It's our last day in Hoi An and we finally made it to a beach. Early in the morning, we grabbed a cab to An Bang Beach; one of the two beaches outside Hoi An. Right from the moment we stepped out of the cab we knew it was going to be a good good day. The sand was soft and white, the water crystal blue and the surf was high and sparkling. We walked through the gauntlet of folks renting chairs until we found the perfect spot to set up camp for the day.
Our chairs were free as long as we ate lunch at the restaurant to whom the chairs belonged. To celebrate our arrival we ordered breakfast beer; a large Tiger to share. We didn't want to be drinking warm beer!! Our waiter was a college student, studying to be a tour guide at the university in Hue, home to celebrate Tet with his family and earning a bit of money on his break. Sunscreen applied, we settled in for a relaxing day at the beach, taking dips and ordering refills as required. We had a light lunch of spring rolls, rice and steamed baby bok choy. Yes folks, that's right Mr Green ate something green. Lunch along with the fairly constant flow of beer pleased the proprietress.
Of course, it's impossible to avoid the constant hawking of souvenirs even at the beach. I am an easy mark as I find it impossible to ignore someone that is talking to me and the ladies are nothing if not persistent. I put them off in the morning with an "I'll have a look after lunch". They didn't wait that long but we did get a couple hours respite before the haggling and peals of laughter started. Two of the three ladies who stopped by left a bit happier and wealthier. The other sadly didn't fare as well. I was getting low on cash and she really had nothing I wanted. Ken remained stoic through the various exchanges and helped me get a slightly better price than I could negotiate on my own. Both the successful ladies tried to get him to crack open his wallet to no avail. One gave even him a new nick name - "Chintzy Charlie". Lol.
In addition to the throngs of tourists, there were lots of locals at the beach. It was easy to pick the locals out as they were wearing long sleeves (mainly jackets) and long pants rather than swimsuits and shorts. I asked the lady who ran the restaurant whether she was cold and she told me that Vietnamese folks don't want to darken in the sun. That makes more sense though I would think something other than down jackets might do the trick. Many of the young men jumped in the ocean with their jeans on. One only hopes that none of them doused their cell phones.
There was an area identified by two black ropes held in place by sand bags. My first dip was there as I thought that marked the safe bit. Quite the opposite, I found out. There was quite a rip tide and lots of big waves. I didn't venture too deep and I'm a fairly strong swimmer so it was okay but I cringed when I saw young kids splashing around between the ropes.
All good things must come to an end and we had made arrangements with the cab that dropped us off to come get us at 3:00 pm so we headed to the parking area. It's a good thing that we didn't come here earlier in our stay or we might have become beach bums for the week!! We waited a bit for cab 70 but he must have got a better offer so we jumped in another cab for our drive back to the hotel. Tet holidays are playing havoc with transportation in and around town.
We went for a quick dip back at the hotel pool. Ken played ball with three little boys splashing, irritating and entertaining those lounging around the pool until he ran out of steam. We had dropped off our second load of laundry with the laundress across the street earlier in the day. She charges 30,000 VND/kg ($1.75 CDN) and returns your clothes clean and folded and wrapped in practice. New didn't haggle with her on the price earlier in the week so she's pleased to see us again but not nearly as happy as were are to have fresh, clean clothes.
For dinner, we decided to try again to make it to Son Hoian restaurant. This time we had a driver who knew where it was so we were off to a good start. We had actually been pretty close the night before, the cab just needed to go a bit farther down the road. The restaurant was not exactly what either of us expected but the staff were very friendly and our table in the garden was quite nice.
After settling in with a couple of Tigers, we ordered a green papaya salad to start. For our mains, Ken had calamari stuff with pork, mushrooms and other veggies while, in a reversal of roles, I ordered the cashew chicken. All three dishes were presented beautifully and were quite delectable. A couple more beer and a ginger tea for me and our cab was back to bring us back to the hotel. The bigger tip worked wonders there.
No time to go to town for a last stroll as we are heading to Hue tomorrow and the car is picking us up at 8:30 am. Time to see if all my treasures will fit into my bulging suitcases. Lol. Not quite but luckily Ken had some extra room and we are travelling by car.
More tomorrow.
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