A month in Hoi An

[GarrettM]

Also since I'm venturing off topic, and I love immature humour, here is a store I couldn't help but visit.
Turns out it was just a vintage clothes shop.

 

[GarrettM]

And another funny Vietnamese toilet sign for your enjoyment.

That's from the Reaching Out Teahouse, which you can read about elsewhere. Nice and quiet, except for my son anyway.


We talk an evening stroll through the Old Town after a Reaching Out visit. The weather was nice, the light was good, the vibe was pleasant, the kids were bloody painful, so we decided to call it a night.

 

[GarrettM]

By the by for those with more VN airport experience, would you recommend the fast track process for departure from SGN?

We fly home next Saturday with Vietnam Airlines.

DAD -SGN - PER, with a roughly three hour layover at Tan Son Nhat. We've read about immigration delays and how the fast track can help on arrival, but dunno if it's necessary for departure. Think we'll arrange it as an insurance policy if for nothing else. Our bags will be checked through, but anything that eases the stress when dealing with our kids is probably worth it.

I am looking forward to trying VN's international service in any event. Read decent reports of their Y class.

 

[drron]

I like taking pictures of gates around Asia. Some very interesting stuff.

 

[GarrettM]

Friday marked the end of our 3rd week in Hoi An, and we had a couple of things on the agenda. First off, making our own lanterns. Like most activities here there are many options. We went with Thuy, The Lantern Lady. Her shop, again, is down an alley in the old town. Honestly half the fun - at least for me - of these things is the little expeditions they require to find. This one I'll admit wasn't too difficult.

We opted for 20cm sized lanterns, at 250,000vnd each. Roughly $14. We all chose different shapes, but somehow MrsGM and I transposed our styles. It didn't really matter. She filmed most of the process, so these pics are largely hers.



The girl enjoyed it thoroughly, and also had hers completed well before the rest of us. The boy wasn't so enamoured, but he persevered with the help of Thuy. He has always been a fan of scissors so that part of it came easy at least. The class took the best part of two hours, and we all got rather sticky fingers from the glue. But once more we all finished with something of our own to keep.


Not sure how we'll hang them at home, with or without lights. That's a question for later.

 

[GarrettM]

Following the lanterns we convinced the boy to take a short walk along the river to where we stayed on our previous visit, Emotion Villa. Or more specifically the restaurant directly opposite, Song Thanh. I was hoping to see if the incredible beef satay I had in 2018 was still on offer. Sadly it was not. So we just got some drinks and spoke to the owner a bit.

Back then.


And now...


And a pic of Emotion Villa as well. I think it's had a little work done since our stay.

 

[GarrettM]

I forgot to mention, we did not try the sauteed frog with lemonglass. Too sharp for our palates.



The rest of Friday was devoted to downtime for the kids. Ipads, books, puzzles. Mum did some work and dad did some trip reporting.
But with the weather nice and clear it was time to tick off one of the supposed must dos of Hoi An, the sunset lantern boat ride. With a twist as we would not be releasing lanterns. We'd decided we didn't want to contribute to the eve present pollution ofnthe river. They say they clean up everything every day but that's clearly not true. And we're not judging the process, or those who take part. It's obviously a major economic driver for Hoi An but it's just not for us. At least on this night. What difference our abstinence makes in thr grand scheme of things I'll leave others to assess.
The ride itself, 20 odd minutes at sunset, was pleasant. I think it was 220,000vnd for the four of us.




After hopping off thd boat we were about to walked into Mayviva for dinner. Probably we should have gone to Mango Mango right next door. I got a quite good cau lao but all up it cost more than it should have. I shrugged it off at the time, but it does irk me. The girls ordered different rice dishes from the Vietnamese menu, but somehow we got charged for the "Western" fried rice. Also there is the location tax. The food was fine, it just wasn't value.

 

[GarrettM]

I'm not sure if I've bothered getting a haircut when travelling. Never been outlong enough to worry about it. But I can say the boy has. It was his Saturday morning mission. A short walk down the road, 100,000vnd, and job done.


On the way we noticed this new orchard which was installed across the road seemingly overnight.


Before a return to Nghe Cafe for another brekky overlooking the rice paddies.

 

[GarrettM]

Saturday evening we set out for another boat ride, this time with Captain Chris who also runs the Home Taste restaurant. Easy to book through him. He's well known and he didn't charge us for the kids. The boat took us out to the coconut forest, where we transferred to coconut boats to navigate the shallows, and had a bit of a show along with some other people on different boats. Got a lot of pics so just going to dump a few.
I'm sure since our last time doing this they've built a giantnew traffic bridge that has its foundations in the coconut shallows. A bit of a vibe killer but times change and things progress.
PICS!

 

[GarrettM]

The ladies driving the coconut buts are incredibly strong as you'd expect. They must do this a lot. The were trying to teach us The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh as went.

 

[GarrettM]

Of course there was the boat spinning experience. Gangnam Style is the theme du jour. We didn't think the kids would go for it, but Miss10 was quite happy to hop on. And once she had done it Mr6 simply had to join. I was too buy laughing, but MrsGM got some good pics and video, which you can see HERE of you do so wish.

After the little boats it was back to Captain Chris's vessel for a beer, and to enjoy the sunset as we pottered back to town.

They were big beers, and MrsGM was struggling, so again I had to step up and provide for the sake of the family.


The non-beer element of the journey was also good of course.



And the sunset, as previously featured in the VFMO thread. My photography skills and the phone camera don't do any justice to how impressive it was.

 

[markis10]

Some good pics there to stash away for republication at the 21st birthday bashes!

 

[Flyfrequently]

By the by for those with more VN airport experience, would you recommend the fast track process for departure from SGN?

We fly home next Saturday with Vietnam Airlines.

DAD -SGN - PER, with a roughly three hour layover at Tan Son Nhat. We've read about immigration delays and how the fast track can help on arrival, but dunno if it's necessary for departure. Think we'll arrange it as an insurance policy if for nothing else. Our bags will be checked through, but anything that eases the stress when dealing with our kids is probably worth it.

I am looking forward to trying VN's international service in any event. Read decent reports of their Y class.

Is DAD-SGN coming into their new domestic terminal @GarrettM ?

As slow travellers, we broke up our DAD-SGN- HKG-MEL with an overnighter in HCMC, downside of course was checking in with bags the next day.

The new domestic terminal at SGN, is big and bright. They have a free shuttle over to International - see AI summary in screenshots attached.

Good that bags are checked through.

As for formalities at SGNi, slowish, took us about 40 minutes to get through, not like on arrival which was well over an hour.
No difference for Y or J pax.

You know your (and the kids) tolerance level, if they don't do well in queues of 12 deep, might be worth investigating.

We went through mid morning to depart back home, arrivals was waaaay worse and would use fast track in that instance.

 

[GarrettM]

Thanks. We have arranged for the fast track. Clearly it's a rort, but sometimes a rort makes sense maybe. Hoping the terminal shuttle goes smoothly enough. At the end of the day VN ticketed it as one booking, and set the connection time. We'll get all our boarding passes at DAD and they'll handle bags. I'm expecting it to work out.

 

[GarrettM]

Been hoping to do a lot more walking during this trip. Done some, but as always things pop up to get in the way. But on Sunday the chance came and I took it. Pleasantly, Miss10 decided to join. We spent about an hour doing a little loop of the local streets.

Just down the road from us and someone has put their chopsticks out to dry.


A little vegan cafe near us. We never tried it.


And another vege patch.


Which reminds me, when we arrived I took some pics from our little balcony. Someone had just finished potting a bunch of seeds. Things have changed in three weeks.

Then...


Now...

 

[GarrettM]

Back the the walk, and there were a number of cool buildings to spot. Some of these would not be out of place along Perth's coastal stretch.


And of course more are being built all the time.


The purpose of the walk was to check out a couple small ponds and an exercise area I'd spotted on the map before we came. The exercise stuff and playgrounds were pretty rundown though. Not sure much attention is given to these things by whatever municipality has responsibility for them.
The ponds though, were actually lakes. Much bigger than I was thinking, and apparently stocked with fish, since we came across some young blokes trying to catch them. I tried to ask questions but they had no English and despite the joys of Google Translate I didn't want to hassle them overly.

 

[GarrettM]

We also stopped for juice. Exciting I know. Juice has been a huge part of our experience though. The kids have loved being able to get it whenever wherever. They may never recover going back to a life of less juice in just a few days.

 

[GarrettM]

Later on Sunday the girls had booked to see the Hoi An Memories show, which is held on one of those new islands they made recently. Apparently it's quite the extravaganza. But there was no way Mr6 was going to sit through it as it started quite late. So I took him to minigolf again. Such a simple and enjoyable thing for a kid. We followed that with... more juice!

And then back home to order another lot of butter chicken, because that's his thing. I did though splurge on samosas and prawn masala for myself. Zero regrets.


So a low key day from a travel perspective, but a highly pleasing day from a dad perspective. Separate fulfilling time with both kids, watching them enjoy life and do their respective thing.

 

[GarrettM]

Been a pretty busy couple days so going to try catching up a bit. Monday was not one of those busy ones though. In fact I don't think we did much at all during the day.
However MrsGM decided to do a haunted house walking tour in the evening. The kids were never going to go for that, so I took them out for dinner to a spot the wife went last week while we were in Da Nang.


Well outside the old town which meant car straight there and car straight back. Important because walking was definitely not on the agenda of the kids.
Food was decent. Not amazing but certainly nothing to complain about.


Got to chatting with the owner who had a little collection of Australian licence plates on the wall. One from each state. He also had a neat collection of international coins on display. Pre-Euro currencies from a bunch of countries as well now out of circulation Vietnam coins.


He didn't have any Aussie gold though, so I asked if he'd like one. Of course he said yes. So I donated a $2 coin that had ben sitting idle in my wallet for a few weeks.


I also had a newer 50c piece from Singapore he was happy to get his hands on, as he only had the older, larger model.

We had a nice little chat and it was just a genuine, pleasant experience that you don't get if you simply order food from grab. The kids got desert to keep them happy, and everyone felt good about life.

Across the road from Firefly is this joint, perhaps owned by a man named Phuc...


After dinner we headed home, the kids went to sleep, and MrsGM returned from her ghost walk. That ended up just being her and a guide. She said it was interesting if a little awkward. Tried to make it an early night as Tuesday (and Wednesday) were going to be busy days on another little side trip.

 

[GarrettM]

A mere 30 minute drive from Hoi An lies VinPearl the resort, and VinWonders the theme park. Through an Agoda deal we we're headed to both.

I think first some pics of the resort. Safe to say it's an upgrade on The Star in Da Nang.



Even the bathroom signs are classy.


We arrived at midday, half hoping our request for early check in had been approved despite the lack of confirmation.

It had not. But no matter the back up plan was lunch and a tuktuk to the theme park.
First we had our faces scanned, which then grants access to both the breakfast buffet and VinWonders.
We had to fork out for the lunch buffet though. Something like 1.5M VND all up. Good thing the boy ate THREE polony sandwiches then. The offerings were ok, and we all left satisfied.



And off we tuktuked to VinWonders.