Hello again, from Da Nang, Vietnam.
As mentioned in my last post things here becoming less restrictive, but many non-essential businesses are still closed, tourism still hasn’t picked back up and most of the public areas are still sparsely populated. However, we have had more of an opportunity to see a little more outside of our apartment.
First, we did a snorkeling tour of Cham Island. We were driven from Da Nang to Hoi An, caught a speed boat to a fishing village to browse and grab drinks, then taken to a reef for a brief snorkeling experience. Neither Eva nor I are strong swimmers, so we intentionally found an experience with life vests. We were kindly offered a grimy snorkel with dirt in the breathing tube but opted instead for just the mask. This wasn’t a very colorful reef; basically a blue reef, blue water & shades of blue fish. We had an hour to clean up, have lunch and hang out in some hammocks. The tour group was very entertained by feeding the monkeys. For this tour, Eva and I were seemingly the only people who didn’t speak Vietnamese, and our guide did his best to keep us informed, but we were last on, last off, and largely clueless about what was going on. I think it was great and made it seem more adventurous.
An observation: I don’t know how widely this generalization applies, but lines here aren’t really first come, first served. You could be standing in the aisle and people will squeeze past you. I’ve found we’re almost always the last off the boat or into any attraction because you let one person squeeze in front of you and next you know, you’re the last person left. At the tour to Cham, we were directed to a bus and before we knew it, the thing was packed floor to ceiling with people smiling at us like they hoped we wouldn’t try to squeeze in there. We ended up getting scootered to join everybody. It’s sort of endearing, actually, seeing these little old ladies demonstrate their line jumping magic.
Later in the week, we finally had an opportunity to go parasailing. Eva and I have booked parasailing from our first long-distance trip together, to our honeymoon to our trip to Europe and it’s never fallen together. But we found a great little beachside stand at My Khe Beach where the two of us could go for 800,000 dong (~$40USD). I was harnessed in behind Eva, we were told to run until we were dragged into the sea and caught air. They drove us once past the beach, dipped us in the water, then made a return trip to our departure point. After a soft landing in the salt water, we were fished out on a Jet Ski (my first experience on one of those as well). Parasailing wasn’t the most comfortable experience in the world, but it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures from these last two experiences because… water. We just didn’t want to bring anything electronic or valuable.
Then, last Sunday, we took a tour to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam. We were told that we were the first tour they’d had since February and that this would be a private tour for the two of us. It was great! We were driven 3 hours to Hue, stopping at the border between North and South Vietnam to see some old French buildings & bunkers. I asked our guide if he thought that the US involvement in Vietnam was considered helpful or good. He said it really wasn’t. The country had been in a state of war for nearly 100 years by the end of the US involvement. He pointed out tellingly that at least the French had built schools and setup an education system; their buildings are still in use and he pointed out several as we toured this day.
In Hue, we went on a Dragon Boat down a river to the amazing Thien Mu Pagoda, then went to the Hue Imperial City. The Imperial City was vast and several of the buildings were impressive, but we were told many of the buildings were destroyed in bombings during the wars. Next we went to see the Tomb of Khai Dinh whose legacy was not of his actiona, but was basically having an the smallest, but most expensive tomb in Hue.
Because of the effects of COVID on tourism, we felt we had to see some things before we left, expecting we were leaving soon. Because of difficulties arranging flights, we’d changed our plans to Dublin, and then to Croatia. Croatia isn’t in the Schengen area, so we’d booked flights from Da Nang to Frankfurt to Split, Croatia. The flights to Frankfurt have subsequently been cancelled. There are indications that flights will begin to open up again on June 1st, so we’re reexamine our options on Monday.
Vietnam has just offered anybody who’s been here < 60 days has a free Visa extension until June 30th, anybody > 60 days needs to renew. We expect to be gone before June 6th when our apartment reservation ends, but we can’t get any of our flights to stick. At this point, our strategy is to only book flights from where we are to where we’re going (not booking flights to a different flight), so that if it gets canceled, we’re not stuck with a flight we can’t get to. We’ll book our AirBnB reservations when we arrive. Right now, most AirBnB reservations will keep your first 30 days + Service Fee if you cancel. So, we’ll just find what’s available when we arrive.
It is a little aggravating not being able to make any definitive plans that we know won’t plan, but I guess that’s part of the adventure. Let’s hope we can soon get back to a world where you truly can take any road to everywhere.