Luck Tales: The charm continues

After spending so much time in crazy cities, Hoi An is the perfect place to slow down, pick and choose what feel like doing even if it’s just strolling through the town or lounging at our homestay. I’ll admit that I wish I could have an entire new wardrobe and new shoes made here as the area is well known for its abundance of good quality tailors. Very few regular clothing stores here and it definitely contributes to the town’s character.

We spent one morning exploring Marble Mountain, which is a 40-minute drive into the neighbouring town of Da Nang. We tackled one of five and each have caves, tunnels and several Buddhist sanctuaries within the mountains making it a popular tourist destination. The area is well known for sculpture and craft making and the roads are lined with shops incase you feel the need for a 10 foot marble Buddha in your house. As usual, without the help of a map or signs we wandered around until we found pathways and caves to explore. Pretty sure we missed a couple things since we somehow ended up at the bottom of the mountain at a different entrance than the one we came up.

That evening the owner of our lovely homestay, Mr. Phuc, took us on a bike tour of the area. We cruised through rice fields, dodged under tents in the market, said hello to some students at the local school and stopped at his friends cooking school for a rest. It was nice to have a guide and our stay at his historical house has been lovely, including the language barrier with the staff that usually ends in us both laughing when we don’t understand.

The previous days bike ride was good practice for our trip to the beach. The traffic is not nearly as crazy as in HCM or Hanoi but you still have to pay 100% attention since most people fail to look before turning onto the street or whizz by unnervingly close with only their horn to warn you at the last second. Unfortunately the waves were too big to enjoy much of a swim but we enjoyed parking ourselves under an umbrella for a good part of the day instead. People watching and chatting with the local bracelet sellers about how “funny happy” we are made for a good afternoon.