Hội An was crowded with tourists, both Vietnamese and foreign. The few days prior to Tết it was so crowded that we abandoned our policy of “stand where you are if you get separated and lost.” Instead, we decided it would be easiest to push through the crowd alone for a half mile and meet at the bridge that would lead back to our house.

But there is a good reason the crowds flock to Hội An; it is charming. We never tired of looking at the lanterns, buildings, and boats. And there was constant entertainment as the tourist posed to get the perfect selfie.

Spending too much time in cities makes us restless, so a few weeks back we hired a car and guide to take us to Bạch Mã National Park, located between Da Nang and Huế.

We hiked to the top of Dô Quyên waterfall (below).

Then walked down 700 steps to get to the bottom of the falls, almost 1000 feet below.

Then we climbed back up.

After lunch, we headed up to the peak as the clouds started to roll in. There was an area that was used as a helicopter base by the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War (or The War Against America as we are told it is called here).

Ethan was happy to get to stand on the roof of a building.

And to pretend to be a giant.

As we headed back down, we came across another monkey eating junk food. He finally finished it but was not in a hurry to leave the path.

Our guide then took us to a tunnel system in the mountain that had been used by the North Vietnamese during the war. The tunnel led to storage or living areas periodically. The guide kept telling us about all the spiders, bats and deadly centipedes that lived inside the tunnels. We only saw bats, which was good because he said if a centipede bit you, you would have two hours to get to the hospital or you would die.

A few weeks ago I was talking with my sister on the phone while sitting on our back porch in Hội An. She kept asking me to be quiet. I do blabber on a bit too much, so it wasn’t a totally odd request. But she explained that she was trying to listen to the birds in the background, then added that I should post the sound of the birds on my website. So here are a few clips. These clips are missing the roosters that are present when I first go out in the morning. I am usually outside by 6 am and get to read, drink coffee, and eat for an hour or so before I start my day. We leave for Hanoi tomorrow. I will miss my morning time with the birds.

This post is also for Kathy “I love birds” Blondheim. She has no idea that this is her nickname in our house. A few years ago we went to lunch with her while visiting Atlanta. Ethan was talking excitedly about a bird watching hike that we had just been on; Kathy’s eyes lit up, and she exclaimed, “I love birds!” It turns out that Ethan doesn’t care about birds very much. He simply liked the hike because he got to talk to a lot of adults for a few hours. But Kathy genuinely does love birds.

We did not plan to visit the ‘Lady Buddha’ statue near Da Nang. I had attempted to book a hike after our visit to Marble Mountain. But the driver didn’t speak English as advertised, and he had not been told that he was supposed to drive us to a hiking path. Plans change. He assumed we wanted to see ‘Lady Buddha’ (or Lady Pagoda as he called it), so we did, along with hoards of other tourists.

(Update… Steve has informed me that the correct name for the statue in English is ‘The Goddess of Mercy’. Thanks, Steve)

We went to a few viewpoints first.

Then the Buddha, which is about 30 stories tall.

Our driver could tell we didn’t really want to see Lady Buddha, so he assumed we wanted to see monkeys and kept stopping the car so we could look for them. We didn’t care that much about seeing monkeys, but there were plenty to see once we arrived at the Lady Buddha. It appears the tourist feed them frequently. We saw one munching on what looked like a snack cake package. We took photos to show our driver that we saw monkeys, hoping he would feel happy that we had achieved our “goal.”

Below is an example of a tourist trying to lose her hand… or face. She was not the only one we saw that seemed unaware that monkeys are wild animals.

An Bang beach is a short Uber ride from our place in Hội An.

Ethan has always loved water splashing his face. Once, when he was about nine months old, he and I were a few blocks away from our house in Cleveland Heights when a cold, pelting rain began. It felt miserable. I started to run while pushing his stroller, hoping to get out of it as quickly as possible. Ethan screamed with delight and pumped his little fists in the air… all the way home. His face was red, wet and cold; and he was delighted.

His reaction to water splashing his face has not changed significantly.

Logan prefers her book.

We all agree on snacks.

Mỹ Sơn, the capital of the Champa Kindom, is an hour from Hội An. There we saw the remains of Hindu temples dating from the 4th to 13th centuries.

We started the day stuck on a bus while a guide told us cringy jokes. Then the bus blew out a tire, and I wished we were still on the bus instead of standing on the side of the road.

When we arrived at Mỹ Sơn, we decided to skip the tour (having had our fill of creepy jokes) and headed off on our own.

We returned via bus and boat, but it appears we didn’t bother to take a photo. Imagine a wooden boat on a river with a view of the countryside.

We are more than halfway through our trip, so I think it is time to thank my husband for making it possible. I was able to take off work to plan our adventures, homeschool, and shop because he continues to work his full-time job in addition to working on his startup company… and he still does the laundry (thanks!!!) and teaches the kids computer programming. And he does it all under circumstances that can be challenging. His “daily” meeting is now at midnight, the internet can be slow, and I don’t even want to talk about finding acceptable desks and chairs everywhere we go.

And yet, he still finds plenty of time to hang with us. In fact, I suspect he feels he gets to enjoy our presence a bit too much at times.  We have all been working/studying in the same room since early November. He especially loves it when I spout random news at him while I read the newspaper, or when Ethan hums the same six notes over and over.

Last week we took a bike tour to some of the islands of Hội An. We started out with a boat ride down the Thu Bon river, arriving at Duy Vinh Island.

There was a demonstration of mat weaving. The woman on the left is the weaver, and the one on the right is the assistant. Our guide says that the younger generation is not learning the trade and that it will soon be gone.

And a tour of a traditional house, which was interesting as it included a description of how to climb in the rafters and live there for days when it floods.

We then biked to a house that made rice wine. The rice is on the white tarp, and fermenting in the red buckets on the left.

We tasted the rice wine, while our guide told numerous stories of excessive drinking by men on the island.

There were a few pigs in concrete cages in the house. Per our guide, they ate the leftover rice from the wine production, so they were always happy (despite their concrete cage?). She also told us that the rice is cooked using methane gas from the pig poop that has been washed through holes in the concrete and collects under the house.

We biked across a bridge to the adjoining island.

One fisherman slapped the water with the paddle, and then the other grabbed the fish that surfaced with the net.

A tradesman showed us how he makes boats. Our guide said that every family on the island had one to use in time of floods.

The wife of the boat maker then demonstrated how to use the boats. You never know if the locals enjoy working with tourist, as obviously they get more work if they aren’t scowling at you. Perhaps this woman is not having fun, but she deserves an Oscar for her performance if it wasn’t genuine.

Views while biking.

A water buffalo with the longest horns we have seen yet.

In Kim Bon, we visited a workshop that does woodwork with shell inlay. The final products were impressive (sorry, no photos).

Above is the end of the tour. Below are photos from around town.

One afternoon the kids and I took an afternoon walk to Kim Bồng village on an adjoining island. Below the kids are pictured relaxing at our destination in a cafe. We needed to relax after walking over the long bridge that prohibited cars. It was wide enough for two motorcycles to pass, and there was an endless stream coming in both directions. The frightening part occurred every time the motorcycle on our side was pulling a cart behind it, which would leave us with about 6 inches of space (okay… maybe it was 18 inches). Whatever it was, I was frightened I was going to lose my knees, or legs… or life.

Since we did not want to return via the bridge, we walked halfway across the island to where I had read that the ferry could take us back to Hội An mainland. It turns out; the ferry had already stopped for Tet. Opps. A friendly shopkeeper helped me talk our way onto one of the last tourist boats leaving the island. We would have paid quite a lot to skip the hike back over the bridge, but the captain let us on for about $4 total.

We arrived in Hoi An, Vietnam on Monday evening. It is always a bit stressful on the first few days in a new country. This time our kitchen is lacking… it’s probably easier to state what it does have, rather than what it does not. It has  a fridge, a hot plate, two bowls, one plate, and a total of about five utensils. I am taking it as a sign that I should not start back cooking.

As a bonus, the house comes with entertainment. The last two nights we have enjoyed karaoke at a volume that could probably cause hearing loss. We are hoping that Monday and Tuesday are the party nights in our neighborhood, and the rest of the week will be a little quieter.

On the positive side:

• The kids and I took a short class on basic phrases in Vietnamese this morning. I can now say, “I am a vegetarian,” which is very useful.
• Tomorrow the kids have a voice lesson across town, and I am working on setting up a food stall tour on Friday and a bike tour to island villages on Saturday.
• Matthew got an office chair yesterday, which is a challenge every time we land.

And…