The next morning we tried the coffee shop located right next to our place for breakfast. However, they only had cakes and limited pastry options so we opted just for coffee. We tried their version of an iced caramel macchiato and headed to try and find some food. We ended up at a French based cafe to grab some more coffee and pastries before heading to grab another massage. If you recall from history class, Vietnam was occupied by the French for some number of years and you can still see a lot of the French influence in restaurants.

We tried a new spa this day and opted to try the Thai massage along with hot stones. When we arrived, they greeted us with tea and biscuits while we waited for the room to open. The receptionist asked to take our picture and one of her coworkers told us that she was learning how to speak English and needed the practice or she would lose some pay the next month. Her coworker was saying she learned most of her English from talking to customers who come into the spa so was trying to encourage her to do the same.

I had never had a Thai massage before but thankfully Grant had forewarned me about how much they pull and tug on your limbs. I would say I get a decent amount of massages back home, but I honestly was not expecting some of that to hurt. There were times she was pulling on my arms where I was silently screaming in my head on how much it was uncomfortable. I’m also not the type of person that’ll just come right out and say stop though I probably should have at times. Another different thing from back home is the masseuse at times would literally be on top of you, using her body weight to leverage some of the limb pulls. The hot stone part was probably my favorite as they were done tugging on our arms and legs. As much as it hurt sometimes during the massage, I definitely felt looser. Grant said he enjoyed it more than our first massage.

We grabbed a local place nearby for some lunch before grabbing a car to take us to Son Tra Mountain where we visited the Chùa Linh Ứng Buddhist temple. It was a beautiful temple with the main attraction being the large statue at the front of the temple (we could see it all the way from our balcony). We grabbed some pictures and walked around the property seeing what else was there. One area was blocked off for a school function and we watched as groups of kids were doing some traditional Vietnamese dances. Nearby we ran into a group of monkeys that were enjoying some rest in the trees before three kids started taunting them and throwing pieces of banana at them. I was scared we were going to witness some boy get bit by one of the monkeys.

While we were walking through the temple, a girl that was probably.7 or 8 years old approached us and shyly starting talking in English. We quickly realized she was trying to practice English she was learning in school and so talked to her for a few minutes. She started to run out of phrases to say so resorted to things like, “how many fingers?” and we would answer how many fingers there were between the three of us. Her mother filmed the entire interaction. Vietnam is definitely a country where you will get approached for interaction if you look to be not obviously from there.

Feeling like we had seen most of the temple, we decided to head back into town to relax before dinner. I felt it was easier to take a taxi to avoid the waiting time for a Grab car so Grant begrudgingly obliged. If you’ve ever traveled with Grant, you know how much he dislikes taxi drivers. However, the taxi ride ended up reaffirming his disdain for taxis as the ride cost about double our initial drive to the temple for the exact same route we took with their local rideshare app.

We were craving some comfort food that evening and found a hot dog place in the same area as the Bikini Bottom restaurant. It turned out the guy who owned it, Mark, was from the US and had moved to Da Nang April 2022. He has lived all over from NY, PA, New Orleans and in Southern California. Coincidentally enough one spot was Encinitas on La Costa, the exit before where Grant grew up. The food was delish and he gave pointers on food to try our next few days. One of his friends eating at the table next to us, originally from Northern California, gave us some tips for Bali since he got a 2 year tourist visa during the pandemic. He did warn us that traffic was horrible as their roads were a lot smaller but said the country was nice to visit.

Back at our apartment, we enjoyed the last Dragon Bridge show we would see in Vietnam. It was cool to see the view from above and just how quickly the bridge fills up with traffic when the show is over.