02-11 Overnight in Da Nang (Hue), Tuesday: It was stormy this morning. Rain and chilly. Amazing what a change in weather crossing the equator. Our tour for today is tonight to Hoi An Ancient town. The town is only 22 miles away but takes 1 hour to drive it. This was a shore excursion via HAL. Several busses went and it was a mass crowd. I am sure it is crowded anyway but this was bad. Our guide was sweet and all, her name was Dong. She walked so fast only a few could keep up through the crowds. She did slow down after Helen (Distinctive Voyages) asked her to in a loud voice. Others echoed her request. We had about an hour to shop there. We did not shop but sat for a cold drink. The tour included dinner, which was very good, at a restaurant called Morning Glory. It was at least 3 stories and very busy. We had a brief time to walk around again and then we headed to the bus. It was nice to see such a night market. It rather reminded me of Disneyland, sans the rides, with the crowds and little toys shooting up in the air. There was also a great change in the weather. It was actually quite warm there. We dressed for the weather in the port so we peeled off our outer layer pretty quickly. We are overnight here so arriving back after 10p was not an issue.
02-12
Da Nang, Wednesday: Today we are here until 6p so we have all day. We started
with a late and small breakfast. Our plan is to take the HAL shuttle into town
and find a massage and a lunch. The drop off point at APEC park. It was a nice
location and we could see the Dragon Bridge from there as we were leaving. We walked
around the town and stopped at 3-4 massage places. No one had a massage for 2
available. We walked on back toward the shuttle point sort of giving up on the idea.
Sharon was tired of walking so we stopped at a little café. It is so eye opening
to stop in these cities. We sat at the little wood and metal table on plastic
stools. We intended on having just a beer but then decided to try “something.”
The menu was on a device that looks like what they use for payment with a
credit card. We opted for “Chicken Noodle Soup” – It was really tasty. It also included
an average salad plate size of mixed greens, which was have herbs and so
delicious. No dressing on the salad, which was good because you could indeed
taste the various items on it. I know there was some lettuce, thinly sliced
cabbage, cilantro, radish micro herbs, maybe basil, some fennel, and daikon
radish. The soup was very flavorful as well. Not a lot of chicken – I might add,
almost everything we have chicken in seems to under go a hatchet job. It is all
randomly hacked up with a lot of bone and little pieces of bone. One must be
careful when eating. The bowl also had a delicious broth, noodles, peanuts, and
some herbs. The total for our lunch with 3 beers, big bowl of soup and the
salad (which we shared) was approximately US$3. Hard to believe how they live
here. You certainly don’t see any overweight people! After that we walked on to
get back to the shuttle point. We came across one more massage place called Nhō
and asked if the massage for 2 was possible. The surprising reply was YES! What
a great massage we had and this one worked out to be US$8 each. We left a very
nice tip and we’re happy to do so. Now walking to the shuttle once more. We
didn’t have to wait long and off we went back to the ship. We got that nice
view of the Dragon Bridge when leaving the area. A quote about the bridge said,
“the Dragon Bridge has breathed new life into finances in Da Nang” –
interesting that tourist come to just see that I guess. Dutch dinner onboard
and the food was served hot and tasty. We missed the show but had a short stop
at the casino.
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