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Breakfast in the hotel in Hue was really nice. They had a nice setup with all different kinds of Western foods and Vietnamese foods. We ate, packed and loaded up the car again and headed towards Da Nang. Uncle Binh had told stories to us about how they used to fish back in the day with a piece of net and 4 sticks that were attached to the net. They held it down in the water and waiting until the fish swam over the net and then they would lift it up and catch the fish in their net. He said that he was looking around for a place that sells the nets. He spotted a guy on the side of the road in the water using that exact net so he made Anh Truong pull over. He asked 3 or 4 different people where he can find the net maker and they all point him to another place. Finally he finds the spot where the people said yes they make nets. They take him in the back and we follow him just to look. They have all wooden machinery where they make the nets, they have 4 different machines that look like it came from Rumpelstiltskin. Uncle Binh was bartering with them trying to get a good price when I spot a cute little puppy! He was so fluffy and playful and wasn't scared of us at all just came right up and started playing. And then I turn around and standing there watching was a really cute little girl. I waive to her and she smiles and runs away but keeps running back to look at us, so I take a quick snapshot of her for memorabilia.
We got to Da Nang and went to look for our Cousin's furniture store. These cousins of ours that are still in Da Nang aren't really blood related but because they grew up with my family they are considered family. Back in the day, my Grandparents had servants, and they were live in servants who helped out with the family. They had kids who grew up with my Dad and his siblings and they were always supposed to treat each other as kin. So now they are our cousins. My cousin Minh, has a really nice furniture store so we stop in to say hello. Her store is like an American Signature of Vietnam. She calls her husband to tell him to come and take us to our hotel that she already booked for us. When he got there he is super excited to see us. When we are going to leave, we asked him if the hotel we're going to is nice, he said it's ok and ok to Vietnamese people is pretty bad to us. We asked him if he knows a hotel in the $30-40 range and he said immediately "yes! if you're looking for that price range I'll take you to my hotel!". My uncle hops on his scooter and we follow him in the car. We pull up to this nice hotel right across the street from the river. We go inside and he is yelling out orders left and right. Apparently he is the general manager of the hotel and it is a pretty nice hotel. They get us 3 rooms and we bring our bags upstairs. Our view is amazing! Our view is overlooking the river and we can see the dragon bridge from our room. The bridge has a dragon along the whole bridge and at night it lights up in all different colors and shoots fire. Can't wait to see that! We go back down to regroup and Anh Tuan (my cousin) takes us to lunch. He takes us to a popular spot that serves a really good chicken rice dish. We get a few beers, an appetizer for fish sauce wings (didn't taste anything like fish sauce it was just delicious) and we all get a plate of the chicken rice. The chicken is fried but it is super tender and juicy inside but the skin is light and crispy. You can tell that the chicken is organic free range chicken and did not taste like it had been injected with steroids. After lunch Anh Tuan takes us to a near by liquor store. There I met more of my cousins, she is the owner of the liquor store and Anh Tuan's younger sister in law. She hooks us up with a bottle of Ciroq and 2 bottles of Jack and we go back to the hotel.
Anh Truong wants to take us to Hoi An because that is a really popular tourist area. From we were told, Hoi An is one of the oldest towns in Vietnam. We get parking and we get out and walk towards the town. We look around and we see white people EVERYWHERE! There were more white people there than VN people walking around. This truly was a tourist destination. We walked up to a store where I saw a couple straw hat earrings that I really liked. The lady told me 500,000, I told her that is way too much and asked if she would sell them to me for 200,000. She said no, so I said ok thank you and walked away. I walked about 5 steps and she called me back and agreed to sell them to me for 200,000 which is about $10. There were lots of fabric and alteration stores, I walked into one b/c I saw a dress that intrigued me b/c it looked like the bridesmaids dress that I was going to buy. I asked her how much it costs to get one made and she said $40. Wow! That's really cheap. Eric asked her how much it was to get a suit tailor made, she said $100 for the good silk fabric. That is a really good deal but we decided we didn't need those items and kept walking. There were shops everywhere selling everything you could think of and most of them were selling beautiful lanterns. That is what they are known for. We walk past a very old lady squatting and selling little hand made pieces of clay all shaped in different horoscope animals. Uncle Binh stops to talk to her for a little bit and asks her how old she is. She said that she is 85 years old still out on the street trying to make a living. Uncle Binh wanted to just give her money but he bought her items instead to be respectful but he really didn't need it, he only wanted to help her out. It was really nice of him. We walked around some more and decided that we wanted to get a snack to eat and head back to the hotel to shower and rest before dinner.
We're heading out to get dinner but Uncle Binh stays in, he was exhausted, poor guy. We let him sleep, and me, Eric, Viet and Anh Truong go out looking for a place to eat and hopefully go play some pool. We drive around and everything is closed! It was only 10:30pm. We found a place that was still open. Inside there were 5 tables with about 5 or more people sitting at each and they all seemed like they were partying and eating. Vietnamese people have a term called "Nhau" which means eat and drink. It's not really partying but you sit around and drink and while you're drinking you can have a variety of foods but you don't eat to be full, you eat to accompany your drinking. We ordered a few dishing and a few bottles of Vietnamese Vodka and we drink and eat. One guy at a neighboring table went up to go to the bathroom and was so drunk that he was falling into tables and knocking over chairs, his friends just all laughed at him. When he came back out of the bathroom 2 girls go to walk him out to the scooters, we thought that they were going to drive him home but they just get him on to his scooter and turn the engine on for him and he just drives off. Anh Truong tells us that people in VN drive drunk all the time and he says that it's actually better for you to drive home slowly than to walk your scooter on the side of the road, if the cops see you walking your scooter they will arrest you - weird. We finish our meals and go on our way to look for a pool hall. We drive around for a while and there is nothing open besides one bar and it is filled, people flooding the streets. We make a quick stop at the spinning bridge. Every night at midnight the whole middle of the bridge spins, it was invented to let boats into the more shallow area of the river but now the boats don't go in there anymore so it only spins for the tourists. It was kind of boring and there was nothing to do so we decided to go back to the hotel to rest.
The next day we go down to have breakfast in the hotel and we meet another close family friend. He knew the family back when they lived in VN and has been in close contact ever since. He is really nice and he wants to take us to my Great Grandmother's Temple that she built when she was alive. Anh Tuan (my cousin) and Anh Viet go to his house and pick up 2 scooters for us to drive. Eric is so excited because he had been wanting to ride a scooter since we got to VN! I was extremely nervous because I know how crazy the streets are. People don't follow the roads, they only go where is convenient to them, they're always passing people up and when they go to turn, there are no turning lights, you just go and hope no one hits you. I was extremely nervous but I trusted Eric's driving skills since he used to own a motorcycle. So, I hopped on the back, Viet had a scooter and my Uncle rode on the back of his friend's motorcycle. We weave in and out of traffic trying to keep up with my Uncle's friend who has been driving these streets since he was young. We show up and the Temple looks a little run down and very small but I was told this is one of the oldest Temples in Da Nang. My great Grandma started building it and now they are up keeping it and trying to make it bigger. We see construction items and it looks like they are trying to rebuild or make better some of the statues. Right outside is a huge statue of the Lady Buddha and dragons surrounding her. It's huge and statue. We walk in the first floor and there is a Buddha and a praying area and a box where you can donate money. When you donate money, the money is the help feed the live on site monks and also for them to keep the picture of your loved one on the praying wall. My uncle asked for the picture of his Great Granma/Pa and they bring out a picture frame of all the Greats in my family. It's a really cool picture to see and I take a snapshot of it b/c I know my family at home will love it. All the pictures of loved ones line both sides of the Buddha. I say a little prayer, light an incent and we go upstairs. We walk upstairs and there is another HUGE Buddha statue, a giant bell hanging from the roof on one side and a big drum hanging from the roof on the other side. The monk explains to us that the Buddha is carved from one whole tree trunk and the whole bottom area is carved out of pure jade. All the wooden parts of the temple is carved from real expensive wood. All the details are extremely intricate and really beautiful.
We take a few more looks around and then we leave to head to my Grandpa's old land. From the stories that I was told, my grandpa had a huge piece of land that had ponds and animals and trees. But when we pull up, we drive down this narrow passage and when we get to a small opening in the back it is all filled with buildings and homes. There is cement every where and my uncle just looked around and said "none of this looks even remotely familiar". The land was sold and buildings were built for more living space. We take a quick look and go about our way.
We decided to take the scooters around town just to drive around and check out the town. The traffic is crazy!!! I can't stress that enough. You see women in skirts, men in business clothes, and even babies standing in the middle of their mother with the father driving the scooter. We drove around for a few hours and stopped to get some coffee and a little internet cafe. We drink and the go driving again. Finally when we got tired we came back to the hotel where my uncle and friends were waiting to take us to dinner. We hop in the van and head to a place that they wanted to take us. The restaurant was right next to a seafood store and we walk in, pick a few things that we wanted to eat, went to sit down and the food was prepped and served to us within 15 mins. It was all very delicious and fresh. We eat quickly and get taken back to the hotel to clean up and pack our clothes, throw all our stuff into the van and we are off to the train station.
We get dropped off, say our goodbyes to our family and then this is our final stop with our driver. We pay and thank him and are sad to leave him. He was so helpful everywhere we went. We go in the station and we sit and wait. While we're waiting the guys go and buy snacks for the ride. As I was sitting waiting with Eric sitting next to me, a little girl comes up, leans up against our bags and just stares at me. I asked "what are you looking at?" in Vietnamese. She says calmly, "you" and I asked "why are you looking at me?" she responds "you look different". I think different?? How does she know? So I asked her "how do I look different? I'm like you, I speak Vietnamese", she responds "you may speak Vietnamese but I can tell that you're not from around here", and walks away. Even the little kids know that I'm an outsider!!! It's weird because people say that us Asians all look the same but in reality we really don't, we all have our distinct features that make us look different. Finally our train arrives and we board. We have a room to ourselves with 6 bunks. Uncle Binh made sure to buy out all the bunks in the one cabin b/c he did not want to get stuck in a cabin for 15 hours with people we did not know and he did not want to get stuck on the top bunk ever again. He was pretty paranoid. The train started moving. We had some fresh bread that we were snacking on along with a few other snacks. We played cards, listened to music and then it hit me. I started getting dizzy and nauseous. What the heck! I never get sea sick!!! But I guess the train was moving around a lot and I'm not able to see anything in the front, only seeing things moving on the side window. I decided to get up and walk around but that made everything worse. So I stood there and just looked out the window with Eric. Eric at this point had been to the bathroom 2 times, he was getting a stomach ache from something he ate. Worst time for both of us to get sick. We stood there and stared outside for hours. All we saw were rice fields and people young and old working in the fields, hoeing and tilling the land with their water buffalo. I started to cry, I thought about all the people that work so hard for only a few bucks a day, I've never seen such hard working people they worked until it was too dark to see anymore and they work 7 days a week. I felt pain for them, I wanted to help them all but how can I. I went back into the cabin to sit down and finally I couldn't handle it anymore, I had to lay down. It was around 6pm. When I laid down it actually felt a lot better. Everyone else went to their bunks and we turned off the light. I slept on and off tossing and turning and so did everyone else. I woke up one time to go to the bathroom and I thought I was going to throw up every where so I quickly went back to the bunk and laid down again. I woke up again and asked my uncle's friend are we almost there? She said "no, it's only 10:30pm" LOL ohhhhh myyyy goodnesss, this is going to be the longest trip ever. Finally, the train slows down, hallelujah we're finally here!
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