Relaxing days in Hôi An

We spent the past few days in the beautiful town of Hôi An in central Vietnam. After a train ride to Da Nang over the Hai Van Pass, which offers spectacular views of the coast, and a ride on a regional bus that is not really designed for tall people, we arrived at our accommodation with a pool and mattresses with springs. Yay!!

The city is located on the Thu Bon River, the former Silk Road of the country. This is still evident everywhere today: there are numerous tailors and lamp shops that produce beautiful lanterns covered with fabric. These lamps immerse the city in a colorful sea of lights at night and decorate the small old town and its many alleys, which are full of tourists from all over the world. We couldn't resist and had to buy some lanterns :D The night market also attracts countless visitors every evening to buy typical products or enjoy local food at the small stalls. Of course, we also strolled through this market every evening and tried all sorts of little things that we had never eaten before. And if you think the French love frog legs, you have never been to Vietnam: almost every other food stall offers grilled, whole (!) frogs on skewers. But we decided to pass on that...

However, Hôi An has numerous delicious regional specialties to offer, so we decided to take a cooking class. This included a visit to the market, where we learned more about the herbs and spices of Vietnamese cuisine. Then we took a somewhat adventurous boat ride in a small nutshell to reach the remote location of our cooking class. In these nutshells, soldiers were supplied with food during the Vietnam War, but today they are mainly for tourists. Along the way, we stopped and caught crabs, which was not so easy with just a stick, thread, and a piece of fish. Our nutshell captain, who of course did not speak a word of English, celebrated every catch and enthusiastically high-fived us :D When we arrived at the cooking school, we learned how to make (delicious!!!) spring rolls, Cau Lao (not so delicious noodles), papaya salad, egg pancake, fish and vegetables, and mussels, and of course we got to eat them too. In a good mood, we rolled into the old town and promptly met two girls from the boat trip to Cat Ba again and ended the evening with one of the numerous happy hour deals.

The next day we went on a tour to the Bana Hills. We had high expectations for the tour to the mountains, where the French colonial rulers used to have their summer residences due to the cooler temperatures. Unfortunately, the overpriced excursion did not meet our expectations at all: first, we took a cable car, which is one of the longest in the world, to the mountains to see a golden bridge that is carried by stone hands (of the mountain god). This bridge is truly impressive and beautiful, but it is teeming with tourist who are eager to take a good selfie, even if it means causing personal injury. Afterwards, we walked through a poorly recreated French wine cellar where you could buy wine - unfortunately, not from France...which would be absurd in a French wine cellar... Then we continued to a theme park, the Vietnamese version of Phantasialand. Horror! The park was supposed to depict a typical European scenery, but every European present could only shake their head at the parades and kitsch and quickly went to one of the bars. However, the Asian tourists enthusiastically took photos of every tree, every building, every lantern, every stone... Cultural differences and preferences are clearly very different...

After this rather disappointing day, we decided to have a day at the beach. For 1.10€, you could rent bikes for the whole day and so we ventured into Vietnamese traffic - pure excitement, but we survived, even though we might have to walk around like acrobats tomorrow because of the bike seats:D It should be mentioned that here at the beach, two beach chairs plus a parasol together cost 2€ for the whole day - unimaginable for anyone who has been to Mallorca!

Finally, it must be said that TripAdvisor has become an indispensable travel companion: thanks to this website, we ate delicious avocado toast with whole grain bread and wrote a review for the café that sells it, and thanks to this review, we were even recognized! A new career as a food blogger is very likely :D We also discovered another regional specialty thanks to the website: Banh My, a Vietnamese-style kebab, very fresh and delicious!!!

Tomorrow we will fly to Nha Trang and relax on the beach for a few days before heading to Ho Chi Minh City and then to Cambodia.