Lodging and Beaches in Hoi An

Oh Hoi An!  You are so adorable and have so much to offer.  You were exactly what I needed after the worst train ever.

After staying at a one-star hotel in Saigon, we decided to upgrade a bit and go for a three star in Hoi An.  The Vaia Boutique Hotel was just delightful.  We arrived around noon, but that didn't stop us from immediately going to sleep after stuffing our facing with complimentary bananas.  Since we didn't sleep or eat well on the overnight train, we desperately needed sustenance and a nap.  Next order of business was bathing.  Who knew the train could also make me feel so very dirty?

I couldn't tell you way, but the toilet had its own glass enclosure

With all our immediate needs met, it was now dinner time (also known as 4pm).  We decided on the closest option available, Orivy.  When we walked up, the open-air restaurant was completely empty except for a couple of puppies.  We eventually found a server and a delicious dinner.  It was delicious enough that we went back two more times.  We may have also signed up for a cooking class there (unfortunately, a restaurant-family emergency cancelled the class, so we'll never know how to make Hoi An specialties).  Every meal we had there was wonderful, but each time we were one of only two tables.  

Restaurant puppies!

We had planned on staying in Hoi An for four nights, but ended up booking an extra night because we loved it so much.  We quickly learned that Hoi An had a lot more to offer than just good food and recovering from terrible train rides (although there was plenty more eating to come).  Let's start with the beach.  Next time we'll talk about the Old City.  

About five kilometers (or three miles for those of us who find kilometers to be nonsense) east of our lovely hotel was a nice long strip of sand called Cao Dai beach.  Included in our accommodations was the use of bicycles.  Neil and I made the easy trip twice, but on the first try we had to stop and ask for directions.  Our hotel staff had told us that the beach was only three kilometers away.  Again I don't understand kilometers, but we were pretty sure we had been peddling for a lot longer than that.  The hotel where we stopped assured us we were on the right track, so we kept on going.  Turns out we were only about two more minutes away.  After some more confusion over where to park our bikes, we had our toes in the sand and our eyes on the South Sea.  

Views along the way

Time for a short diplomacy lesson.  Back home we would usually hear this body of water called the South China Sea.  In these parts though, it's just called the South Sea.  China does a really good job of claiming a whole lot of water and islands east of Asia.  The surrounding countries tend to disagree with their assertions.  

Anyway, like most of our trip up to this point, the weather was super hot and humid, so the cool sea water felt amazing, especially after our bike ride.  We arrived early enough that the beach was still pretty empty, but the locals were ready for us anyway.  A couple of rented beach chairs with an umbrella cost about a dollar, which seemed like a worthwhile investment.  

The sand was soft and stretched for miles.  When you enter the sea, you can walk for about 100 feet before finding more than knee deep water.  Other than the occasional tourist on a rented jet ski, only small fishing boats occupy the space beyond walking-depth.  On our first outing, the water was very calm, but a storm out at sea brought bigger waves the second time around.  The waves weren't scary, just enough to make splashing around more fun.  After several hours, we decided the sky was getting dark enough that we should probably hop back on our bikes and get back to the hotel.  

Although weather cut our second beach trip short, our first trip was intentionally short, because we had very pressing business to attend to in town.  This leads us to our next installment of Hoi An coverage.  Stay tuned to find out what could take us away from a perfect day at the beach... 

Time to head back

An Ode to Bahn Mi

Neil and I may have a problem.  Oh but what a problem to have!  We can't get enough of banh mi.

Some may argue the French did more harm than good in Vietnam, but I think we can all agree they left behind some delightful legacies.  We have the French to thank for Vietnamese coffee, architecture, cafe culture and, of course, French bread.  While Vietnamese loaves aren't exactly the same as French (rice flour versus wheat flour), they certainly know how to fill them.

Banh mi (or banh my in the north) sandwiches can be filled with several meat and veggie options.  The most common form we've found comes stuffed with pork and usually mayo, tomato, cucumbers, lettuce, herbs, hot peppers, pickled carrots and radish plus various sauces.  Fried eggs and pate (thanks again to the French) are also popular options.

Our infatuation began long ago at a food truck on SLU's campus.  Unfortunately, the truck-restaurant shut down when the owner decided to go back to his law career, so we started making our own.  This is where having an Vietnamese-owned grocery store down the street really comes in handy (Neil's REALLY going to miss that store).  We made ours with pork meatballs, and they are yummy!  

Each banh mi is different, and they are not all created equal.  You really have to sample your way around.  We have taken on this grueling task in the name of research.  You're welcome.

Pork meatball in Hoi An

Shredded chicken in Saigon

Pork and pate in Hoi An

Famous banh mi stand in Hoi An

Pork in Hoi An

Six-pork in Saigon

                                                                             Famous banh mi stand in Saigon

Doner kebab banh my in Hanoi

Just say the word, and we will happily sample more.  We just want to give our readers a complete report.  

Taking the Crazy Train to Da Nang

Can someone explain to me why anyone thinks the overnight train is a good idea?  It seemed so promising.  Sure it takes hours and hours, but it's cheap and shows you the real Vietnam.  Right? ..... Right?  

Neil and I had read all about train travel in Vietnam.  As long as you book a soft sleeper for the overnight trains, it's supposed to be comfortable, saves you the cost of a hotel for the night and gets you to a new town bright and early when you would start your sightseeing anyway.  We decided to try it out and bought tickets from Saigon to Da Nang for the next leg of our trip.  We were ultimately headed to Hoi An, but the town doesn't have its own station.  The train trip took 16 hours followed by a 40-minute car ride from Da Nang to Hoi An.

We were instructed to arrive at the Saigon station an hour before our departure time.  Since Neil is always nervous about being late, we arrived about an hour and a half early.  As it turns out, there is very little to do in a Vietnamese train station for that much time.  Luckily, around 45 minutes before departure, we were allowed to board the train.

On these trains, there are four bunks per cabin.  Unless you're willing to pay for all four for privacy, you're going to have neighbors and spend the whole trip hoping they don't murder you in your sleep (maybe that's just me).  Below me was an old woman, and below Neil were three generations of Vietnamese women.  I didn't even know that was an option.

Neil barely fitting in his bunk

Since there's very little to do  in a tiny bunk, we each read for several hours before settling into shallow, restless sleep.  At one point though, I was woken up by the full volume of the family under Neil.  I was so hopeful this meant it was morning and it would all be over soon.  Silly me, it was only 2:30AM.  I have no idea why those women were awake at that hour or why they were speaking so, so loudly.  Did they not realize there were other people in the cabin?

An eternity later, I woke up again from my pathetic sleep to the sounds of ridiculously loud announcements in Vietnamese, which were never translated.  This time it was 5:30AM.  Does no one else want to sleep through the night?

The event that really solidified my dislike for the train came the proper hour of 9:00AM.  We had read online that there would be food for purchase and free food served on board.  Unfortunately, we never figured out how to find that free food for dinner.  By morning, we were starving.  Our cracker and water dinner really wasn't holding us over.  At one of the stops, a woman came and asked us if we wanted coffee and baguettes.  We said yes.  Then another woman came and asked the same thing.  Neil said yes again thinking he was confirming the order.  At that point, Neil left the cabin to try to sort out what just happened with the two women.  I'm still not entirely clear on what really happened next, but somehow we ended up with two tiny cups of coffee, four baguettes and a package of room temperature Laughing Cow cheese.  The problem was that it somehow cost us around $30.  One woman brought me the baguettes and Laughing Cow, which I assumed Neil had arranged.  Turns out he hadn't, and when I paid the woman, she decided she didn't need to give me any change.  Then the second woman brought more food.  When I tried to ask about the change from the first woman, woman number two started yelling at me in Vietnamese as if I had done something wrong.What just happened?!

At this point, I wasn't doing well.  I hadn't really eaten for around 18 hours, I had probably slept for around two hours total and some women was screaming in my face.  I just wanted off the train!!  Our stop couldn't come soon enough.

By the grace of God we finally arrived in Da Nang.  Luckily, we had prearranged with our hotel to have a car to pick us up, so we didn't have to deal with taxi drivers also trying to rip us off.  I was in no condition for that.  We just rode, mostly in silence, hoping to find a nice bed, decent food (at a reasonable price) and a shower waiting for us in Hoi An.  I can't tell you how happy I was to find all of them.

As you can imaging, I wasn't really in a picture-taking mood when we drove to Hoi An, but I did remember to bring out the camera on the trip out of town.  Since you stayed with me through my whining, I'll reward you with some pretty pictures taken from a bus window...

Bodhisattva of Mercy Statue on Monkey Island

Not amazing pictures, but a spectacular view!  

Da Nang's Dragon Bridge

Not our picture, but it shows the dragon better

Promise of better things to come in Hoi An

Saigon Misses

Now that we've gone through the things we liked in Saigon, let's talk about what left us underwhelmed.

First on the agenda is the Central Post Office.  It was built during the French rule and designed by Gustave Eiffel.  Now it's mostly a tourist attraction for the architecture, so it was worth stopping by. It certainly is pretty, but we mostly just walked in, looked around, took some goofy pictures, visited the gift shop and left.  It was far from life changing.

On to another less-than-impressive destination.  We also visited the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Art.  It's housed in a beautiful French colonial building, but the collection doesn't live up to the environs.  Much like in Cambodia, curatorial efforts just aren't a priority it seems.  While some of the pieces were certainly impressive and lovely, there was little if any information explaining the art or artists.  As a former museum employee, Neil was most offended by the exposure of the pieces to the elements.  Because the building doesn't have air conditioning, most windows were wide open, and the art wasn't protected from the air or sunlight, which can easily lead to deterioration.

Yes, that is tape on the top of the teapot

In the secondary building holding a smaller collection, there was some definite evidence of a party the night before.  The employees at the help desk looked like they were passed out, and there were actually trash and beer bottles sitting in one of the galleries.  Neither of us are opposed to a good museum party, but maybe straighten up a bit before visitors show up the next day.  I guess not every museum can be the Louvre (or even Saint Louis University Museum of Art).

They didn't even save any for us

Overall, I did enjoy Saigon (possibly because I willed myself to), but it certainly wasn't my favorite city of all time.  Because it is very westernized, we had very little trouble communicating or finding easily recognizable food.  On the other hand, the city just doesn't have much authentic culture, in our opinion.   Usually a city of this size would have a good number of must-visit locations.  There should be a tourist trail of attractions.  The best we saw was the backpackers district, which is full of cheap bars instead of monuments.  This isn't exactly what we were looking for.

We covered all of the tour book highlights in about two afternoons without much effort.  After that, we mostly spent our time walking around without any focus (which isn't a bad thing) and eating (which also isn't terrible).  I guess Saigon just didn't hold our attention very well.  Maybe we were spoiled by busy to-do lists in Cambodia, but we just didn't have the same connection with Saigon. Oh well.   At least the food was good!

Can't get enough Banh Mi

Pho: Breakfast of Champions

Weird, vegetable roll thingy.  It only looks like a donut

Saigon Hits

Before we start, I have to apologize for not posting in forever.  Neil and I have been living in Hanoi for a little over a month now.  We've been volunteering for an awesome non-profit (we'll talk about them later), getting to know our new city and neighborhood and catching up on sleep.  I'll try harder to stop being such a blogging slacker.  Now then...

Before leaving for our trip, I had read warnings on various travel blogs that Saigon isn't for everyone.  Some love it, some hate it, some are somewhere in the indifferent range.  Since Neil has traveling through Vietnam before, he knew ahead of time that Saigon wasn't his favorite city of all time.  Being more of a country boy, huge, modern cities just don't interest him that much.  I decided to enter with an open mind, but with these thoughts still lingering somewhere in the background.  I want to genuinely like everywhere I travel, but that isn't always the case.

Saigon is a young, vibrant city with a strong East-Meets-West feeling.  Staying in the backpackers's district only increases that impression.  Walking through our little alley showed a more sincere side of Vietnamese life though.  Stepping over and around vendors' stalls laid out on the ground felt authentic, but reaching the main roads brought different sights.  Neon, motorbike taxi drivers and sunglasses hawkers replaced fresh vegetables and raw meat being sold from neighbor to neighbor.

We spent five days checking out the sights and taking some time to relax.  As much as we loved having well-planned activities in Cambodia, we were ready to do a little bit of nothing and just take in the city.  Most of our outings involved food, but we did manage some destinations as well.  Right now, I'll cover the locations and activities we enjoyed, and next time around, we'll discuss what we didn't love.












First up is the Notre Dame Cathedral.  According to Neil, when he visited Vietnam in 2007, the cathedral wasn't open to tourists.  His tour guide had to convince a priest that Neil was Catholic and needed to get in (Neil didn't bother telling either the guide or the priest that he isn't).  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the cathedral now has official visiting hours and a posted Mass schedule.  I guess that "freedom of worship" thing is catching on.

The back of the church is meant for anyone, but the actual worship areas are exclusively for Catholics.  Neil stayed in the back to take pictures while I toured the alter and side chapels dedicated to various saints.  Although the building is in a classic, French-influenced style, the inside is pure Asian.  I can't say I've ever seen a Catholic church in America or Europe that featured neon in the chapels.

We didn't get a neon picture at Notre Dame,
but this grotto should give you a good idea.  

 Next up, the Reunification Palace.  To call it a "hit" might be a bit of a stretch, but we did enjoy visiting.  It added some history to our trip.  Those who witnessed the Vietnam War may have a better understanding of its place in history, but I'll try to explain it anyway.  Construction began in 1868 after the French had colonized southern Vietnam.  It was built on the grounds of the palace housing the former monarchy.  Since then it has served as a house of power for everyone from the French to the Japanese to various Vietnamese governments.  Most significantly, on April 30, 1975, a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through the front gate symbolizing the end of the Vietnam War.  The building has had a rough time through the decades (what with gate crashers, bombings and assassination attempts), but now it serves as a museum preserving the legacy of Saigon.

Finally, our absolute favorite part of visiting Saigon had to be partaking in the Back of the Bike night food tour of the city.  Because we are just super romantic people by nature, we decided our anniversary was the perfect time to jump on a couple of scooters and eat unfamiliar foods with strangers.  Our tour guide, and company owner, Fredrick and his local drivers/ co-guides picked us up at our hotel around dusk.  Thankfully, as the name implies, we didn't have to do any of the driving (have you ever seen Vietnamese traffic?!).  The locals drove us from food stand to food stand while Fredrick explained the history of the items we were trying and the owners making them.

Since Fredrick is around our age and originally from St. Louis, we talked a lot about St. Louis-specific habits and food plus Cardinals baseball.  I think we may have deeply offended him when we said we hate Imo's Pizza (don't get me started, it's just terrible!).  We may have won him back over when ate everything he put in front of us and when we each ordered our own banh mi sandwich instead of sharing.  Those heart-attach inducing, pork-filled, rice flour rolls are amazing!  These contained nine different types of pork, including meat floss, which isn't as terrifying as it sounds.  It's dried, shredded meat that is used to give another texture to the sandwich.  Doesn't that sound delicious?  Our other favorites we sampled were the pork skewers and green papaya salad.  Skewer man has been working this section of sidewalk for a dozen years, and the salad woman has been making her specialty for decades.  Her little stand is so popular now, she was able to open a tiny shop across the street as well, also only selling one item.

So now that we've covered the highlights, we'll talk about the lowlights and overall impressions in the next post.