We arrived in Danang quite well rested and ready to head to Hoi An. When I walked outside to hire a taxi, I was absolutely surrounded. There were ten taxi drivers around me. I somehow managed to keep my calm over their shouting and we loaded into the first SUV I had seen in awhile. We stopped at the Marble Mountains in Danang, and I am so glad for it. It was a beautiful mountain with incredible statues and temples. Also, everyone around me was speaking French. I was so glad that speaking French could be useful here!
Hoi An was an incredibly slow moving and delicious touristy town. The main tourist attraction is having clothes tailored for you. So mostly, we did that. We also explored the river and had the best food of our trip so far. We frequented this restaurant on Le Loi street. The real adventure happened two days later when we tried to leave the city. Our flight was initially scheduled for 830pm, but I received an e-mail the night before saying the flight had been pushed until midnight. That wasn't a problem; we just adjusted our airport drop-off time. At 8:25pm I checked my e-mail. It announced that the flight was changed back to its original time. Oops. After trying to call the airline, we realized the only thing we could do is take the half hour ride to the airport and go from there. When we arrived, there were six people total in the Danang Airport... including the three of us. That was definitely a bad sign. One of the men there had the airline's number, so we called him and he said that he would put us on the next flight out of there in the morning. We only needed to come back to the airport at 6:30 the next morning. We called our Hoi An hostel; they were fully booked that night. Oh my. Luckily, the man who lent us his phone, also owned a hotel. We were concerned that we were being scammed into the hotel, but without any other options we took a taxi there. It was a nice and cheap hotel. I guess we were wrong! After eating some admittedly sketchy street food, we went to sleep. The next morning went smoothly enough; we were on a plane toward Saigon before we knew it.
After checking in at the hostel, we went straight to the War Remnants Museum. I can't eloquently explain what it's like to walk into that museum as an American. From all the information I knew about the "American War" as they called it, I would have been opposed to it. However, I was not alive, nor did I take part in the strategy session in which the US decided to invade. The few hours I was in the museum, I felt guilty about a war that neither I nor anyone I'm close to pushed upon these people. They even had a translated version to the Declaration of Independence, which attempted to demonstrate the hypocrisy of our intervention. The museum told the story of Robert Capa, a photojournalist who was killed by a land mine in the war. John Mecklin, who was with him at the time, was told by a soldier that Capa's death "is a harsh way for America to learn. Evidently, America did not learn this harsh lesson.
After the stressful War Remnants Museum experience, we took a Vietnamese cooking class. My dad is the best cook I know, and he knows his Vietnamese food; so, I was quite excited to take this class to show him some exciting new recipes. We started by making a rose out of tomato peels, which is much harder than it sounds. For the appetizer, we made vegetable spring rolls; the soup was tomato cloud, and we made caramelized pork for the main dish. It was absolutely delicious! After dinner, we were surprised when they lined us up and told us we were going to take a test to earn our certificates. We were so scared, but we all answered our questions about how to make the meals and what spices to mix. After our class, we wandered the night market before we headed back to the hostel to pack for Cambodia.
And then?
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