Vietnam's Most Liveable City?

From the moment we arrived in DaNang's airport we could feel the ease of this city. The 3rd largest city in Vietnam, DaNang is a major port city with a relaxed vibe.DaNang reminded us of cities like Tacoma, Washington - large, bedding community with not much to do, but a nice place to live. We visited friends of our aunt/uncle who couldn't have been nicer. Such nice hosts. Their traditional multi-level skinny tall house had been remodeled recently and the five-story home included some modern architectural detail rarely seen in houses. For example three floors contained their own karaoke room.The entrance to the house was the typical heavy metal doors found in Vietnam due to the lack of security front doors usually consist of heavy metal gates that lock shut. But once inside the long front entrance lined with scooters looked like a Honda showroom.A large koi pond placed underneath the spiral staircase separated the kitchen from the entryway.And the top 5th floor was a large outdoor patio used to cool off at night and container gardening.It was nice to see interesting architectural features, such as built-ins and decorative door and window elements.We say DaNang is the most liveable city in Vietnam for many reasons, one would be the accessibility to goods and services due to the busy port system and its proximity to the Marble Mountains and the ocean. This can be seen throughout the house with marble used all along the staircase, it would cost a fortune back home to have a 4 story marble staircase.Something else we noticed about DaNang's easy going nature is that scooters still out number cars, along with the large boulevards made for fun times scooting around.On top of that, being so close to the ocean provides DaNang with a cool breezy environment, much different from the sweltering heat of Saigon. In fact, we found ourselves cold and needing to borrow sweatshirts to stay warm - unheard of!
But much like cities like Tacoma, there isn't much to do, with only a few boulevards of shopping and few restaurants other than the big seafood emporiums on along the beach. So what do you do when there's not much to do? According to our host - drink! And drink and drink and drink! There goes that bottle of cognac we brought as a gift!

Vietnamese Tourist

It was bittersweet being back in our hometown for a few days, even if it was for a short visit. For this trip we made plans to spend some time with members of the other side of our family, a side we don't know very much about. So we hit the road for a short pitstop in Nha Trang for some beach time and beer.

First thing first, we needed to sooth our skin from brutally ripping it from the cold and forcing heat and sun upon it, which left some of us burnt and sore, so we headed straight to the Thap Ba Mud and Mineral baths up in the hills.

A year ago our fearless selves piled onto a rented scooter and blindly scooted up the muddy potholed road to the end, gritting our teeth as tour bus after tour bus after taxi after taxi honked and passed us towards the mud/mineral bath theme park.

Note to those who someday hope to go to the mud/mineral baths. Don't bring your bathing suit, you can rent tank top/shorts that you won't have to worry about scrubbing pounds and pounds of mud out of later.

First you start with a soak in a large tub that has mud pumped in from the hills that looks like velvety chocolate and is so light that you actually float. These tubs are out in the open and can seat up to 10 people. Then you rinse off in mineral showers, then you soak in a hot tub, then you can sit in the mineral falls or swim in the large mineral water pool. After that you can get a massage or manicure, or do like we did and eat lunch.

All that sitting around sure made us hungry. We ordered a typical Vietnamese lunch - Crispy stir fried noodles with beef and vegetables and a spare rib rice plate with a over medium egg on top.

We were only staying in Nha Trang for one night and only decided to stay in the coastal beach town because we were flying north early the next morning, so we hit the beach right away!The Tet New Year brought out tons of people - Vietnamese, tourist and locals. Unfortunately our short amount of time didn't warrant spending any time lounging on the numerous beachfront chairs.

Or lounging on the beach.

Or party in the Year of the Tigar all night long.

We did managed to find many other ways to occupy our time. We came across this live action chess game being played on the boardwalk.

And we also saw a couple of Lion Dancers.

We also visited the local temple and paid respects to our ancestors, wishing them happiness in their after life.

Before we knew it, it was dinner time and headed straight to a local brewery who specialized in Japanese food.

We gorged on sushi and tall steins of beer.

It was amazing how at ease we instantly felt in Nha Trang, like it has always been our second home, even if in actuality we're just typical Vietnamese tourist hoping to spot the lady selling delicious seasoned rice paper on the beach!

Daytripping: Ninh Hoa

It seems we weren't the only ones expecting some R&R during our visit. When asked if we wanted to go to the beach for the day, we were like meh. But the minute we saw our cousins' faces fade we realized they were looking forward to a day at the beach. They were home from the big city and wanted some reprive from the heat also. So we packed a lunch off we went.Unlike our beach excursion this time last year to the same locals beach, it was packed with local Vietnamese on vacation with their families. We quickly grabbed a covered area and settled in for a beautifully breezy day at the beach!A serious contender, especially this day, for best beach in the world we've been to with clean white sand, bath-water-temperature ocean swimming with no need for sandles (the sand is that soft) where the water is so clear we could see all the way to our painted toes!

Of course this is Vietnam so snacks are a plenty and readily available, including a drumstick ice cream cone that cost the same as two cans of beer and fresh pressed sugarcane juice served in a plastic bag with a straw tied to the top for sipping.We swam, got sunburnt, snacked and napped under the palm trees. Paradise.

It was a lovely day at the beach and nice way to start the new year.

Happy Year of the Tiger

The morning following Tet usually means the beginning of week, sometimes month long celebration. Going from one house to the next, snacking, chatting, catching up, gambling, and handing out red envelopes filled with money.

Traditionally young children will offer a greeting to older family members in exchange for a lucky red envelope filled with money. Vietnamese believe the more money you spend/give out will come back to you ten fold in the New Year so the more kids the better!It was strange to be on the handing out money end of this tradition, we're usually the young ones, but this year we found ourselves shoving crisp new bills into small red envelopes and offering them up to our families.

In all honesty, we already felt like the lucky ones this year.