Another day, and another country. This time it is Vietnam – a place that we never thought we would be visiting over and over again. Today's port was Da Nang, one of the smaller cities, even though it is still huge. We were here several years ago, and at that time we took tours to Hue and also to Hoi An, since we had two full days in port.
So here's some info on Vietnam. The population is 95.3 million people that speak Vietnamese. The capital is Hanoi in the northern part of the country. There were several tours here which included a 4 hour Da Nang by rickshaw and museum visit for $70, or later this evening, a 4 hour trip to Hoi An. Missed the pricing on that one, but it is doable since all aboard time is 10:30pm. Out of the area tours included a 9 hour one to Hue with lunch for $155, as well as ancient Hoi An for 7 ½ hours for $130. There are always private car or van excursions in every port, but too many to list. And the big one was a 2 night 3 day overland to Angkor Wat for $2200.
The best memory we have of our first visit to Nha Trang in Vietnam was trying to cross a wide street with a tsunami of motorbikes coming at us……none of them stopping. Our guide said the secret to crossing was to keep going, don't stop, and they will go around you. It worked, but it sure raised the blood pressure. Anyway, their favorite food is sweet and salty, sour and crunchy whatever they are cooking. Favorites are fish head soup and lots of veggies and everything rice. Pho noodles are a big treat for all.
We had breakfast as usual, but today we had the view of the water and watched as various types of fishing boats went by our windows. These vessels are wooden and unique to this country. Painted blue and red or brown and orange, they serve a purpose such as shrimping or deep sea fishing. We even saw one of those "bowl" shaped boats go by.
So we went off of the ship shortly after 10am and went through the little security shack to have our landing cards stamped. We will need to keep these cards until we leave the next and last Vietnam port of Phu My. Our temperatures were taken at this shack as well although we did not know it at the time.
We did not plan on booking any tours today, but hoped to simply take a walk to see what we could. Yesterday we had been told there may be a $10 bus shuttle one way to downtown Da Nang which was 8 miles from the dock. All that was provided were four electric golf carts that took the folks to the port gate….no further. This dock is a working dock and walking was not allowed. Even Henk and Christel, who were heading out on their bikes, had to put them in the cart and ride to the gate. There was no shuttle, only a ton of taxi drivers trying to get us to go anywhere. They do not take "no thanks" for an answer. It might take 10 times that for them to give up. Many couples will go to the furthest taxi driver at the end of the queue in order to get the best price for a ride. We saw that happen more than once this morning.
It had been mentioned that there may be souvenir tables set up outside the port gate, but there was nothing. What we saw was a bunch of small shops and bars and a whole lot of trash everywhere. Mostly broken beer and water bottles and chip wrappers, etc. A few other guests had walked further past the mess, but gave up when the sidewalk ended. Oh well, it was warm, but there was a breeze and some shade along the road, so we continued our hike.
It took us past several military facilities, mostly naval it appeared. Besides the big rigs from the port, there were lots of locals on motorbikes. Every time a taxi passed us, they beeped, in hopes we would wave them down. They even stopped and followed us until we finally said no thanks a dozen times. The map supplied from the ship was basically useless here. The map was more of the central city of Da Nang and not where we were docked. We still carry the maps with us because they also contain the port info, address, and phone number. The local currency rate is printed on it as well which today was 1 USD = 24.76 Vietnamese dong.
We figured we had hiked about 6 miles when we came to the outskirts of town and a number of small cafes, shops, and stores on both sides of the road. We had not gotten far enough to run into any hotels. The little cafes were just opening their doors, but we knew the cuisine was most likely not going to work for one of us, so we decided to turn back. Just then, a taxi guy pulled up, and we wisely negotiated a ride back to the pier with the help of our printed map which had the phrase "return us to the ship, please". The young driver had actually had a phone that translated English to his language. But the letter worked better. He was very nice, drove safely, and charged us appropriately. We waited at the gate for the golf cart, and rode the rest of the way back to the ship. Our landing cards were checked once again.
Even though we had brought water with us, the ice cold Cokes sure tasted a lot better. We did Dive In for lunch and relaxed in the room and outside on the veranda which had a beautiful breeze later in the afternoon. Around 3pm, there was a flotilla of the fishing boats passing us going in one direction. And we mean hundreds of them, which we guessed they may be going out for evening fishing. In the past, we have passed these types of boats off of the coast fishing with strong lights in the darkness. Hopefully we will see these tonight after we leave the port.
Captain Friso came on the speakers around 6pm, and gave the report for tomorrow's day at sea. He mentioned that there was a significant storm with monsoon-type rains heading our way. He hoped to be able to outrun it. So far, we have been lucky not to have had any severe weather, but that could change. The Captain had hoped to leave sooner than 10:30pm, but that would depend on whether everyone was back onboard.
Dinner was good with some nice appetizers of drunken? chicken (looked sober to us) and a tomato soup. Salads were Caesar and arugula for a change. Mains were the same…..sweet and sour crispy breaded shrimp with jasmine rice and plenty of extra sweet and sour sauce. They cannot serve this often enough in our humble opinion. We would also like sweet and sour pork or chicken. Hint, hint…. Dessert for one of us was a sliced banana with a small ramekin of chocolate sauce. A little wicked, but good.
As this is being written 11pm, we checked outside our veranda and discovered it was raining. Not bad, but definitely wet. Hope this is not the start of the deluge…….
Bill & Mary Ann
