Hue, Hoi An; Vietnam
Hue
We arrived in Hue on March 19th, just shy of 10 AM.
After checking in to our stay at Candy Inn, we spent the day with little definitive plans hoping to just walk around and explore. We were pretty tired and hoped for a slightly more chill day, but also wanted to make the most of our time.
As we meandered our way to The Citadel, we walked through a street market and beautiful parks with various sculptures and landscaping. You may not think that a street market or a park can feel too different from home, but there’s just something that hits different when you get to take in everything around you—the smells, the roads and bikes, the air (seriously), and the unique layout and design of the parks and lands.
We made it to The Citadel. The Imperial City of Hue is considered everything within the walls of the Citadel, which was where the royal family lived in the 1800s. Unfortunately, after the Vietnam War, it was pretty It was huge! I mean, we were there for hours. There’s the city gates, the inner court, outer court, the Flag Tower and more.
After The Citadel, we did a bit more meandering through the town on our way back to the hotel. We stumbled upon a street food vendor that was selling something that looked like a “create your own beverage” product. It reminded me of when you go to a frozen yogurt shop and you can choose from a ton of incredible toppings, except we had no idea what any of them were. Luke took the plunge—neither of us knew what he drank but he survived haha!
On March 20th, we rented a motorbike to drive the Hai Van Pass to Hoi An. The motorbike tour is about a 4-hour ride, but with the various stops along the way, it took us the whole day.
Oddly enough, our first stop was on the side of the ride. There was no traffic and it was right along the coastline so it was gorgeous. We stopped so I could change clothes to better accommodate the ride. When we were about to get going again there were 4 boys riding their bike. They looked to be about 10 years old. They slowed down, started making some circles and kept saying “Hello!” I’m pretty sure they wanted to talk more but were a bit nervous. I snapped this photo of one of the boys looking back and smiling and for some reason it was one of my favorites of the whole trip!
We stopped at a few other places along the way, mostly to stretch our legs and take in the incredible coastal views. At one of the stops, we saw a couple getting wedding photos taken—something that we’ve seen actually a handful of times along these excursions!
As we approached our next destination, Hoi An, we hit mega traffic. And motorbike traffic in Vietnam is no joke! Lanes were practically non existent, and rules of the road were quite different than what we were used. Luke did an amazing job keeping up with it all and I have to say I did a great job not yelling in his ear every 60 seconds!
Hoi An
When we finally got to our hotel, we were filthy, exhausted and so sore from riding a bike all day, we went straight to our room to drop our bags. We grabbed a dinner at a small restaurant nearby called Hoi An Combo which had some delicious food! I ordered a kumquat juice (giggled at the name) and the Hoi An Crispy Pancakes which were savory and oh so yummy.
Hoi An is a beautiful city with lots of artsy vendors, beautiful lights and lanterns all along the Thu Bồn River. We spent Thursday staying local, street shopping where I got a sundress and a lantern. It was HOT on this day and there were few people out and about so whether those two things were related or not, we got first access anywhere we wanted so it worked out well! Once we exhausted ourselves, we decided to have a relaxing evening—a midday nap, followed by dinner, then I got a pedicure while Luke got a foot massage!
The next day, we headed off to a cooking class! We booked this one through Bay Mau Eco Cooking Tour and they picked us up right from our hotel. They took us to their local street market to pick up the necessary ingredients and explained a bit about each. From there, we hopped on a small boat to head to our destination. Little did any of us know, we were going to run into a canoeing competition! As we approached, we saw maybe 40-50 boats with people watching something in the center. Some boats had flags on them, some were huge boats, others were small fishing boats. When we got closer, they let us join in and watch the competition for a bit. It felt like a tailgating party but on the water—so much fun!
After traveling a bit further by boat, we stopped and all transferred into a basket boat two at a time! Each guide was so fun, made us little pieces of jewelry and things out of grass and spun us in circles haha, I even picked up a GIANT spider from a string!
After maybe a ten minute basket boat ride, we arrived to our “kitchen”. We made Vietnamese Salad Rolls (Goi Cuon), Sizzling Vietnamese Crepes (Banh Xeo), Nuoc Cham Dipping Sauce, Seafood fried noodles (Mì xào hai san), and Hanoi-style Rice Noodle Soup with Beef (Pho Bo Ha Noi)! I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the best cooking class we’ve taken and we enjoyed every single dish we made. 11/10 recommend!
