An early start and off to Don Mueang, Bangkok’s older airport that has been replaced by the new international airport since around 2006.
Luckily Sasipa has a relative nearby, so we were able to leave the car there and take a taxi for the last couple of miles.
It is her first time going abroad and first time flying, so I am hoping it goes smoothly.
The queues are pretty bad as it is an old airport stuck somewhere in the 1970’s. When we board the plane we have to get a bus rather than the tunnel. Sasipa seems unfazed at take off and not nervous during the flight that I can see. She is busy trying to take photo’s out of the window.
Fortunately Da Nang airport is modern and we disembark via tunnel, so Sasipa gets to experience that, but the queues at immigration are pretty awful again.
Soon we hop in a grab and are on our way to meet up with Lee at the motorbike station. They actually have 2 offices and the Grab taxi takes us to the wrong one. It’s my fault really and so I have to get a second grab taxi to the proper office.
Before long we have our motorbike and are cruising along the coast to Hoi an where we will stay for the week.
Sasipa can’t believe that they are driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and assures me that if she was to try and drive here she’d be dead in under an hour!
It is about 30 minutes to the hotel and I remember where it is from my last stay. This time we have a bigger room with a balcony, but the price is still good at about 4,500,000 Dong for the week (£150) The staff are very friendly and we agree to go on a guided tour of the town early the next morning. It’s free for hotel guests, which is nice, as are tea and coffee. The coffee is provided by a weird contraption that you brew each cup of coffee individually. Whoever designed it obviously had nothing else to do for the day as it takes an age to drip through into the cup. After the first time I didn’t bother again.
I try to plan at least one thing everyday and there is lots to do. Hoi an is beautiful, especially at night when all the old town and some of the new is lit up with thousands of lanterns. There are night markets and bazaars and numerous shops bars and restaurants.
Sasipa loves the Banh Mi, a French/Vietnamese baguette which originated on the streets of Saigon. It can have any number of fillings, but the classic is pate, marinated pork, various pickles and herbs. They really are delicious and I think Sasipa is contemplating how to sell them in Pattaya or maybe Koh Samui. She often asks the price of different goods in the shops or market to compare them to Thailand, some are ‘peng’ expensive in comparison and occasionally ‘my peng’ not expensive, so I am regularly converting currencies three ways.
Our first full day and we are up early for our tour of the town and I am delighted to see it is my old friend Bao in charge. We catch up for a few minutes, he remembers us going on a food tour and reminds me of the places we went, so that I can take Sasipa to them. There are a good dozen other people on the tour and we set off towards the old town. There is a booklet of 5 tickets that give to entry to some of the old buildings, temples and museums as well as a traditional show in the old theatre. I have been to these before, but they are still interesting and I had to try and explain some of it to Sasipa in my broken (very) Thai. Afterwards we went to one of the places that Bao took me on our food tour and had the famous Thit Nuong/Banh Uot (spring rolls)
Our first major outing was to the Hai Van pass, made famous by Clarkson, May and Hammond in Top Gear. For those of you who follow my adventures, you may remember I did this in December 2022 when on a road trip to Hanoi. On that occasion it was tipping it down and there was a thick fog. The views were rubbish and I was soaked. So I wanted to do it again in better weather and fortunately the sun was shining brightly and the views were magnificent. We stopped for coffee and to eat the Banh Mi’s that we bought this morning and then stopped again at the very top of the pass where there is an old ruined castle. Right at the top there was a bit of mist, but it only added to the atmosphere rather than spoiling the view.
We went out for a ride one day on the motorbike just to see a bit of the countryside, some rice fields and villages. To get to some of these places you have to cross several bridges, but as we were meandering around we decided not to take the big main bridges, but cross at other bridges that are shown on the GPS. The GPS, however, refused to direct us to them. In the end I forced it to take us there and the reason for it’s reluctance was soon made clear. While motorbikes can whizz over them, they are far too narrow for cars. They are incredibly long some of them and have metal slats as the road surface and make a real racket when you drive over them. One bridge didn’t even have sides and was a real dicey affair, although it wasn’t very high above the water. Sasipa held on very tightly at the back.
There is an impressive cave and temple complex just south of Da Nang that I didn’t visit last time, but looks interesting. It is very touristy and the centre of pottery in the area. After the usual parking maffia, we paid to go up in the lift rather than the steps, as most people did. It’s in the 30’s and sunny so walking up 100’s of steps didn’t appeal.
Once at the top the views are great over the surrounding country side, the city and the sea. There are lots of caves that had been temples. In one of two you could climb up through small openings and along dark passages, that led to more climbing and finally to amazing views from the summit. Sasipa waited for me below, but I showed her the photos I took. One of the temples has a hole in the cave roof and allows a diffused brilliant beam of sunlight to reach the ground. If you stand in the beam looking up and raising your hand to shield your eyes it almost looks as if you have been touched by god!
After an ice cream, we walked down the steps passing the odd hardy or perhaps foolish soul climbing upwards with frequent pauses in the heat and we were given a couple of small pottery figurines by the shop where we parked the motorbike.
Not wanting to finish our day out we headed for Monkey mountain, which is around the bay. The road to the summit is steep, but the motorbike appeared to have no problem. As we climbed a man walking downhill waved at us in warning. Not sure what he wanted we continued slowly until we came to a sign saying no motorbikes without gears allowed 2km ahead. This was annoying as I had an automatic, but we continued on anyway to see if there was anything at the cut off point to see. We followed up a couple of other motorbikes that were the same engine size, but geared until we arrived at the end point. The geared motorbike tourists asked if they could continue and were waved on. I stopped and parked. From here it would be a walk and there were several other automatic motorbikes parked here. The guard walked over and said we could go through if we paid him a bribe of 500,000 dong. (£15). Clearly there isn’t actually a problem in getting an automatic bike to the top then!
We went to the beach where you can hire a lounger and they bring you drinks and snacks. It’s a good place to relax for an hour or two or the whole day if you are beach person, which I am not. We also went to the village where they have the coconut boats and I asked for the same guy as he was really good last time. As I had a photo of him I was able to show the owners and they went and got him. It was a good choice as he was very funny and energetic and had Sasipa laughing a lot. We got some great photos too and had a refreshing coconut each a the end.
Hoi An is very lively at night and alongside the numerous bazaars and night markets are bars and restaurants with live music and many street food stalls. One popular item starts life as a sort of pizza, but on a crispy, but flexible tortilla/popadom type thing. You can have various toppings and then they fold it over so it’s easier to eat.
We frequented one or two bars in the evening that had some great bands and on one occasion stopped for a coffee on a riverboat outside of town. The views were great, the coffee less so on this occasion, which was a shame because Vietnamese coffee is actually really good. We tried our hand at being local vegetable/fruit sellers with the pole across the shoulder and the baskets balanced at each end. Sasipa looked the part, but I just looked like a idiot tourist.
The famous Japanese bridge is surrounded by scaffolding and is being restored and rebuilt. It is a total mess at the moment so I am glad I saw it in all it’s glory a year and a bit ago. There is a big orange lizard that lives at the end of our road. I guess it must be a pet as it is always outside of the same shop, but it certainly makes you stop and stare. The week was finished off by a boat trip along the river, enjoying the views, before heading back to the airport and Thailand.
I wrote most of this back in February, but never got around to finishing it, so the last bit was only written just now and my memory of the trip has become a bit hazy. So apologies for the lack of detail towards the end.
Furthermore, I never wrote about my last month in Thailand. I actually did quite a lot including building a car port. It was really hot when I built it as it was well into March and on the edge of the hot season. Most days it was in the early 40’s (Centigrade) so I wore a long sleeved shirt and drank lots of water. I borrowed a tall ladder for the job, but it weighed a ton. The ground was really uneven as well so it was interesting to say the least. As for the rest of the month, I finished rebuilding the motorbike engine and much to my surprise it started first time! We spent a day by the lake on our very own floating pontoon, complete with all mod cons and a slide into the water. I invited a couple of friends along too and a good time was had by all. Next post will be back up to date with my current trip.
