Wed. Jan 17 - Danang and Hoi An

 The breakfast buffet at the Sheraton was one of the largest, most varied that any of us had ever seen.  I met up with Katy and Bob and David after rushing down as my alarm didn’t go off.  We wandered the buffet which included many different types of Asian cuisine on top of Vietnamese.  They had an egg station, cereal, yogurt and beautiful pastries as well.  

After eating, we met up with Tien and Bom to head out to explore the Son Tra peninsula (also named Monkey Mountain on a 1965 map I found).  This is quite a large peninsula on the far side of Danang city.  We drove along the beach which is spectacularly clean and saw people in the water, taking exercise classes and doing dance steps at 7:30am.  At the far end of the beach, the cleanliness lessens as do the hotels and other tourist accommodations and the fishing boats begin.  There was a huge flock of small fishing boats and the round shell of a boat (like coracles) that they use to get out to their moorings.  We went through a quick rain shower and climbed up the side of the peninsula.  We quickly ran into a group of Rhesus Macaques.  They look cute especially the babies but they aren’t very nice.  

Fishing Fleet 

Fishing Fleet with Danang in the Distance

:)n

Rhesus macaque looking innocent

We continued up to the Intercontinental resort property and pulled over when Tien noticed movement in the trees.  There was a family of Red-shanked douc langurs!  So we got to see this wonderful primates again and even more closely.  The road used to continue up the mountain but a typhoon caused a landslide that blocks the road and has not yet been repaired.  We stopped at a huge pagoda and temple complex where the largest Buddha statue stands.  It is so large that when we were back at the hotel, we could see if from the beach at almost 10 miles away. There were a few birds at the pagoda and many many Chinese tourists.  The Vietnamese do not care for the Chinese due to their long history of occupation before the 1800s.

Red-shanked douc langur family

Lengthy fence made of chain and monkey statutes on each post

Giant female Buddha

Pagoda

We returned to the hotel and Katy and Bob and I decided to try the La Plage restaurant for lunch.  It is down by the beach where a large Indian wedding is being staged this weekend.  We had received letters in our rooms warning us of the pre-wedding set up that would be occurring.  The menu at the La Plage was completely different from the other restaurant - more international.  The food turned out to be excellent and we were all very happy with our choices.  We entertained ourselves watching a bunch of guys who were supposed to be setting up for this wedding.  We aren’t sure what the final look is supposed to be but think that the crew has quite a bit of work left to do especially after a couple of pieces of the metal substructure floated out when a wave came in…..   After eating, we walked down to the beach to check the temperature of the water and check out the vast swimming pool. The ocean temperature was 78 but the surf was quite rough and the red flag was posted so no swimming there today.

Pool at hotel from my balcony

Workers sorting out lights etc for the wedding

Huge hibiscus blossoms along side the pool

We met up with Tien and Bom at 3pm.  David is nursing a sore foot so didn’t join us.  We also met Tony who was to take Katy and me to tour Hoi An which is a very old town nearby.  Tien and Bob were going out to do some bird watching.  Tony, Katy and I were dropped off near the entrance to Hoi An - no cars go into the old part of town. We immediately found a couple of shops that were tempting but Tony also took us to visit some of the historic sites - a home that is a few hundred years old and has design elements from Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.  We also went by the Japanese covered bridge which is under renovation and the pagoda that had a wonderful dragon fountain in back.  Hoi An is now very full of tourists and we saw people from all over the world and heard many languages.  It is also known for its tailor shops and we saw 3 dozen such shops if not more.  I finally went in one when some of the fabric caught my eye.  The predominant fabric for women is silk and they had gorgeous silk prints but they also had some cotton and some cotton silk. I got a piece of the latter.  

Art gallery in Hoi An that had some intriguing paintings

Inside the hundreds year old house

Part of the fantastical dragon fountain at the pagoda

Boats on the river in Hoi An - the lanterns will be lit shortly

Women dressed in beautiful traditional dress

Tony took us all around and was hoping that we would stay around to see the lanterns all lit up as it gets dark but we were getting very tired and left about 5.  Tony had to get us a taxi to take us back to the van since the van cannot come in closer after 4pm.  

We had dinner at 7pm, did the list and we’ll meet up for breakfast at 6:30 with bags out the door then as well.  We are heading back towards the Laos border and will be at higher elevations for the next couple of days.  We’ve been told the that accommodations are “rustic” and we may not have any wifi while there.