room belong to the ladies as that was the place with TV. We started watching the movie Aikheng bought, Twilight, New Moon and 2012. I didn’t intent to watch the vampire sagas at all, but it didn’t matter because most of the time I spent thinking about our Scrabble moves or read Natgeo magazine brought by Boon.
Aikheng bought us Scrabble dictionary each as early Christmas present. I have to say that four of us are quite a rare found. Except cards and lack of opportunity, my only ‘board game’ kaki were my cousin and my best friend from Junior High School, but I have never ever play ‘live’ Scrabble with anyone although I want to. So to find these three kakis who happen to work together and enjoy traveling together is quite a miracle. : )

Sorry for fans, Twilight and New Moon proved to be as lousy as what I thought it would be. I know the demographic of the movies is aimed at teenager, but I also thought that adults can relate to the touching weepy romance like those so-called Taiwanese or Korean or Fly Me To Polaris style. It’s not. Maybe because I watched it half-heartedly, the romance felt like forced and the actings were crappy. Everyone also booed at 2012, we didn’t get the special effect from the tiny TV, with the cliché story plot, nothing is left.

I didn’t know what time we slept, it must be not so late but not so early.

28 December 2009

We booked transportation to My Son, one of the Unesco Heritage that we wanted to see. It cost USD5 for the coach to go there and USD7 for coach+boat back to the hotel.

My Son means Beautiful Mountain, not the term for affectionate offspring.

After early breakfast in the hotel, we were careful not to eat any bladder provoking food, especially after hearing Aikheng umbrella related toilet break in the middle of Angkor Wat ruins on her previous trip to Cambodia, we decided to under-eat than to over-eat.

The coach was huge, and we were the first passengers. At first, four of us scrambled inside the bus, but were told that we have to sit together because we would pick up more passengers. I thought it was a bluff, there wouldn’t be so many passengers, but I was wrong. The bus was packed, we had to go from hotel to hotels to pick up tourists, mostly Westerner before we proceeded to the journey to My Son. It was not so fun waiting in the warm coach for accumulative one hour plus especially when there were late passengers. We could have play in the hotel, woke up later or anything for the wasted one hour plus. Luckily Aikheng lent me her mini-mini Ipod so I could at least listen to music. She has collection of Oldies, the 70teenth music which I like.

Anyway, along the journey, I felt like straggling the driver or tied his hand firmly to the steering wheel to prevent him from pushing the horn button. He horned every minute, to almost every pedestrians and fellow road users. It was loud and unpleasant.

Reaching My Son, we walked a bit of distance before the first ruin. The ruin looked nice, but there were so many people around that it’s difficult to take nice pictures. I skipped the tour guide explanation as I wanted to get away from the crowd as soon as I could. I found a nice spot behind the ruin and nice area where I could take the beautiful green moss that grew on the ruin.

Architectures, ruins, sculptures are not my main interest in phototaking, because I don’t really know how to get good shots and appreciate them. Anyway after a while I felt a strange difficulty to breath started sinking in. I don’t know what happened but after I sat for awhile and it was gone.

Boon was also lurking around in quieter area as he doesn’t like the crowd also. Aikheng and Cham were listening intently to our tour guide explanation. Me and Boon tried to sneak to other guide with much less people to hear his stories.

In the trip I realized I’m a lonely bench mania. I took a lot of picture of lonely bench in the past, I even made a plan to purposely take a bus and alight somewhere where I saw a very lonely lonely bench. But all the time I didn’t really know that I have soft spot for them. Looking back at the pictures of this trip and others in the past, I think I’m really a sucker for lonely bench, lonely boat, and boat front. I also love human in candid (not tourist) doing daily activities.







We walked a bit to other ruins, and after the third one, we got separated from the rest, walking through a ‘forested’ area where there were only four of us. I felt much much better without so many people around. We saw insects and wild flower but mostly it was just a peaceful forest walk which remind me of my beautiful uni.



According to Cham and Aikheng, My Son ruin is nothing compared to Angkor Wat. For me, I’m happy to be there and saw the history of the past that consists of Vietnamese, Javanese and Hinduism historical story. I’m sure Angkor Wat is much much bigger but unless I know the story of each and each, after a while, ruins look the same to me.

We took a rest and ate ice cream before boarding the bus again.
I guessed both guys dozed of, me and Aikheng just enjoyed the scenery, trying desperately to conceal the noisy horn. We saw many things along the road, two butterflies bang into our bus, a chicken ran under the wheel (I like to think it survived) and a man chose to stand next to the road instead of bush while doing his pee-pee. Alamak..

We alighted in the middle of somewhere and moved to boat. The boat was not bigger than what we took yesterday, we sat in rows and soon the crew started to serve lunch. I didn’t realize until that point lunch was included. It was a small plate of plain rice with vegetable and meat pieces here and there. Although it’s far from luxurious meal, it was quite tasty.

The boat journey was boring, because it never traveled near the shore so we only saw the same scenery, yellow water with patches of sand. The only ‘exciting’ thing to see was a small boat with a couple, the man was busy scooping water from the river. We thought they were sinking; apparently he was washing the boat? I prepared my camera since a distance away but it took forever for our boat to reach them. I guessed Boon had fallen asleep, indeed, the wind and nothingness was kind of forcing us just to doze away.



We stopped at a village where they do boat and wood crafting. Except the unfinished boat, there were some small shops here and there. After one small round, four of us already gathered near the boat, not knowing what to do. Aikheng went inside the boat to escape from the sun, and there of us ended up playing throwing rocks. It started from harmless ‘who got the furthest’ and soon the boredom drove us to more violent mode ‘let’s hit that boat’.. there were rows and rows of boat tied up near the edge of the riverside. Boon and Cham had their throw, Cham missed, Boon threw too far. When it was my turn, Aikheng asked us to get back quickly before anyone caught us as everyone was approaching. We ran to the boat like children caught stealing candy.



















Along the way back, again, there was a couple on fishing boat demonstrated fish netting and then asked for money.

We walked along the street again, and stopped by at an eatery when we shared various foods, including instant noodle with beef and chicken etc etc and each of us ordered fresh coconut.
Another shop we went regularly was the Southern Silk, for free shirt matter. First time we were there, we met a cute puppy. As cute as it was, it didn’t really interact like normal puppy. After cuddling it for a while, Cham also did the same, sometimes to prevent the puppy from running away, he pulled its tail. Ops..lucky it never lau-sai.. I suppose Aikheng is not interested with dog, she stayed far away and busy browsing for the tailor-made shirt.

It was quite a handful because if we let it down, it would run as if it wanted to cross the road. I’ve seen far too many dog accidents including my own; I sweated trying to prevent it from going out. Apparently the dog’s home was in the opposite road. He was ‘borrowed’. No wonder. We also met a very pretty girl who accompanied to chase after the dog when the rest were busy doing the fitting.

The puppy had fearful look and seemed to be scared with Boon. It went into serious resistant mode when I tried to pass the puppy to him. It leaned backward and backward and backward until there is no space, whahahahaha…I wonder why, earlier when Boon held it, it was actually fine. Perhaps the puppy realized the level of his monkeyness. Hi hi hi hi hi…

I felt relieved that I didn’t need to do measurement. It was actually alright, I just didn’t really like the touchiness.

Our subsequent trip to the shop, we didn’t see the puppy anymore. Hai..how I miss having a dog.
From the shop, we could take free shuttle bus back to the hotel although it’s quite nearby.
We hung around playing pool. Original plan was to go out again at night, but Aikheng didn’t want to. Three of us decided to just play pool and ate in the hotel again. I guess touristy tour is not a suitable mode for us, it’s tiring and I think kind of boring without the thrill of explore the place ourselves without whole load of bus. We were cracking our heads deciding what to do tomorrow, afraid that this would turn into boring ‘don’t know what to do’ holiday.

We explored a few option, Marble Mountain, as much as we long for the word ‘mountain’ we crossed it quickly from our option because it sounds like a commercial place like My Son, where you have to go with bunch of people, walking the designated path and herd to local shops. It was not everyone’s cup of tea. Hue city, transportation to go there would cost us USD$110 and it doesn’t look very appealing except few ancient architectures.

My Khe, Cham Island, Son Tra peninsula was in our possible list but again, those places look like commercial places. Hotel receptionists also couldn’t recommend anything to us but Hue City and Marble Mountain.

Finally we decided to take a one-way cab to Da Nang and just get lost.

So, that night, after shower, each of us took one corner of the king-sized bed with our legs expanded to various locations; side table, cabinets, chairs and floor. We watched Bruce Willis’s Surrogate, fondly referred as Surrogator as how Aikheng called it because that’s the best we got from watching the TV sideways.

I didn’t feel tired, but fifteen minutes into the movies, I drifted away to dream land. I dozed off probably half an hour before I got nose block. Nothing could relieve my nose, I looked around and realized that Boon and Cham were not moving, Ai Kheng was definitely asleep. I continued watching for a while because the nose block prevented me from drifting back to sleep. After a while, because of noise I made, Aikheng was awake. I dozed off again, and next thing I heard was Aikheng making noise…Euoooy!! Wake up! The show is over, everyone asleep, nobody watching!
We all scrambled to get up and ended up laughing, it’s either we were too tired or the show was too dull. We still laughing when we turned off most of the light to get back to sleep, it was barely midnight then suddenly there was a black-out. Luckily, the aircon and fridge was not affected (what a convenient) and again, after the laugh subsided, we drifted to dream land.

29 November 2009

Da Nang it is. First destination was Cham’s Museum. Probably Cham’s ancestor, probably not. However, it was quite so-so as all it has was big pieces of sculptures. Me and Boon are not fans of museum, especially sculpture, the one in Kuching was quite interesting with many local and traditional things to see. I guess Cham and Aikheng like museum as they were still go around taking pictures.











We went out and walked along Han river and my mood was picking up upon seeing the sky, water and feeling the wind. I felt a bit hungry, and not a moment too soon, we crossed the street attracted by a banner, recognized two words “Buffet” “50.000 dong”. He he..

Apparently, the buffet was for breakfast. After checking directions, we decided to have lunch there anyway.
It was our first restaurant kind of luxurious meal. We tried the asparagus and I think sweet and sour soup? Or what soup? I only remember it was good. Set aside the mispelling of crab.



The restaurant is classy and modern-beautiful inside. The meal was good too. From the window we could see the city of Da Nang, the bridge we intended to cross and Son-Tra Peninsula, too bad it looked like Son-Tra was too far for a day by foot.

We walked to look for ‘Supermarket’ directed by hotel receptionist. It’s not that we had anything particular to buy, but at least we had direction. So we started to walk through wet market, a miscellaneous market housed inside a building (Something like Pasar Kopro in Jakarta). Kids playing football on the open plaza, rows and rows and inner-tire shoe sellers. The slipper looked good, remind me of African Massai slipper style, by upon touching the slipper, the shop keeper would be too interested in you and patronizing, as we didn’t want all the trouble we just walked away.

The ambience around was modern compared to Hoi An. Electronic, bakery, toy, DVD shops were all over the place. After long walk, we saw big building with ‘Big C’. Aikheng recognized the Big C as a supermarket chain from Thailand, all of us were too eager to walk in the aircon building. We finally found ‘civilization’. Although we are not townies, I guess we desperately wanted to shop? Then I saw my favorite PetShop, it’s actually bag shop. Bags, wallet, apron, baby matrass in cute colorful design, yet the bags are hardy (my first criteria of bag). The designs are cute without being tacky, it’s also my mom’s favorite and my sis-in-law loves it also.

We made an appointment to meet each other again in KFC (there’s a KFC!) in two hours where I quickly browsed the shop. Apparently Cham and Boon were also interested in buying something for souvenir. The bags that I bought were much cheaper than Singapore. We spent sometime there and walked out with happy face, it’s weird that we felt happy to find something worth spending.

There were not many things to see in the mall. After scattered for a very short while, three of us met again and entered the upstair supermarket together. We had to surrender our backpacks and not allowed to bring anything in. Luckily they put the bag in the locker, I kind of worry to have my camera bag being tossed around. They didn’t allow Boon to put his pouch, but didn’t allow him to enter the supermarket without sealing his pouch inside a transparent plastic. Weird. We walked together from aisle to aisle looking for something interesting to buy. We finally found luncheon meat but it was our last night already, so we only bought some chewing gum. After paying, we went out and found Cham, who got separated inside. Cham told us he saw Aikheng and wanted to look for her, we made an agreement to meet at coffee shop downstair but before we made a step, we saw her. So four of us proceed to the coffee shop, Highlands Coffee, it’s a smoking coffee shop with Starbuck kind of pricing. Each of us ordered some coffee, and soon we hit the street again.

We dropped by the Pasar Kopro, when Aikheng and Boon bough some lotus seed snack. While walking past the stall, we kept getting molested; the shopkeepers would try to lure us by grabbing or touching our hands. It was not comfortable but as long as I walked with Boon, I was quite safe. Seems like the aunties like to grab him more. Ha ha… don’t know about Aikheng, didn’t have chance to ask her yet, but Cham was free from molestation. His theory is not to look interested with what they sold. But if a glance is what they consider as interested, then what should we do? Maybe we walked a bit slower, that’s why.

We hit the street again, soon we reached the bridge, walked to the traffic and to the big plaza where children were playing. It was hard work for the feet, but we had our spirit high and cheerful along the way. The best way to get around a foreign city is by foot, where you can see everything and be part of it. We walked to the riverside, the other side where we came from.

Han River in Da Nang

After work on the busy bridge - Da Nang

My buddies



Stretch of hotels along Han River









After having our walking fix and free-tourist day we hailed a cab to bring us back to Hoi An. It costed 300K dong, we passed by Da Nang beach (not sure which one) along the way. The beach looked good but it was crowded, anyway Cua Dai beach in Hoi An was in our ittenary tomorrow.
I loved that we used natural ventilation for the cab, felt like putting my head out and sticking out my tongue to enjoy the wind. It started to get dark; the circle of sun was around the same with Indonesia, where the sun sets around 6 pm.

We had been planning to see Hoi An and night and asked the cab to drive us to Le Loi street, the street we always walked pass. The lights at night was interesting, but we didn’t see any more life than in the day. We walked for a while before deciding to dine at a roof top of antique looking restaurant.
The restaurant looked rustic but cozy. We had a table in the roof garden but had to promise that we would leave the place before 7.30, as it had been reserved. We had more than one hour, unless they cooked slowly, we had plenty of time.

Aikheng had small chat with a table of two Americans next to us. (We saw these guys again along the street, in the shops afterward and in the hotel!) Again, everywhere we turned, it’s always Western Tourists or local. As it was our last night, we decided to order beer to share. All the while, Aikheng was the one who drank beer and the rest of us settled with coke or juice.
We cheered and wished for health, happiness and many future trips. Just as we were about to part our glass, Boon said ‘constipation’. He was talking about something else. I hope this one would not accidentally come true. Ha ha..

The beer was light and quite nice. I’m not a drinker, the last time I drank for fun was many many years ago. Our foods arrived, it didn’t taste as good as the lunch, but it was acceptable. We didn’t find good local food this time, seemed like the food here is very much different with Hanoi, so local mixed with Western food was probably a better choice.



Night view of Hoi An ancient street


We strolled around the night river again and decided to stop by Southern Silk to check whether their shirts were ready.

Tonight was the last battle day for Scrabble and although it was a much more hectic day than yesterday, we felt less tired. I think the more we active, the less the fatigue. Weird, but that’s us.
We re-watched Surrogator, Angel and Demon and not so funny Funny People while playing. We made instant noodle, minus luncheon meat. With Aikheng and Boon, we could be sure that there was always supply of instant noodle and hot tea/coffee, how nice. I was only running around trying to offer help but most probably I was useless.

The battle ended at almost four, and because we had to wake up early we decided to sleep.



30 December 2009

Beach day! No shower in the morning as we prepared to get dirty and went out early. We went out for breakfast and took shuttle bus to the beach. Original plan was to walk, as the receptionist told us it’s only 5km away. Seemed like their 5km stretched for so far we were grateful that we listened to Aikheng who insisted that we took bus.

Reaching the beach, we were, or at least I know I was, like a monkey being released from the cage. The beach was gorgeous, a gigantic, gargantuan, huge patch of fine brownish sand along the coast as far as you can see. Without wasting a moment, I took out my slipper and walked to the water. How I miss playing in the beach. Since picking up diving, I couldn’t remember playing in the beach anymore. To welcome the wave and let it carries you upside down.

Well, I couldn’t do so, we didn’t have much time and I didn’t want to get wet and scared everyone on the way back.

It’s nice standing in the middle of water as the wave crashing to the shore and pulling back again, it feels like you are the one moving. Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot and looked like over there Boon was enjoying it too. Aikheng and Cham couldn’t really understand the ‘shiokness’ and made fun of us by writing various terms and names on the sand pointing to us.

We ran, played sword, played rock throwing, tree bark throwing, sprint competition, drawing on the sand, collecting shell, meeting up with friendly dog, picking up rubbish, jumping while kicking the sand, following stranger’s footstep, football with coconut (well, I was the only one playing this because the rest were smart enough to know that it hurts to kick a coconut, but it’s not that bad, really ;p)

The younger ones were playing like there is no tomorrow as we were having fun, the sun was pleasant, hot but not sticky or humid, it was a perfect day. Our skins got burnt pretty fast. The older ones prefer to move around and taking pictures and both of them were not so willing to get their feet wet.

After a while, I think Cham and Aikheng were bored waiting for us as they started to slowly walk back, snapping pictures and drawing on the sand along the way. Boon and me were still busy innovating new games to play while at the same time walking back.

It was a nice beautiful morning.

We only spent around two hours plus on the beach as we were running out of time. The van picked us up, but except Aikheng, three of us requested for it to drop us half way near the paddy field, where we would then walked back to the hotel. We strolled along the road, went inside the paddy field although not for long, to see the snail, dragonfly, grasshopper, water buffalo, lonely boats and school of ducks. Every grass we kicked, there would be bunch of grasshoppers jumping around, so many of them. It’s a nice village feeling that not everyone care to enjoy.

I couldn’t take any picture as I left my camera back in the hotel. It was a pity but I didn’t regret it. Had I bought it with me, I wouldn’t enjoy the beach while carrying the bulky backpack that is not supposed to go in contact with the water.

The sun was shinning bright and it was digging hot into the skin. We started to walk faster as we were getting near the time for check-out while three of us still need to shower and did last minute packing.

After checked out, we still had sometime to go to town for lunch and short walk, then backed to hotel for a couple of pool games before taking van to the airport.

Overall, Hoi An is quite a sleepy town. If you plan to have relaxing trip, it’s not a bad choice but if you like free and easy activities, there are probably not so many things you can do. It could be a good idea to rent bicycle or motorbike and explore around the town and everywhere on your own, then Hoi An can be a much more interesting place. I’m sure it works for Da Nang too. It’s more fun to just go out and get lost. : )

Cheers for health, happiness and many future trips minus constipation.