Lost in Hoi AN

Well, I am not literally lost, just a little lost with my pictures. Basically, we have been waiting for things to open, and a couple of days ago, they started to reopen after the TET holiday. 

So, in order, we walked (shopped) around three days ago and found that a lot of the community temples and houses had opened, but not the main tourist attractions. 

Plaques outside the community house 

 

A fountain in the community house.

Kerry at the happiness table. 

The alleys of Hoi An. The alleys give a respite from the crowds until a crowd comes by, and then three scooters. 

 

Hoi An is a historic shipping port. So there are replica ships in a lot of the community houses. 

So, what is a community house? It is a unique type of building that serves as the spiritual and social heart of a village or neighborhood. In Hoi An, these structures are particularly significant because they blend the town's complex history as a 15th-century trading port with traditional Vietnamese culture.

In the picture above, you can see incense coils that you purchase and light for your family members. These conical ones burn for weeks. In the middle are papers with the names and birthdates of your family members and ancestors. They represent the prayer for them being open for the life of the coil, which can burn for 2 weeks to a month. There were so many in this house below that my eyes were burning from the smoke, and I was outside! 

Two days ago, we did more shopping (walking), looking for the tourist attractions, and found a Folk House, another community House, the Museum, and a folk show. The Hoi An Museum opened along with a few more community houses.  

Folk Museum

Hoi An Museum has not too much. It is kind of sad actually for a museum.

This is a little game of BINGO that they play at the folk theater. Neither of us won. 🏅 

Yesterday, we took a pool day and sat at the pool all day. Today, we will ride our bikes to the beach.

Looks an awful lot like my last pool day

 Hoi An

We made it to Hoi An, an historic shipping community now a tourist/beach town. It is in the middle of Vietnam on the east coast. We have seen the leadup to Tet (Chinese New Year), and on Tet Eve, the fireworks were seen throughout the city. We took some walks, and yesterday we had a pool day. Today might be a beach day. We will see. Here are some pics.

Ringing in the Year of the Fire Horse

Kerry found her Irish Bar

We love our place!!

Our place in Hoi An is the best Hadana Resort . It is a resort/hotel which is great. We did our walk about a couple of days ago and have since spent a day in the cabana by the pool and got a massage. and road bikes to the beach, on the road which Kerry wasn't very pleased about and spent the day. We rode back through the rice paddies and that was a lot more chill. We might go back on Saturday by bike. So not much to post about. 

Soursop for me and Fig for Kerry

No photos from the ride, we couldn't peel our hands off the handlebars for that. 

Then the nice ride through the rice paddies. 

I don't even know what is happening here.

 Ha Long Bay

We took a trip to Ha Long Bay and did realize we were going to be part of the demonstration booth at the State Fair. We were told we were going to stop for a rest stop about 30 minutes into the 3-hour trip to the cruise ship dock, and suddenly... 

We were watching a demonstration on silk and how they make it and bamboo fibers. Such a bait and switch. I read what was happening right away and went to the restroom and went outside to wait for everyone when our tour guide came out and told me Kerry was looking for me and he also told Kerry I was looking for her and then swoop, we were part of it. Here are some highlights. 

Well, we made it to Ha Long Bay. We got on the boat with little problem and were able to just make out the karsts through the fog. Ha Long Bay is famous for its limestone karst landscape. These are steep, dramatic rock towers that rise straight out of the water. Some look like giant teeth, others like rounded jungle-covered pillars. Luckily, the fog cleared up the next day, and it was beautiful.

There are roughly 1,600 limestone islands and islets scattered across the bay. Many are uninhabited. The dense vegetation on top makes them look soft from a distance, but up close they’re sharp, vertical limestone cliffs. They are formed by erosion from the rising sea and the (acid) rain over millions of years. I guess the acid rain over the last few years. 

Well, we got off the boat in a little town and got to bike ride through, well, paradise. It was truly magical with the butterflies.

We arrived at the town where we were biking.

We were plied with some snake wine. Think dead minnow shots, only      with          a            snake . 

And then a little spa treatment. Think live piranhas...

Just listen to the shade Kerry is throwing at me.

I eventually could leave my feet in there for about 20 seconds at a time, but the tickle factor was the first time in many, many, many years that I felt the uncontrollable laughter from being tickled. Now I was fortunate that I could just lift my feet to make it stop, but wow...

We lovingly called our ship the Battle Cruiser.

This is what it was supposed to look like. They were in the middle of painting, I am guessing.

This was our crew that we got to know on the ship. 

Nice hot tub on the top deck. 

We headed back from Ha Long Bay in a private transfer to Hoi An. Which surprisingly is very similar to Hanoi, and we keep forgetting where we are. We are checked into an amazing resort and will be here for about 9 nights. Time to do some laundry, get a massage, and do some exploring.