The Golden Bridge

November 14th, 2024

The breakfast at the hotel is good but as you would expect, it is spa food which is healthy and it lacks the guilty pleasure aspect.  After last night’s culinary tour, I reminded myself that I should be having a healthy breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed out to Sunworld’s Ba Na Hills,  an amusement park sitting on top of the mountains not to far from Da Nang. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to make of it, I have never seen anything before and kept wondering, was this park made for Instagram?

We boarded a European built cable car that currently holds the world record for the longest nonstop cable care ride to the top of the mountain.  The ride up and down the mountain by itself was pretty spectacular with beautiful views of the jungle and at times waterfalls.   After getting to the park, we crossed the golden bridge, probably one of the more photographed attractions at the park.

Unfortunately, it was crowded, trying to get a decent picture of the bridge while on the bridge was a challenge.  The advertisements and YouTube videos that I had seen of the park always show the park with just a few people.  It was mobbed with people and some of them were getting pushy.

Although there were some amusement park arcades and rides such as the bumper cars and merry go round, the rides weren’t the attraction.  There was a French village, there were formal gardens, and they had a German beer garden that had Vietnamese employees dressed in Dirndl and Lederhosen. It was clear that these were not replicas but you could clearly see a building that looked like the Moulin Rouge and a cathedral that looked like Notre Dame.  Throughout the park there were various shows with performers.  I got the impression that this park was made for walking around and taking selfies.

Would I go back to this park?   The ride up the mountain was fascinating and it was fun walking around the park.  I am glad that I visited it but would I make it a point to revisit it?  Probably not!

The Golden Bridge

Hoi An

November 13, 2024

We booked two back to back tours in Hoi An, right after we finished our brief historic tour of Hoi An, we started our food tour.   Our first stop was White Rose restaurant where we learned how to make the white rose dumpling.  You can white roses at a lot of restaurants in Hoi An and those dumplings all come the White Rose restaurant.   The staff makes thousands of dumplings per day.  We got a demonstration and then taught how to make our own.  Let’s just saw our white rose dumplings were not as pretty as those being made by the staff, but we enjoyed eating them.

We then stopped at another ancient house.   The owner was talking about the house and how it had been in his family for generations.  He has a workshop and creates silver jewelry, unfortunately, neither of use were interested in buy any jewelry.  We did find a nice set of chopsticks which we bought and Sophon bought a couple of souvenirs for his family.

It was then on to try Cao Lau, a regional dish made with noodles, pork, greens and broth. Although it sounds simple, it is delicious.  This is a legendary dish, guides and guidebooks will talk about how the recipe of the noodles is closely guarded by a single family, that the ash in the noodle comes from a tree grown on nearby islands and the water used to make the noodles is from an ancient well.   There are even stories about the name, cao lau means “high floor”, where the more successful merchants sat while eating the noodles while keeping an eye on the streets below.   Who knows how much of this is real and how much is folk lore, cao lau is good!

It was then on to Banh Mi Phuong for a banh mi sandwich.  Banh mi is made with a crusty baguette-style bread, introduced to Vietnam by the French colonists, it is filled with a variety of savory ingredients including cold cuts, picked vegetables and sauce.  There was a line out front of Banh Mi Phuong’s to order but we went in, found a table and ordered immediately.   I wondered why this banh mi stand/restaurant was so much busier than the other ones we saw on the street and when I looked at the menu, there was a picture of Anthony Bourdain biting into one of Madam Phuong’s sandwiches and declaring it the best banh mi sandwiches in Hoi An.

I cannot say if these were the best banh mi sandwiches in Hoi An but the ones we had were delicious.   I also couldn’t help but notice the price, the most expensive sandwich was about $1.50 and everything else was about a dollar.

To finish the night, we stopped at a local coffee shop before heading back to our hotel.  I was stuffed.

250 year old house

Anthony Bourdain on the Banh Mi wrapper

Banh Mi

Our Cao Lau stand

Cao Lau

Tam Tam Cafe

November 13th, 2024

Hoi An is a ancient city in central Vietnam known for its charm and atmosphere.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I have been to Hoi An a few times and I have fond memories of walking the streets, visiting the shops and galleries, hanging out at the restaurants and sitting on the balcony of the Tam Tam cafe while having a few Tiger beers.   Unfortunately,  as we headed back to our hotel, I felt extremely disappointed.

Let me say upfront that Hoi An is a wonderful place to visit. It is full of charm, interesting shops and good restaurants. However, since my last visit 15 years ago, the area around Hoi An has been built up, there was a huge park/resort built on the island in the middle of the river and everything felt more  commercial and a lot more crowded.

Our first stop in Hoi An was a silk factory where we got a five minute demonstration on how silk is made, it was interesting but then suddenly, we are getting pressured to buy silk products as we are taken from one room featuring different silk products. Unfortunately, I see this a lot where you get a short demo and suddenly it becomes a high pressure sales pitch and if you do by something, the tour guide is collecting a commission as you exit.  As we left the shop, I pulled our tour aside and let him know that we weren’t interested in shopping.

We made several stops and several landmarks including a 200-year-old ancestral home, the Jinshang Temple, and a 17th century covered bridge built by Japanese craftsmen.  Unfortunately, our tour guide was constantly rushing us and was always 20 steps ahead of us. On top of that, everything was crowded which doesn’t make for great pictures, so I didn’t take very many of them but I did get a snapshot of the Tam Tam cafe as we passed by!

I realized that what I loved most about Hoi An was my time where I was just hanging out.  Unfortunately, we had a bad guide who was constantly 20 steps ahead of us and rushing us from one item on the list to the next.   If i stopped for pictures or to look at a souvenir shop, he would continue walking.  As much as I loved the Wellness center, I think I would stay closer to Hoi An so that I could spend time hanging out.

As an interesting side note, at point during the tour, I got the feeling that our guide wasn’t translating everything but rather giving us very short summations.  I opened up the translate app and was surprised at how well it translated things, and the amount of information that my guide was telling us.  The translate app isn’t the universal translator we see on Star Trek, but it is getting there.   It got me thinking as to how translation apps could impact the travel and tour industry.

November 12, 2024

We got up and had our last breakfast at the Park Hyatt.  We both discussed on how we were going to miss their hotel breakfast. After checking out, we headed to the Ho Chi Minh airport.  As we sat and waited for our Vietnam Airlines flight 126 to Da Nang, I people watched.  I guess the latest trend is to where crocs with hole fillers.   I also noticed quite a few young women carrying around stuffed teddy bears or stuffed animals.  I can see being able to get away with that as a teenager but in the mid-twenties, it struck me as being a little odd.

The flight was just over an hour long and it was uneventful.  We arrived in Da Nang, met our guide and headed to the TIA Wellness hotel.  As we drove to the hotel, the first thing I noticed was that the hotel wasn’t close to anything but other large resorts.  Marriott had three large resorts along with Radisson and Wyndham.  None of that had been there on my previous visit 15 years prior.   I also noticed that there wasn’t a village or any restaurants around.  I guess we would be eating most of meals in the resort.

Normally, I don’t book spa hotels, but the hotel was right on the beach and it included two wellness treatments, including massages, per day.  I thought it would be fun to do something a little different.    Unfortunately, it was pouring rain so we didn’t get to enjoy the pool or beach that day but we would later on in our stay.  The resort was very nice.  We had lunch a the poolside restaurant and Cau Lau, a central Vietnamese pork noodle dish which we both enjoyed.

I had to get a chuckle out of the bathroom.  When you opened up the door to use the restroom, the lid to the toilet opened up automatically in addition to a light in the bowl lighting up!

Afterwards, we went for a massage – I had the bamboo rub out and it felt good.