Happy Birthday Bebe! I have been working hard to get all the Vietnam posts out for your birthday. I’m going to post them over the course of the next few days. I really hope you enjoy them.
We flew to Vietnam on Sunday, and our flight was almost cancelled because the Vietnamese government had imposed travel restrictions for tourists from Hong Kong due to the CoronaVirus, otherwise known as COVID-19. Luckily, at the last minute the Vietnamese government reversed the order so the airline reinstated the flight. COVID-19 is a global phenomenon and is very fast spreading. For those that were brave enough to fly amid the outbreak (the five of us and four other people), extra precautions were taken. Everyone (including crew members) wore masks on the plane to prevent infection. We also went crazy spraying alcohol and wiping down everything in and near our seats with anti-bacterial wipes. 😛
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We landed in Cam Ranh, which is right outside of Nha Trang. After we went through immigration, we called a taxi to go to our hotel. Once we checked in, the reception called a buggy to take us to our villa.
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After that, we walked down to the beach and took some pictures.
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When we started to get hungry (we means me), we walked back to the hotel reception and ate at the hotel restaurant, which serves Vietnamese food. One of everybody’s favorite was morning glory (a kind of green Asian vegetable), which we ate at basically every restaurant we went to in Vietnam. When we finished dinner, we ate gelato for dessert and then went to bed, but not before Mom accidentally brushed her teeth with shaving cream! The next morning, we woke up and went to the Beach House for breakfast.
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After breakfast, we went on a hotel organized excursion into Nha Trang. First, we went to the Po Nagar Cham towers. The complex was built between 8th and 11th centuries by the Cham people, who once ruled the central plain of Vietnam. It is like Angkor Wat (a Hindu complex built by the Khmer Empire in Cambodia) but on a less grand scale. The Cham people honored Po Nagar as the “Mother of the Country.” Later, historians have come to identify Po Nagar with the Hindu goddess Bhagavati, the wife of Shiva.
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360 photo of Po Nagar Towers
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Once we decided we had enough history, we went to have lunch at a local restaurant surrounded by lotus ponds that was kind of remote.
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Like I said, it was a local restaurant and nobody there could speak English. To put it simply, Google Translate is the hero in that story. It was not in a building, but rather it consisted of straw huts.
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My favorite dish was the bamboo fish. We had to dip the dried rice paper in water to soften it in order to wrap the delicious fish and veggies inside, kind of like spring rolls in Houston. There was also a bridge built out of bamboo that crosses the lotus pond. It was a very rickety bridge.
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After a delicious lunch, we went to a working Buddhist monastery at Long Son Pagoda. We climbed up all the stairs (152 total) and got to the 24-meter tall Big Buddha seated on a lotus throne.
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When we came down, the prayer service had started at Long Son temple, so we could not go in. The current temple is the replica of the original temple built in 1889, which was destroyed by a storm in 1900.
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We also walked over to the reclining Buddha, where the back panel features a sculpture of the monks and nuns who died in the late 1950s while protesting against the Diem regime, which persecuted Buddhists. The sculpture is a bas-relief, a type of art in which shapes are cut from the surrounding stone so that they stand out slightly against a flat surface.
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After we finished sitting on a bench to recuperate our energy (which took hours), we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant. It was actually built on the water! In addition to seafood, we also had… morning glory!
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Once we were full, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up and ate breakfast at the Beach House. After breakfast, Dad and I played tennis while everyone else went to the Beach. After we all were baked to a crisp, we changed into our swimsuits and swam at the resort pool. We were the only people there because the resort was unusually empty due to COVID-19 (the couple weeks following Chinese New Year are usually one of the busiest times in Asian resorts).
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After we cooled down, we showered and went to dinner at the Anam (hotel next door). We enjoyed delicious Vietnamese food there (including… morning glory!) and a great view of the ocean.
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When we started to get drowsy, we walked around the resort. Elise and I found some fun swing chairs and proceeded to do battle.
Once we started to get drop-dead tired, we went back to our hotel and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up and flew to Ho Chi Minh City.
It was all Alan’s fault! 😡 He put the shaving cream that looked like the hotel toothpaste right next to my toothbrush 😱
Thank you, Evan, for getting this done for my birthday. It was such a wonderful trip and I feel like I’m reliving it by reading your account. Very good and comprehensive! Love, Bebe
Nice work, Evan! Sounds like a great trip!
Evan, I havn’t visited Vietnam before. After reading your blog, I must go there. Thanks for your report!
Hi Evan, I’m your Bebes friend from high school and she shared your blog address with me. I’m going to live vicariously through your writings, of which I love, because, I will never get to travel to Vietnam. I love your description of everything especially your mother brushing her teeth with shaving cream!! HA! HA! Your dialogue, pictures, and comments are excellent and I’m so going to enjoy this adventure . Keep up your good work and enjoy the ride. Your new friend, Marsha
I love seeing your adventures. What a great experience! Stay healthy! Hugs
Mrs. Hoefar
Evan, I am proud of you when I read your first sentence, it really shows you love and respect your grandma Bebe! I am proud of your mum and dad too, as your behavior must be the result of what they have taught you! 😘😘
Gong Gong and I visited Nha Trang 芽莊 in Sep 2016, it was one of the stop during our cruise trip. We had visited Po Nagar Cham towers 婆那加占婆庙, we love the beautiful architecture of the towers. We had also visited the Long Son Pagoda 隆山寺 too. As we were too lazy to walk up all the steps, we did not see the huge seated Buddha and the reclining Buddha, what a pity! Fortunately, you got the pictures of these Buddha in your blog!
In fact, when your mum planned your Vietnam trip, we did not opt to join you, because we had already visited a few places in Vietnam.
This looks like something i should have watched in school
I’ve always love classic decor of hotels or resorts…this is beyond amazing!