Scott & Kerry's Southeast Asia Adventure: Hoi An

Hoi An was one of our favorite place so far! It's a beautiful little town in the center of Vietnam, squeezed between a river and the ocean. There is not much to "see" there, it's more of a place you "experience" by walking slowly through town, which still holds it's old character in the architecture, having a drink on the river, or relaxing on the beach - all of which we did. Hoi An came at a good time in our trip too - we had been sightseeing and doing non-stop from the beginning so we thoroughly enjoyed slowing down a bit. We also celebrated our 1st anniversary here with more upscale accommodations than we're used to right on the river with a pool and a really nice dinner and a glass of wine (special occasion as it's so expensive!) :)

The famous food here are the Wantons - shown here - and White Rose which is a small dumpling with shrimp. Both obviously really good! We got our first white rose from the restaurant that supposedly makes and sells them to all the other restaurants in town so must be the best.

We LOVED the beach near Hoi An...nothing super special about it but it had nice sand, blue waters and a nice breeze. The road between Hoi An and Danag (the main city in central Vietnam) are full of current and future luxury resorts but our little beach was quite with very few chairs and no restaurants on the beach. These pods are what the locals use to go out and catch fish. The mountains far in the background are the ones we road our bikes over (ok where scott road his bike over and i road in a minivan).

There was a family that owns the chairs which are free when you buy food or drinks from them. They bring it right out to you so it's like resort service without the cheesy scenery. And the food was GOOD and very cheap! ($2 for this plate, less than a $1 for ice coffee and fresh squeezed fruit smoothies)

This was taken from our motorbike on the way to the beach for dinner on the sand.

Hoi An at night. It is a known as the city of lanterns for good reason.

We arrived here for the Vietnam Independence (Unification) Day Holiday - the day the North won the war (also knows as the "American War") and unified North and South Vietnam, aka when they beat the Americans. I bring this up because we didn't realize that Vietnamese vacation to Hoi An so we had a hard time finding a place to stay. We were out on a little farming island about 3k out of town. Although a bit of a bike ride to the center, it wasn't bad biking through this cute area:

There were a few sightseeing spots we had to do but both were 1/2 day, slower adventures. The first was My Son which was the capital of the Cham Empire who ruled all of Vietnam and large parts of Cambodia before the French came in the late 1800s. We came back into town on a boat through some of the causeways that lead through Hoi An.

We also went to see the Marble Mountains - originally 5 mountains that poke out of the otherwise very flat ground, of course made of Marble. Within, there are huge caverns and caves that various generations have used and added too. The most obvious is building temples and pagodas on and within including carving Buddha statues right out of the marble within the caverns. The Viet Cong also used these caves and caverns to store ammunition, hide and even set up a hospital within. The crazy part about that is "China Beach", right in front of the Marble Mountains, was an R&R spot for American soldiers.

All around the mountains are tons of shops showcasing all sorts of marble statues - including the Lady Buddha seen here:

This stall in the Central Market became our go-to lunch spot...we ate here 4 times! The owner was great to us. The Mi Quang, specialty in central Vietnam, was the best here. The avocado shake from the stall next door was also Scott's favorite..."pure joy"