HOI AN DAY #3

So our flight (thank goodness we had booked a flight back to HCMC) back wasn’t until later in the afternoon, so we decided after checking out that we would start to head to the airport and stop off at “The Marble Mountains”.  I had read mixed reviews about the place, but in the end we were glad we went if only for this one picture. 

So we hiked up just a little ways (and by hiking I mean climbing these stairs…yikes)

and then when we would come to each small mountain with its own cave. Anciently the people built Budda’s in the caves and that is where people came to worship.  The first one we went to was the most spectacular because it had the openings up above and the light was hitting perfectly so that rays were streaming into the cave.  It was pretty spectacular. 

  

Also, along our way, we came across this creature.  The locals around us were totally freaked out and wanted to make sure we kept our kids away.  After reading up later about The Vietnamese Centipede, we were glad they told us to stay far, far away, although it’s not like we were looking to cozy up to it!

Audrey missed all that action since she was doing this:

It looked super uncomfortable, but she was totally konked out.  After visiting a few more pagodas and seeing some cool Budda statues literally carved out of the marble in the mountain, it was time to head to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport, our flight was delayed…a really long time.  We had arrived pretty early too, so I asked if we could get on the waiting list for the next flight.  We were the 2nd on the list, but we needed 4 seats, so it wasn’t looking too good.  The whole family was exhausted and we all fell asleep in the only available place…outside (it was hotter inside). 

We were able to get on the earlier flight, a mere 6 hours after we arrived, but at least 1 hour before our original flight finally took off.  We loved Hoi An, even with the struggles getting to and leaving from, but we were also excited to be back in HCMC because for our last two days we had a few fun things planned. 

HOI AN BEACH DAY #2

More beach fun today.  More cute pics of the kids. 



I don’t know if you can tell from the picture below, but there were a number of fisherman that were out rowing in what looked like a bowl. 

After the beach, we walked back to the resort pool and played for a while.  Our resort was awesome.  The pool and the grounds were amazing.  The buffet breakfast was amazing. 

Back behind the tree line in the first picture is where the beach is.  Notice in the hammock picture, Tanner was little heavy for it I guess!!!  After all that play time, Audrey was exhausted and when we set her down on the bed after getting her dress, she fell right to sleep.  The boys were having a grand ol time jumping around her, and she never woke up. 

(yeah, those are a pair of shorts on his head—that kid cracks us up)
Eventually, everyone went down for a nap and afterward headed into town for a late lunch/early dinner while it was still light out.  We had fun walking around some more and bought some ice cream and some fun souvenirs.


Those boys have always loved sitting on the steps of a porch since our days in our Virginia house.  Afterward we headed back to the hotel for bed.  The kids had fun watching a show before lights out. 

HOI AN TOWN BY NIGHT #1

After doing beach all day, followed by naps, we woke up and headed into town.  It was raining when we woke up again, but we decided to brave it anyway.  As luck would have it, once we got into town, the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful evening.  We were dropped off right in front of a place where they show you how they make Vietnamese silk.  It was really interesting.  They had the silk worms and everything.

After our tour, we took a walk down the streets and took a rickshaw around the town.  It is really cute and quaint with all the silk lanterns everywhere.  There are also HUNDREDS of tailor shops where you can have pretty much anything made you want for a great price.  We stopped at “My My” and what started out as just ordering a tuxedo for the Marine Ball for Tanner turned into a whole new business wardrobe.  I thought that only happened with women??!!!  Anyway, then we ate at another great restaurant and headed home for the night. 

HOI AN BEACH DAY #1

The pictures pretty much say it all.  The weather was great, the beach was great, the kids were great.  Good times were had by all. 

HO CHI MINH-HOI AN: Train Ride from *&##

So when were planning our trip, we knew that with a 9 day trip anywhere we were going to need some serious down/play time.  We had heard wonderful things about Hoi An…cute town with great beach resorts near by.  Sounded good to me.  The only thing left to figure out was how we were going to get there.  The choice was train or plane.  It was about an hour plane ride but a 13 hour overnight train ride.  We decided that we would go by train to Hoi An but fly back to Ho Chi Minh.  We were also told we could book our sleeper car the day of since they rarely sell out.   However, when we had our hotel call for tickets to be delivered, they told us there were no sleepers available that night.  We were super frustrated because now we really had no choice but to go by train, but we would have to sit in the regular seats all night long.  It was worse than we even imagined.  The train was disgusting, and the seats were super uncomfortable.  Not only that, they didn’t even turn off the lights in the car in the middle of the night, so we were trying to sleep with the lights on.  As a bonus, they played the cheesiest Vietnamese music videos and sitcoms on the train car T.V. until midnight.  I would have gladly been on an airplane for 13 hours compared to that.  Thinking back on it, the kids were actually really good.  Audrey would wake up and cry some in the middle of the night, but it could have been a lot worse as far as that goes.  Just as we were about to get off the train, I looked around and couldn’t find one of my flip flops.  It was NO WHERE to be found.  Some of the people around us started to help us look, and when I stopped at one point to think, some lady thought I was staring at her bag and she thought that I was thinking she had stolen my flip flop and put it in her bag.  I thought no such thing, but she stood up and grabbed my arm and started sternly talking and pointing me to her bag.  Then she opened her bag and pointed for me to look in her bag.  She was really mad, and I was shaking my head and hands at her that I didn’t want or need to look in her bag.  It was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back for me and I just grabbed my bag, search for my tennis shoes and put them on quickly before the train stopped and we had to get off.  I was fuming, and Tanner and I had barely had any sleep or anything to eat for that matter.  Not a good combination.  We got off the train and I grabbed our luggage cart and Tanner was walking behind me with the kids.  As we walked out of the train station, there was a huge group of taxi drivers waiting.  They all started shouting at us, asking where we wanted to go.  I was waving them off and just wanted to get to the curb, and I didn’t realize Tanner had dropped a little ways behind me.  All of the sudden these two taxi drivers started yelling at each other, and the next thing I know, they have both taken 1 piece of our luggage each and started walking towards their own cars.  All the other taxi drivers were laughing at these two guys arguing over who was going to take us to our hotel.  I was so ticked and I couldn’t communicate with them.  I started yelling to them to bring me back my luggage!  I hadn’t told either one of them that we would be going with them.  I was wondering why Tanner hadn’t already stepped in and said something and when I turned around, I saw that he was only just coming out of the train terminal.  I screamed for him to come and get our bags back from these guys.  It was an ugly scene, but eventually we were in a car and made it to our hotel.  We were both so irritated with each other by that point, we hurried and ate some lunch at the hotel, and we all crashed the rest of the afternoon.  When we woke up, we were excited to maybe go into the town, and when we opened the door, it was pouring rain outside.  It was just that kind of day. 

But in the end 1 bad day out of 9 really isn’t so bad, and staying in Hoi An over the next couple of days was exactly what we needed.  After we had arrived at the hotel, I realized we hadn’t taken any pictures on the train…I was actually kind of sad because it is fun after the fact to look at pictures and say “look what we survived!!!”  In the moment though…not so fun.  It was downright miserable. 

VIETNAM: HO CHI MINH CITY

The next day, Tanner really wanted to go to the Vietnam War museum.  I had little interest and we didn’t really want to take the kids so I stayed back at the hotel with the kids and they played in the playroom and swam for a couple hours until Tanner came back.  Tanner said it was pretty fascinating to see how they described the U.S.  The Vietnamese call the Vietnam war the “U.S. Aggressive War in Vietnam”.  It’s interesting to see how the ‘other side’ paints that time in history. 

After Tanner came back, we walked and found another yummy restaurant. 

(Tanner was in his element the whole trip—people were absolutely shocked when they would hear such a young American speaking Vietnamese.  He said it was rusty the first 1 or 2 days, but then he said so much started to come back to him.  People loved talking to him and he got to tell a lot of people how he learned the language so that was fun too. )

After lunch we walked to a park that was also a zoo.  There were elephants, cheetahs, lions etc.  We were able to get really close to the lions…a little too close, if you ask me.  There were some fun kiddy rides, but we had to wait a good 15 minutes for these guys to sweep the bumper car area.  They were in no hurry. 

After our walk through the zoo/park, we headed to a yummy ice cream shop called Fanny’s.  I had coconut ice cream with a crepe.  Sooooo good.  The kids were fans too!