We stayed in a cute little hotel for around $12 a night. This got us ac, a balcony, western-style shower, wifi, and hot water. A bargain if you ask me. I believe the place was called Phuong Dong, but don't hold me to that. I'll look it up when I get home as I plan on rating all the places I've paid to stay at. It is also worth noting that it is now the low season for tourists here so prices are cheaper and you often get good deals not only on hotels, but tourist attractions as well.
We spent time wandering around town, lying around on the beach, and catching up on news back home. The go-go-go portion of the trip is starting to quickly catch up on us and our energy levels are dwindling fast. Not to mention it is hot as crap in the south so the heat of the day really takes it out of you.
You can also get clothes made here and I got two dresses (one for work and one for play) custom made for very cheap (around $35 total). The quality at the place I used seems legit, and the dress styles aren't too complicated so I can fix them if need be.
On the second day I was trolling FB and I saw that one of my close friends from uni posted a picture that looked exactly like the view from the beach I was at earlier that day. It turns out he was in Hoi An with some of his buddies so we met up for the day. It was great to see him, it's been almost three years!
Him and his buddies showed us some kick ass cheap places to eat. One place sells these amazing thin pancake thingys (not crepes) stuffed with shrimp, been sprouts, and mushrooms. You fold some lettuce in them, wrap them with rice paper and dip them in this sweet and sour sauce. Delicious! We gorged on them our last day before heading to Da Nang for the day.
Da Nang is a pretty sizable city. The big tourist attractions here consist of uber-luxury resorts that put up huge gates around there properties. This time of year they are literally empty. There is a lot of construction of new uber-resorts which, when the place is empty, seems a bit counter productive. They must make some serious cash though, because they are building more around every corner. We came here for the day for one reason: the Hai Van Pass. It is a canyon road featured in Top Gear (the Vietnam Special...Google it). They did it by motor bike and although I can't quite drive a standard bike, I planned on repeating the journey.
Thank goodness we looked at a map when we left the train station because it took us quite some time to find bikes, even just the ocean road. We locked our bags up (not for the faint of heart, the lady literally locks them together and away you go) and left the station. We wandered around until we found a road we recognized and set out to find bikes. We figured, like in Hoi An, there would be a ton of people by the waterfront trying to rent us bikes. This turned out not to be the case and we ended up convincing some hotel to rent us a bike (of course, they said that they wanted us to stay there first). We set out with a general idea of how to get to the pass. The pass is pretty empty these days, as trucks are not allowed on it anymore. Instead they take the tunnel, which doesn't allow motor bikes so you get the picture. We saw a couple of tourist busses, a few tourist cars, and one other couple on bikes aside from locals. The road was AMAZING...read: FABULOUS. They say it is dangerous, which I suppose if it were raining it would be, but I learned to drive on canyon roads, so I felt very comfortable the whole trip. There were more beautiful vistas than I could describe and pictures simply don't do it justice. It was one of those things that was completely worth the effort it took to figure out. Dad, you woulda loved it!
We went about 3/4 of the way on the road and headed back, as our gas meter wasn't exactly working and I didn't want to risk getting stranded. No worries though, we had trouble anyway. We were almost down the road and we stopped for some water and one last glimpse of the beauty. When we got back to the bike to get it started we had the same problem we had in Bali, the damn starter wasn't working. Luckily for us, we stopped at a view that was a stopping point for most car tours. We got a guide to jump start the bike for us and we continued onwards, making it back with very little trouble. I guess that's what the guy gets for not telling us that the gas meter was broken.
We had the rest of the day to kill in Da Nang, which proved to be challenging. It was hotter than ever, we both had parts of us that were sunburnt, I was tired from the drive, and we had about 7 hours to kill. Let's just say you could do this part of the pass with about 5 hours (not 12)...so if you plan on doing it, look it up on Google maps, rent a bike on the beach road to avoid the chaos of the city, and give yourself 6 or 7 hours before your train leaves. We decided to just bounce around from cafe (which means wifi and non-alcoholic drinks...no food) to cafe until we found one that had a good vibe. It turns out it is the one directly across the train station...not something you would expect. This place had a staff around our age working, sold some snacks, and had beer as well so it was a win-win-win. A waiter there sat down and had several conversations with us to practice his english. He was awesome and he was in university to become a tour guide. We enjoyed our various exchanges and he even gave us some free dried shrimp to try (surprisingly good).
We asked him about good street food and it was the first honest answer we have gotten here. We had fried spring rolls that were then wrapped with lettuce, sprouts and rice paper then dipped in spicy sauce. YUM. After dinner we stocked up on water and snacks for the ten hour train ride to Nha Trang.
We've been in Nha Trang for a day and we will be leaving this evening. It's a nice beach town, and we are staying just outside the city, which I would recommend. The beach isn't exactly super clean (although not filthy). If you stay outside of town you can avoid the harassment and see how the locals use the beach (only in the mornings and evenings). We were going to go snorkeling today, as it is supposed to be the best here, but we are running out of money and we haven't slept too well (the lights in the train cabin didn't go off...wtf). Yesterday we went to the hot springs and mud spa. It was a bargain. Round trip and the entrance fee costed us $20 for the both of us. We went around 3pm which was good because the place was emptying out for the day (not that it was too crowded anyway, cuz it's low season). We paid for the shared baths and such, but ended up getting private everything. That was awesome! The mud felt soooo nice and made my skin feel fresh and clean. Much needed after so much sweating and dirty train rides.
Today we leave at 7pm for Siagon (Ho Chi Minh City). We plan on wandering around the beach areas (even though it's a bit rainy) and getting some food. I'm a bit nervous for Siagon, as it's a huge city and people have said it's a lot like Hanoi (which I didn't like). However, at least there is more to see there and we will be spending the day in the Mekong Delta. Hopefully we don't run out of money, as we only have a couple hundred between the two of us to get us through Monday afternoon.
Time for breakfast! Still missing home and excited to go back to Tahoe in less than a week!
-M
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