Traveling alone can be very great, you take as much time for something as you want, for example I spend more than 1 h just sitting at the street and listening to street musicians, which my friends would have found very boring. You have also very much time for yourself, you can think about very …
Day 13
Beachtime! When you’re in Da Nang you should definitely go and check out the awesome beach! It’s really clean and you just go and jump into the water! Or better said walk, it doesn’t go very deep^^ but the waves are coming towards you and some of them are really strong, so it’s quite fun to spend a few hours in the Sea. Also there are volleyball nets and frisbees you can borough from the bars at the beach. You can also get up in the sky by getting dragged by a motorboat while you have a parachute on, like you see on the picture. And jet-skis are available too.
Together with the awesome weather you can spend there a very nice day.
You can also eat something at the beach bars but I just took a little bit of money with me so I could just afford some French fries, the prices at the beach are a little bit above, but I think that’s normal.
In the evening I went this restaurant called “Lam Vien” which I can really recommend going to, the staff is very nice and the food was really good! I didn’t ate anything big though, just fried rice with salted fish and salted duck egg and for desert a flan cake with coffee topping. Both were really delicious and I think the rest of the menu is too. The restaurant was also completely full, not only with tourists but also with many natives, which is also a sign that this restaurant seems like a pretty good deal.
For Breakfast I was in a small stall near my hotel which was filled with locals. It looked like they were all working people coming there for lunch. The restaurant was a porper local restaurant where you would go up to the counter tell them what types of sides you want with your rice and they plate or pack it for you. It was super cheap and incredibly yummy! The locals all looked at me, was probably very unusual that a foreigner would come and eat there^^
Day 14
Today I ate a chicken noodlesoup in a Restaurant next to my hotel, as you can see the noodles are a bit different than the ones they used in Hanoi, the soup itself tasted a little bit different, a little fresher I think.
Next I went to the Cham Museum in the city. It’s a small museum about many statues they found buried in the ground. For 30k VND ( ~1,20$) it’s nice to see them, not really a must, but if you have 15-30 minutes time go ahead and check it out.
Almost the rest of the day I wandered around the city with no real destination and looked at all the small market stands. I went for a break in the Wind Café which was very calm and nice. I then walked to the river that divides the city and watched it at the nighttime, it’s really beautiful with all the light mirroring in the water and at the street lights there are small speakers which play calm music, which gives it a even nicer and relaxing touch.
I finished the day with some fried noodles at the same place I had breakfast. Those noodles were also different, they were almost transparent and had a little different texture than the white ones, a tiny bit more chewie, but anyways very tasty! 😋
Day 16
Today I met with a motorcycle-driver who drove me also last night, we wrote on Facebook and he was kinda my “personal” driver for today^^
When I walked out of the hotel a woman asked me if I want to go and visit her store, where I could get some good clothes. So I went there and it was a store for suits and stuff, after some negotiation about the price we agreed on ~ 100$ for two tailored Shirts and one full tailored suit. I can pick them up tomorrow afternoon. That’s not just incredibly fast but also pretty cheap! I hope the quality is also good, but I think it will be good, there was a guestbook with many reviews in different languages who all wrote that this Tailor makes a good job, so let’s see.
Scenes from the motorbike rides today
After that I bought some souvenirs for my friends and family back home and went then to a restaurant called “Blue Dragon” at the small river at the Market. I ordered a fried duck with lemongrass and ginger and a mango lassi, which is not really Vietnamese but holy shit was it good, I had really a LOT of Mango lassi in my life and this one was really one of the best I ever drank, it was freshly made and tasted so intense of fresh Mango 😍
After this good meal, Bon, my driver, took me to the Terracotta park. I didn’t went inside because he meant he can show me everything without a ticket. I think I missed some things but for that he went with me directly to the potterers and I could see how all the things were made and I could speak a little with them, so it was fine.
Bon then had something to do and I went to a café and waited for him. After about 15 mins he took me to the beach and I stay there some time and enjoyed the last glances of the sun before it went down. The beach was fuller than the one in Da Nang but it was still very nice. I didn’t jumped in the ocean, although I would have really liked to do that, but sadly I had nothing to change with me. I think, by seeing the others in the water, the ground was much deeper than in Da Nang, there you could stand in the whole area and the water would just go to your hips.
On the way to the beach we stopped at a place called the vegetable village, which is a big area where many vegetables and greens are grown, Bon showed me the different greens and I could also try them fresh from the ground, awesome! There were greens like Thai Basil, rosemary(?), Salad, chives and many more. It was really nice to see and try them 🙂
Before Bon dropped me at my hotel we went to his house and he introduced me to his family, he has four children, they and his wife were all very friendly and it was nice to really see a Vietnamese family 🙂
In the evening I went to the food festival again and ate some high-class cotlett from Russia and an really authentic and awesome Lamb Curry from India 😋😍
If you love food and you’re accidentally in Vietnam between the 20.-27. March in Vietnam you should definitely go to Hoi An and check it out! There’s also a live show with music and lights and everything.
After watching this show a little bit I went for a beer and a place to sit in a bar and loaded my smartphone so I had enough battery to find my way home with Google maps. If you’re traveling you should really take a power bank with you so you can load your phone even if there are no plugs around. It can sometimes really save you from running out of battery which happens pretty easily when you’re taking many pictures and using Google maps very much^^
Also when you’re in Vietnam you should definitely get a Sim card at the airport or somewhere else, it’s so cheap! Freaking 9$ for a whole month unlimited high-speed Internet *-*
If that would exist in my home county…
Oh yeah, the bread that you see is a fried baguette, the woman said there was meat in it but I didn’t find any^^ pretty tasty though!
Day 24
Today we decided that we wanted to do a short tour to the Thác Dray Nur waterfall very near of Buon Ma Thuot. After a breakfast noodlesoup and a coffee we went back to the hotel to grab our stuff and go to the waterfall.
Sadly after a few minutes into the trip, the back wheel of one of the motorbikes felt strange and we had to get repaired. We waited on the side of the road, while two of us took the motorbike and searched for a mechanic. Luckily they found only like half an hour or 45 mins but not longer. Good thing, that the waterfall was so near, so it was no problem timewise.
To get to the waterfall you have to buy a ticket for 30k which is alright, considering there’s also a free coffee combined with the tickets^^The view there was amazing! Such a beautiful scenery and you can go everywhere, exploring all the small paths that are around and chill at the water on some stones and just enjoy the nature. The picturesdefinitely speak for themselves but you should really just go there by yourself and enjoy the view with your own eyes. Can really recommend to go there! Also because it’s really not far away from Buon Ma Thuot and you could actually combine it with another activity on that day.
Im the evening when we were back we went to search something to eat and for real accidentally ate the same dinner a third time in a row xD but again at another place. And damn it really tastes good! 😅😋
Day 25
Today we did not really anything except drinking coffee, eating and sitting somewhere and talking, somehow we were all pretty tired^^
I bought some local ground coffee, in my guidebook stood, that Buon Ma Thuot has not just one of the best coffees, but also one of the cheapest. And it’s true, I got 250g for 50k which are a little more than 2$.
And yeah I know, this getting mad right now, the fourth time in row we ate the same dinner xD still good though^^
Day 26
Today I drove to Ho Chi Minh City which took almost the whole day. It costed me 240k but I’m sure you can find it somewhere a little bit cheaper if you search for it. I slept almost the whole time so I can’t tell you that much about the scenery^^ the parts where I was awake were pretty nice though, much more green and jungle-y than in the earlier rides.
On the ride I met a Japanese man, he told me that he always works in Japan for a while and when he has some money together he travels. Sounds like a pretty nice idea.
After checking in to the hotel I finally went to get something to eat and damn did it feel good to finally eat something 🙈
I then met the Japanese guy again and we went to a bar. It was the first time to see a hooker there^^ Actually I didn’t realize that she was one, because she started to just talk normally to us and asked where we from, but the Japanese guy ment no and then she walked away 😅🙈
Good thing to know that they also go inside the bars^^
After a few hours I went back to the hotel and on the way I grabbed myself a little Banh Mi
Day 27
Today I’ve met some nice dudes near my hotel and after a breakfast in form of a Banh Mi. We went to their place which was a tattoo studio, as I found out they were some pretty good tattoo artists! They showed me their tatts and some of their work it looked really awesome. I also had the chance to see how they Made a Tattoo, you can’t quite see on the Picture what it was, it was a sunflower which looked really awesome! I talked also a lot with the people here, they told very much stuff about the City, the land in general, excercise and many other things. The time went by so quickly that I stayed unintended at their place until they closed 😅. After that, two of them invited me to go to a weed-bar with them^^ They had a lot of gimmicky stuff like weed infused mango lassi or weed-food, but I’m not sure they would’ve actually worked^^ Anyways, we just went for beers as the two had to work the next day. It was really nice, we had a “drink and draw” session which was pretty funny as you can see on the picture.
The soup on the picture was a pork noodlesoup with two kinds of noodles in it, it was pretty good.
One of the Tattoo artists has an Instagram account, called Urreneti you should really check out his page, he does great tatts!
Day 28
After a breakfast in form of a burger with sausages instead of a patty, which was still very delicious, I went to the central post office to send a postcard.
In the post office were also some souvenirshops who sold some nice stuff which even weren’t that expensive as I thought. After that I looked at the Notre Dame cathedral next to the post office, I just saw it from the outside because it had opened much later and I was to lazy to come back later^^
I went then home and accidentally slept a while. I went to a café and then to a Spa where I had to promise the a girl that handed out flyers of the Spa to tourists. It was crazy in the street I was, almost every 10 m somebody wants to give you a flyer and that you come to their place^^
I got a whole body vietnamese massage which was really great, they cracked some bones in my body I didn’t even know they could crack like my ears and even my scalp!
If you’re in Vietnam you should really get one, they’re super cheap and are really good! I paid like 6$ for 1h of a great massage.
For the guys maybe just say you have a girlfriend, that makes it a little easier to deny some certain extra services…^^
I then went to the tattoo shop from yesterday and went out to eat with one of the guys. I got a rice porridge with duck and some bread pieces which was pretty tasty, I just forgot to take a picture of it 🙈
After the meal I got this drink which tastes a little bit like red bull and is also something like this.
In the evening we went all together to a bar a the street and enjoyed the night. It was very nice and I find it very nice that sitting in a bar here also means to eat a lot of stuff 😅😋
We got some fried gristle pieces, a sun-dried and then fried fish, chicken feet and my highlight: the duck embryo! One of the guys invited me to one so I finally had the chance to try it ( I think alone I probably hadn’t buy me one^^). It tasted really not bad, you get lime and chili with it to dip it in and it’s real nice, it doesn’t tastes that different from a normal egg and sort of looks like it when you peel it. But if you break it open you can see all the details, like the freshly developed head and stuff 😛
Was a great experience to try it^^
