Our stay in Vietnam is so long that I figured I’d keep the fans happy and write two blog posts. I’m definitely getting behind in these because of how much we’ve been doing so I’ll try my best to rehash the details…
Hoi An, Vietnam
After finding a stupidly cheap flight from Kuala Lumpur to Da Nang (I’m talking $10 cheap), we decided to change up our itinerary a bit again and head straight to Vietnam. The reason these flights are so cheap is because they really skimp you on carry-on baggage allowance. For example, our big backpacks fit the measurement requirements with room to spare, but they were required to weigh under 15 lbs. When packing for 2.5 months of travel, this isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Well, you better believe we put on half of our wardrobe in the middle of the airport, stuffed our pockets with as much as we could, and looked like glorified hobos as we walked through security. But hey, we saved that extra $30.
What was supposed to be a 2 night stay in Hoi An ended up being a 5 night stay, and that still wasn’t enough time. After a chaotic ride from the airport in the country where no amount of beeping your horn is enough, we made it to our home for the next few nights, the Tribee Kinh hostel. After a long day of traveling, we decided to take it easy for our first night in Vietnam, our home for the next three weeks.
What better way to start our time in Vietnam than a 4:30 AM wake-up call to watch USC defeat LA Tech?! The day continued to look up when our hostel had homemade peanut butter and honey buttered toast for breakfast. (After the security guard in the KL airport stole our most prized possession, a jar of peanut butter, this was a major win!) We spent the day exploring Hoi An’s Old Town via bicycles, which was historically the heart and soul of Vietnam’s trading industry. The town is a backpackers paradise, with colorful streets to get lost on, beautiful beaches, great (and cheap) food, and a fun night life with the most incredible drink deals you’ve ever heard of. Not to mention, some beautiful islands off the coast that are perfect for scuba diving… but I’ll get to that later.
Unfortunately we missed Hoi An’s famous lantern festival by just a few days, but we still saw our fair share of glowing lanterns being sent down the river by happy-go-lucky travelers, surely with wishes being made as they were released.
Although the bed was a major improvement from Langkawi, where we felt every single spring against our backs, the best part about our stay at Tribee Kinh was the social atmosphere. Not quite sure what we were getting ourselves into, we headed to the common area one night where the staff taught us (and 60 of our new friends) how to make a traditional Vietnamese spring roll. They were absolutely delicious, and so fun to make!
The best thing we found in Hoi An was our group of new friends and our bond over the game of sh*thead, a card game that brought everyone together each night. (And while it may not be Nertz, it gives the game a run for its money). We ended up playing this card game every single night of our stay here and gained a ton of new friends because of it.
The following day I made an exciting decision. I was going to spend the next three days scuba diving off the nearby Cham Islands to get my PADI diving certification! The first day consisted of the essentials, watching videos and learning basic scuba skills in a pool. Sloan, who already has his diving license, enjoyed his alone time by heading to My Són, a remote archeological site filled with Hindu temples that were constructed in the 8th century by the indigenous Champa people.
My next two days were pretty much replicas of each other. Each morning I woke up early, grabbed breakfast and was shuttled off to a boat to spend the day scuba diving. Luckily since I was just at the tail end of “high season” for diving in this area, I had my own private instructor, Anton. I spent the next two days with him, learning how to dive and experience an underwater world I’ve never seen before. For lunch we would head to Cham Island and enjoy a huge spread of food prepared by a local family for everyone to share family-style. Both days we spent the afternoon on the island before heading back to Hoi An.
Luckily, on the second day, Sloan was able to come with me and spend the day diving. At this point I had already practiced almost all of my skills, so we were able to dive and enjoy the ocean life pretty freely. We saw barracudas, trumpet fish, lion fish, a field of huge spiraled coral, and an eerie frog fish (look it up!) We descended to a depth of 18 meters (60 feet) and just like that, I officially have my diving license!
That night we joined our hostel’s pub crawl and got a taste of the night life in Hoi An. We discovered that a few of us were traveling in the same direction the following day, so we formed a group of six and stuck together. There was Nate, another American from Seattle; Flo, a German who quit his job to travel indefinitely; Cameron, a Canadian working in Australia; and David, the hundredth person we’ve met from the Netherlands. We all went out together and found what undoubtedly has to be the best drink deal in the universe. Here’s how it went: each person bought one cocktail and got another cocktail free, a shot for free, 2 bottles of vodka for the table, and hookah. All for the price of one cocktail each (which was approximately $5 USD per person).. Honestly, you just can’t beat that. We had ourselves a great night and a slow morning before setting off on our next exciting journey.
Hue, Vietnam
As I mentioned, we were very lucky to find friends that were heading in the same direction as us (for almost the entire 3 weeks we’re spending in Vietnam, as we later realized!) Our newfound group of Nate, Flo, Cameron, David, Sloan and I, aka the United Nations as we nicknamed ourselves, all decided to rent motorcycles and head north to Hue via the Hai Van Pass, supposedly the most scenic drive in all of Southeast Asia.
Let me just say it did NOT disappoint.
Blessed with another day of absolutely perfect weather, we excitedly set off for the day. Our first stop of the day, just outside of Da Nang city, was the Lady Buddha. The tallest statue in Vietnam, standing 220 feet tall, this pure white Buddha sits on a hilltop overlooking the city and the ocean that surrounds it. Clouds were starting to move in over the mountains, so we pushed on to keep up with the sun.
From here, our drive was breathtaking. We crossed bridges that split cities and oceans, rode along highways that mimicked the curves of the mountains, and witnessed unparalleled views of the ocean the entire day. It was SUCH an incredible day.
Our next stop was the Lang Cô Beach, a narrow peninsula with a coastline that was untouched by tourism. It wasn’t anything amazing, but a beach is a beach, and on a backpacker’s budget, beggars can’t be choosers. We grabbed lunch here before heading to Elephant Springs, a mountain-fed stream full of natural swimming pools and mini waterfalls. We bought our entrance tickets and, without any further instruction, blindly started following a woman to what appeared to be her home along the stream. As we were about to jump in for a swim, the lady started saying “my water, my water” in broken English and beckoning for us to pay her. We didn’t understand as we thought we had already paid the entrance fee, but after stupidly realizing we’d been scammed, we handed over the whopping 30,000 dong ($1.50… a steal). It was so worth it to swim in these incredible springs!
We made it to Hue with very little energy left and within five minutes of being in this city we narrowly avoided more crashes than we have the entire trip. I swear, there must be no such thing as right-of-way, or really any vehicular laws in this country. If there are, people surely could not care less to follow them.
The only notable thing that happened the rest of the night was during our nightly ritual of sh*thead, when Nate confidently declared “don’t you just love when you start a game and immediately know you’re going to win?” He proceeded to lose the only two games we played that night and won the nickname sh*thead until further notice.
As amazing as the day was, I don’t think anything could have beat how comfortable the beds were, the fact that they cost us less than $6, or how ready we were for a good nights sleep.
While the following day in Hue didn’t end up being very excited (our own fault for spending the entire day journaling in a coffee shop)… it definitely made up for it that night. Somehow, we ended up being in Hue on the exact night that they were hosting their first trial street festival. There was loud music, a stage, more street food than you could imagine, and a wonderful game of darts in which Nate defied the odds by being the first person to miss every single dart he threw.
After some tasty street food, we got suckered into happy hour at a bar called Brown Eyes by a persistent street promoter. Despite being the only people in this bar, we made the most of it. More drink deals! Buy 1 get 1 free, plus free shots whenever they felt like handing them out, which was often. Half our group played pool while the other half joined a staff member to play an interesting game of truth-or-dare Jenga, minus the “truth” part.
After some liquid confidence, the stage was ours, quite figuratively and literally. That stage I mentioned earlier? Well it was empty now, and for whatever reason we thought it would be fun to go on it in the middle of a crowd and make a fool of ourselves. Apparently the Vietnamese locals found a few drunk foreigners hilarious and trustworthy, and they started sending their children up on stage to join us. One man even had Sloan spoon-feed his daughter ice cream on stage. Some locals jumped up and joined us while others stood by taking videos, but everyone was loving it.
We were drenched in sweat after hours of dancing and decided to head home when Nate, Sloan and David got peer pressured into singing the world’s worst rendition of Hotel California. Like, it was painful. What a way to end the night…
Phong Nha, Vietnam
Well, the highly-anticipated trip to Phong Nha was finally here, and what do you know? Our entire group was heading the same direction again (minus David, bye David!) Sloan and I had booked our stay at the Phong Nha Farmstay MONTHS ago after reading about it online, and the rest of the group was staying at the Easy Tiger in downtown Phong Nha. Our hotel was in a very different setting; we were surrounded by rice paddy fields where water buffalo, cows, pigs and chicken wandered freely. Though a little more pricy than our $6 hostel in Hue, if you are looking for a truly authentic stay in Vietnam, this is absolutely the place for you. It is a stunning building with wonderful staff, great food, fun amenities including a pool and a nightly movie, and an invaluable, authentic experience in the remote Vietnamese countryside. We took the first night pretty easy, opting for dinner, drinks, and a showing of Forrest Gump on the outdoor movie projector. Vietnam is just like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re going to get. That especially held true today.
We rented bikes and rode through the countryside, dodging cows and the occasional muddy pothole while waving at the local children. We made our way to the Bong Lai Valley and found ourselves at The Duck Stop, one of the most interesting places we’ve been yet. Welcomed like royalty with ice-cold beers and freshly roasted peanuts, we were offered a tour we couldn’t resist. For $4, we got the following:
- Duck feeding – Exactly what it sounds like, but 10x more exciting that I would’ve pictured. As soon as we walked towards them, it was a symphony of quacks as they realized they were about to be fed. They chased us around the pen and ate straight from our hands (and toes?) After feeding them, we did as the Vietnamese do. Apparently throwing a duck into a pond is a symbol of good fortune in your future, and many farmers do this for good luck in their farming seasons. So, we did just that, we each picked up a duck and threw them up into the air over the pond. The ducks, to our surprise, ran straight back for more after being thrown.
- Donald Trump the water buffalo – Donald is a water buffalo that was rescued from being used as a workhorse in the jungle. Despite sharing a name, this Trump was very much a sweetheart. We actually got to ride this 1600 lb. beast straight into the river where he swam around with us on his back. He was a gentle giant if I’ve ever seen one.
- Lunch – Traditional Vietnamese pancakes and all the roasted peanuts we could want, plus that ice cold beer I mentioned.
- PUPPIES AND CHILDREN – We spent the afternoon playing with three of the cutest little puppies, and two adorable kids who just wanted to hangout with us.
After a while, we left our new favorite place and got a drink at The Pub with Cold Beer (yes, that is its name) before biking home in the dark.
The following day we reunited with the United Nation gang, and we actually found a new David! (His name was actually Nout, but he was from the Netherlands as well so we figured we would just call him new David. He seemed to like it.) Phong Nha is actually home to some of the biggest caves in the world, specifically the 1st, 3rd, 7th, and 8th biggest in the world.
We decided to check out the Phong Nha cave first, which was heavily used during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the “American War”) as a hospital and militia base for the Viet Cong to take shelter from American bombings. We rode a dragon boat into the cave entrance and followed the river deep into the dark twisting cavern.
Disclaimer: None of the pictures I took inside any of the caves do them any justice whatsoever. Like, really, you can barely tell what you’re looking at. So for that reason I won’t add very many pictures, but definitely look each cave up online.
After that, we decided to take the long trek to the Paradise Cave. We rented scooters for the 14-mile drive through the most dense jungle you could ever imagine. It literally felt like Jurassic Park, winding up and down hills to get to this cave, and the rain pelting down on us and creating clouds of mist just added to this feeling.
The Paradise Cave, which extends for 32 km (almost 20 miles) in length was AMAZING. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone could’ve ever found this. It’s in the middle of this crazy dense jungle, and the entrance is at the top of a mountain. It was only discovered in 2005, which makes sense I guess. We only got to see the first 1 km (0.62 miles) and even this was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. At its highest point this cave gets up to 230 ft high.. it’s incredible.
After paradise cave we got caught in another rain storm on our ride home. Completely soaked, we headed back to the Farmstay to shower and dry off. We had another night in while watching Heaven and Earth, an Oliver Stone movie about a Vietnamese girl during the war.
What should have been an exciting last morning in Phong Nha ended up in sadness. We were enjoying our breakfast when we looked at our phones and saw the news back home, The Las Vegas shootings. At a time where we are meeting so many wonderful people and seeing the genuine, kind nature of strangers who come from so little, it’s heartbreaking to see that evil still exists in this beautiful world. What happened in Las Vegas is terrifying and horrific, and it goes to show that no day should be taken for granted. It’s hard being so far away when a tragedy happens at home, but I’m grateful that we are surrounded by such incredible people in an amazing country at a time where everyone needs a reminder of all the good that still exists in the world. Sending all of our love and prayers to the victims, their families, and everyone else who needs a little reminder that there is still so much good in this world.
Holding onto that mentality, we tried to enjoy our last day in this beautiful place. We ended up touring the Dark Cave with our group of friends today. This cave is not your typical experience in Phong Nha. After a 1,300 ft. zip line to the caves entrance, we swam the rest of the way until we were inside. From here we followed a guide into the cave with nothing but a helmet and a headlamp. Soon into our walk, the headlamps were our only source of light. We waded through chest-deep water in this pitch black cave, winding through narrow caverns until we reached our destination: a mud bath. One cavern opened up into a pool of mud and all 20 of us in the group jumped right in. It was hilarious and weird at the same time but no one questioned it as we caked ourselves in clumps of mud.
The Dark Cave tour ended with kayaking and an obstacle course outside of the cave. Like I said, not your typical cave experience, but it was so fun. Afterwards we decided to go back to the Duck Stop and show all of our friends what they’d missed out on. The people here were so grateful that we brought our friends that they gave us free lunch and drinks. And I wasn’t complaining about seeing my favorite puppy, Peanut, again…
Everyone enjoyed themselves and the day ended up being a good one after all. A few card games and some happy hour beers later, we were on the night bus to Hanoi, where the rest of our adventure in Vietnam continues…
A Journal For My Journeys 