Traveling from Hue to Hoi An stopping in Da Nang

Written by Josh:

Traveling from Hue to Hoi An stopping in Da Nang

We left our hotel around 9:30 a.m. We were crowded in a 14-person mini-van with all our luggage. Jim made the driver repack the van so everyone had a seat. The first time we packed in Frederic was sitting on a tire well. The ride south was pretty smooth. WE We stopped at the summit of the main pass between Hue and Da Nang (the Hai Van Pass) where we were accosted by very determined souvenir peddlers, and a few of us received marriage proposals to the sons and daughters of the peddlers, which we refused. We drove along magnificent scenery between sea and mountain. We got to Da Nang around noon. We were dropped off in front of the Cham Archeology Museum. Before we went in the Museum, we decided to have lunch. Jim, up to then had been a great navigator, but he failed us that day; he led us to the place where our restaurant was supposed to be, but all we found was a huge construction site. Since our guidebook was published in 2009, the whole block had been demolished. Anne and Jim had a back-up restaurant but Jim led us in the wrong direction in the heat. The new road confused him. Eventually, we ate lunch in a pretty good back alley restaurant which wasn’t torn down. Later when we were fed and cooler we returned to the museum which was just 4 blocks up the new road from our restaurant. At the museum, there were a lot of lions, Gods, and other sculptures that were big and small. They all were carved between 500 AD and 1300 AD by Cham artists. The Cham people are Hindu and the sculptures were from Hindu mythology. There was a part of the museum which showed what type of clothes the Cham people wore. It was fun and the place pleasant and interesting. Then we went on to Hoi An, a small pleasant town that moved at a much slower pace than Hanoi or even Hué. When we got to the hotel the staff was very nice but they didn’t give us enough rooms at their location. So the staff and our teachers discussed the situation while everyone else waited. Eventually the teachers told us that two of us would go with Jim to a new location across the river, and the rest stay at the first hotel. So we finally got settled in the rooms. Then we ate dinner in a restaurant beautifully decorated with bamboo. Our meal was filled with laughter and it was good place to eat.