Vietnam 1

We started early Thursday morning for a 9:45 AM flight.  I had an excellent pesto chicken sandwich in the Fort Lauderdale Airport.  We flew into Atlanta and went straight onto our next flight to Seoul, South Korea.  This was when I discovered that I made a regrettable error.  I could have sworn that I had picked seats to all of our flights, but either this one didn't go through or I didn't pick it.  We both ended up in the middle of separate 3 seat configurations for this 14 hour flight.  We tried to find people willing to switch so that we could sit together, but no one would budge, including a parent and child that decided to sit on the two ends of the 3 seat section that I was in.

The 14 hours ended up going faster than I expected.  I had loaded up an ipad with movies and watched part of two movies before quitting, and watched two to completion.  One was a Korean film called Old Boy, that is highly regarded.  I found it to be just ok.  I also slept for around 5 hours.

Seoul's airport was very spacious and modern.  We had about an hour to wait once we arrived at the departure terminal.  I ended up ordering a chicken, vegetable, and rice dish from a nearby restaurant.  It was excellent.  The register had prices in four different currencies and they took the order in English.  I kept the receipt as my souvenir from South Korea, along with an advertisement card that was at the register.  If I remember, I will try to upload that later.  The flight was just over four hours, and luckily, our seats were together.  We both slept for the entire flight.

We arrived around 9:40 PM, local time, after 24 hours of travelling, to Da Nang..  Going through customs, once in Vietnam, was surprisingly a breeze.  The agent asked us no questions, processed our online visa, took our passports, and we were through.  We used the airport bathrooms.  In the stall was a garbage for toilet paper.  I had read about this phenomena when researching the possibility of going to Peru, and when reading about Taiwan.

We were greeted at the arrivals area by our English speaking guide, Lee, and our driver, Hien.  I am not sure that this is how to spell his name, so I chose to spell it how it sounded.  He does not speak English.  It was a forty minute drive to our hotel in Hoi An.  I asked Lee about toilet paper in the country, and he said that flushing it was fine and that some places still have the garbages as a hangover from older times.  He told us a little about himself and I asked a lot of questions about the country and his work as a guide.  He is 30 years old, married, and has an 11 month old child.

The hotel is very, very nice, with one of the nicest rooms I have been in yet on my trips abroad.  The air conditioning works very well, the ceilings are high, the bathroom is large(albeit with the ever annoying pocket door that leaves a gap), and internet on my phone is good.  Unfortunately, internet is a bit too slow for laptop use.  I imagine this has to do with the data compression used on mobile versions of sites.  Therefore, I may have to upload pictures to accompany this entry at a later date. (Edit:  This has obviously been done)  We went to sleep near midnight.  I was unable to fall asleep after waking up just before 5 AM.  We got out of bed at 7 and went to breakfast at the hotel.  I had an excellent dish of noodles and vegetables, along with a rice and egg dish.



We decided to put on some long pants so we could visit some local temples.  They were northwest of hotel, in the opposite direction of the more central part of the city.  Our first stop was the Chuc Thanh Pagoda.  In this temple, some monks were praying.  There were signs to take off our shoes before entering.  I silently observed for a bit before moving on.  A little further down the road was Chua Phuoc Lam.  The architecture of these temples is of a style that I have not seen in my travels so far, so I enjoyed it greatly.



On the way back to the hotel, an old woman walking, with a traditional Vietnamese triangle hat, walked up to us, said a few words, and put her hand up.  She was looking for a high five, and I obliged.  Maybe she liked that we were off the beaten path?  Who knows.  Stephanie got a kick out of it.  Stephanie wanted to lay down for a bit, so I went by myself into the central part of town.

A few steps outside of the hotel, a woman flagged me down and asked me where I was from.  This was followed by asking how long I was staying in town.  It concluded by trying to get me to come to her market stall to sell clothing.  I said I was not interested.  Once I reached the water, nearer to the heart of Hoi An, I found a market that smelled heavily of fish, with vendors everywhere.



I walked toward the old district that I plan to explore with Stephanie tonight.  I passed what is described on Google as an old covered Japanese bridge.  I walked through a street with many small shops.  At one point I was asked again where I was from.  Wise to this tactic, I said that I was not interested, and continued walking.



At noon, we met our guide and driver, to go to a set of ancient ruins about an hour away, called My Son.  These ruins are sets of temples created by the people who inhabited Vietnam before the current people moved in.  They used bricks without anything in between them, which baked together and kept the walls dry.  Therefore, moss did not grow on the sides.  Some attempts at rebuilding/renovating the temples have created moss in the new sections.



Once we had finished exploring the ruins, we sat down for a show with dancing in the style of these natives.  A little over 150,000 of these natives still live in Vietnam.



On our trip back, we spoke with Lee about politics, schools, family, and other topics of interest to me regarding Vietnam.  I asked him how much money would be a decent wage for a month for a family in Vietnam.  He said that $750 would be decent.

We are back at the hotel now and about to head out for the night.  Early tomorrow morning we go biking into the countryside to see nearby villages.