Since I do not have new travels to write about obviously due to Covid 19 wreaking havoc in 2020, I will take it as an opportunity to do throwback blogs about our previous travels. I will try to write as much as I can remember :)
Back in 2018 before I moved to Australia, Joel and I went for a South East Asian trip and visited parts of my country: Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. In Vietnam, we went to Ho Chi Minh and Hoi An and Da Nang. In this blog, I'll focus on what we did at Hoi An. Hoi An has always been a part of my travel bucket list because of it being one of the Unesco World Heritage Sites.
The nearest airport from Hoi An is Da Nang International Airport. Our hotel from Hoi An offered us a taxi pick up from the airport to the hotel which was great because we could not be bothered to look for the bus or pick out a taxi that might charge us an exorbitant amount. The ride was about 40 minutes for the distance of about 29 kilometres.
The check in was quick and we just headed out for a quick dinner outside. The next morning they offered us their complementary breakfast before we headed out. Yum!
Aside from eating, these were the things we did in Hoi An:
1. Marble Mountain- This is a cluster of five mountains including Kim Son (metal), Moc Son (wood), Thuy Son (water), Hoa Son (fire) and Tho Son (earth). According to the flyer we have received, this popular place of domestic and international attraction was classified as a national historical and cultural relic by the Ministy of Culture in 1980.
and caves in this mountain as well but we were lazy to really go inside, having seen a cave earlier
There are 2 ways to go back down from the mountain. One was obviously to walk back down and the other one was to take the elevator. This is really helpful to those that have sore legs from all the steps in and around the mountain.
We bought a ticket to get to the caves
We climbed up the very steep steps in this mountain/cave
The crowd on the way to the top.
Finally got to the top and this was the view.
Now time to go back down, bit scary!
Next, we bought another ticket to get to the water mountain.
Another set of stairs!! No crowd this time.
Found a map of the place. Did not know it was huge!
Walking around, we found pagodas of different kinds.
and of course, the view point
Down below, you can't miss to shop at the many stalls mainly selling emerald statues.
2. My Son Holy Land 1/2 day tour - 99,000VND
The temples built here were from the 4th to 13th century. We booked our ticket through the Sinh Tourist shop in Hoi An. We could have easily bought it online but we chose to physically get it from the shop the day before the tour. We originally planned to have the sunrise tour but it was not available. We then decided to just do the half day bus tour for 99,000 VND or 5 USD. You can read more about it here.
3. Walk around the Hoi An old town
We did this for 2 nights out of 3 that we were in Hoi An. Upon walking towards the old town, a number of stalls can be seen selling merchandise and souvenirs.
Slowly the lights of the lanterns can be clearly seen while walking towards the town. They were enchanting!
Lots of food places to choose from ranging from fancy to midrange restaurants in the old town to street food.
Tried out the fried ice cream :)
It was relaxing just to walk around the town while eating (and window shopping).
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