We determined this was our third sunrise of our trip behind Torres Del Paine and the dunes in Namibia. Each time it ends up being worth it so we were excited for another! We quickly got ready and ensured everything was packed and cleared out of the Airbnb before heading out with Chantri to Angkor Wat, as we were to head directly to the airport after sunrise.

In reading about sunrise at Angkor Wat, the best place to watch is supposedly at the waters edge to catch the reflection as the sun goes up above the towers. However, by the time we arrived, it was already very crowded so we headed to one of the nearby buildings to set up our spot to watch from. It turned out to be a great spot and Grant started a Timelapse to catch the changing colors of the sunrise . We did have a moment where a guy wanted us to move our tripod from the window so he could get that “perfect shot” but wasn’t too thrilled when we said no (in our defense we were 30 minutes into our timelapse, we were not the only ones near the window, and the structure had many windows for him to get the same exact shot of).

We ended up making friends with a young boy and his aunt who had hopped up to watch the sunrise next to us. We learned he was from British Columbia on his spring break and was visiting Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. We had previously met a group of high school students also on their spring break and it turns out in Canada they get two weeks unlike our one. 

After sunrise, we headed to the back of Angkor Wat to snag some pictures without all the crowds. On the way, we ran into a group of monkeys and of course had to snap some photos. There were even some cute babies with them playing on the tree roots and limbs. Though the teeth on those animals makes you not want to ever get bit by them. 

After grabbing our photos and already dripping in sweat by 7:30 am, we headed off to the airport. We gave Chantri our tip for driving us over the weekend (which he always accepted with a giddy laugh) and said our goodbyes. 

Once in the airport, we grabbed some coffee and breakfast while we pulled out our camera and laptop to work for a little bit on the blog. Like I said previously, travel days are the best times to work on the blog as most days are jam packed with activities. Our flight ended up getting pushed back an hour due to the incoming flight arriving late and of course I started to freak out about missing our connecting flight in Singapore. These days are when I wish I could be a more relaxed traveler like Grant and just know things will work out even if we have to spend the night in Singapore. 

Once we boarded our plane, I watched the new Whitney Houston movie to take my stress off watching the clock. I was still stressed once we landed as it was supposedly our boarding time for the connecting flight. There were several other guests on the flight trying to make that same connection to Bali and we were all running to make the transfer to the gate. 

At the Singapore airport, you have to run your carryons through security and have your boarding pass scanned. Already in high stress mode, the stewardess scanned my boarding pass and took my ticket saying I needed to step to the side and wait. Needless to say, I broke down in the airport worrying I wasn’t going to be on this flight while Grant easily made it through. Grant verified everything was okay and I was able to get my ticket returned to me to board the plane. I could finally relax once we got on the plane and we were headed to one of our last four destinations.

Day 2 started out at the same time as the previous day, but this time we were headed to a bigger loop of the Angkor Wat complex.

Our first stop was Preah Khan temple. Ta Prohm from the first day was built for the King’s Mother, whereas Preah Khan was built for his father, whose tomb was at the center.

The second temple we visited, Ta Som, was on an island surrounded by one of two lakes within Angkor Wat. Chantri told us that it was built for medical purposes and that there were four different corners of the temple representing earth, wind, fire, and water. Depending on the year you were born determined which part of the temple you visited to be healed. While we were there we saw a family taking turns praying at different sides of the temple, perhaps following these traditions.

Our last stop of the morning was the distant temple of Banteay Srei about 45 minutes outside of the main area. We learned that it was built before Angkor Wat and the colors of the temple were more pink and orange when compared to those of Angkor Wat. The carvings were also much more detailed and better preserved than the ones we had seen in Angkor – one reason Chantri noted is a lot of the wars in the area were closer to Angkor Wat whereas this one was far enough out of town it didn’t see as much war.

We grabbed lunch at a restaurant close to Banteay Srei before making a quick stop at the Cambodia Landmine Museum. There’s still thousands of unexploded landmines throughout the country especially near the Thailand border. It was a very interesting walk through in seeing how one gentleman named Aki Ra went from setting and placing landmines in the 1980’s to helping the UN in the late 90’s clear the landmines in Cambodia. As a young boy his parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime (he has no idea how old he is), and he was conscripted as a child soldier where they taught him to lay mines. As a kid he could not conceptualize how much carnage he was creating by laying mines so in his adult life made it his life mission to help those affected by land mines and defuse as many as possible. He would go around without fancy tools and use knives/sticks to defuse mines (incredibly dangerous), and over time built the museum/organization that helped bring resources toward the effort and even adopt injured and abandoned kids who had become mangled from stepping on old mines.

We were given the tour by a man who had, as a child, been playing in the forest with his siblings when he stepped on a mine that blew off his leg and killed his siblings. He eventually ended up meeting Aki Ra and joined the landmine defusing/education effort and also teaches kids English on the side. He showed us piles upon piles of defused mines and unexploded bombs from the United States, UK, Russia, China, and various other countries supplied during the numerous wars in the country’s modern history. They also have a fake forest area with examples of how mines might look when a local person encounters them – many of the accidents he described are simply civilians that have no idea what a bomb or mine looks like and unintentionally setting it off. This was really eye opening seeing and hearing how brutal these weapons are, but perhaps the silver lining is that the organization currently has no adopted kids as they’ve defused so many mines and civilians are becoming more educated. Most of the remaining mines are in the Thailand border region today.

Our last temple of the day was Pre Rup Temple. Most of the temples had several sets of stairs to climb that were all just a bit too narrow which made climbing down them a little scary. 

After grabbing the pictures we wanted, we headed back to the TukTuk to drive back to our AirBnb. Grant noticed during the drive that the back of his leg was pretty itchy and started to hurt a bit. We took a look and it seemed he’d gotten some heat rash and foliculitis on the back of his leg from all the sweat rubbing on his pants while walking around. Grant had brought some “just-in-case” steroid cream, so we could at least put something on it when back at the AirBnb.

It was so nice to have a pool to go back to and swim in after walking around in the heat. We cooled off and rested for a bit before heading to dinner. We had asked Chantri if he wanted to join us for dinner but he declined once we got downtown after previously accepting our invite. We noticed during our travels that most of our guides would decline any offer to join us for a meal, even if noting we would treat.

Since we didn’t enjoy our previous dinner on Pub Street, Grant found a local Italian restaurant nearby to try. Turned out to be some of the best Italian food we’ve had all trip. Grant grabbed a pizza while I enjoyed some gnocchi. Afterwards, we headed off to try the fish massage. We had seen it the night before and decided to give it a try! The first five minutes in the water was nonstop laughter. It was a weird sensation having fish “biting” at your feet but once you got used to it after a while, it became somewhat enjoyable. We had several people stop and stew while we were doing it and some even asked how it was. At a price point of $3 for an hour including a free beer or water, why not give it a try?

We only did about 45 minutes of the full hour as we wanted to grab another bowl of rolled ice cream. We grabbed it just in time for Chantri to pick us up and enjoyed it on the ride back home. We packed up our bags as best we could do we could quickly change and be ready for our 5 AM  pickup for sunrise that we decided to go ahead and do.

Getting through customs and grabbing our bags went fairly quickly and we headed out of the airport to meet our TukTuk driver, Chantri. Here in Cambodia, they use both the Cambodian riel and US dollars. We asked Chantri if we should exchange money and he told us places will accept both riel or dollar and some places would take card. He did say that when we receive change that it may come in both dollars and riel to just verify that the amount is correct. Since we arrived so late, we stopped by one of the markets on the way to grab some food for us to eat.

Our Airbnb was located just outside the city center and was in a private neighborhood. It was pretty cool place with most of it being open air except the bedrooms. Chantri dropped us off and we got the tour from our host, Tim. We asked if sunrise was worth it at Angkor Wat. He told us it is pretty but he didn’t think the early wake up was worth it. But we figured we’d keep it on the table and decide later if we didn’t want to do it. We enjoyed a late night swim in the pool before prepping for the next day exploring the temples.

Chantri came and picked us up at 8 AM to head to the ticket office for Angkor Wat. We ended up purchasing the three day pass just in case we decided to visit every day while we were here (and it worked out great because we did!). 

I had seen pictures of Angkor Wat but didn’t realize how extensive the area was. I honestly thought it would be like the My Son Sanctuary in Vietnam where there was one main one that we visit with other small ones nearby. However, most were spread out to where you had to drive the TukTuk there. We learned the entire complex is about 400 square kilometers filled with 1,000+ temples built in the 11th and 12th centuries! Chantri told us that we came during low season and wasn’t too busy, especially since the crowds still haven’t really picked up to where they were pre-Covid. (We researched Angkor Wat during high season and were thankful we missed the big crowds.) 

Our first day we walked through Angkor Wat, Bayon Temple, and the Royal Palace in the morning. It was nice because after every stop, Chantri welcomed us with an ice cold water and cold towel. By lunchtime, the temperature was already 98 with a feels like temperature of 108. It was hot! We were ready for a nice lunch break in the AC with some cold refreshments. 

One immediately noticeable detail within the Angkor area was that a lot of statues were missing heads. This is because Thai invaders centuries ago ransacked the Khmer civilization and cut many of the heads off the statues. Chantri told us if you tour museums in Thailand they often have statue heads from Angkor but not the bodies, even after all these years!

Angkor Wat (the most famous in the complex and “largest religious structure in the world”), originally built for the Hindu Gods but later converted to a Buddhist temple:

Road to Bayon Temple:

Bayon Temple and Royal Palace (last state temple built in Angkor for Buddhist worship). We learned at the height of the Khmer civilization there were an estimated 700,000 – 900,000 people living in the region making it one of the most populous areas of the world at the time. The Bayon Temple was likely the “downtown” area:

After lunch, we stopped by Ta Prohm Temple which sounded like “taproom” when the locals would say it.  This temple has now become known more colloquially as the “Tomb Raider” temple as it was used in the original film with Angelina Jolie. It was cool to see all the trees that looked like they were growing out of the temple. We’re still not entirely sure how they got like that. We also learned that after filming the movie, the Cambodian government granted Angelina Jolie with citizenship and she still sometimes stops by. She’s definitely popular there. We stopped at a small temple before finally heading back to our place to relax and swim before dinner. 

We grabbed dinner that night in downtown Siem Reap. They had a whole street called Pub Street filled with restaurants and bars catering to Westerners with a mix of local cuisine in the menus. The restaurant we chose ended up not being the best of food but we did enjoy a short conversation with a group of Brits on their last night in Cambodia. Grant also tried the local Cambodian dish called Amok which was probably best described as a green curry soup. He enjoyed his dish better than me and the Brits (we all ordered the same sandwich). After dinner, we grabbed some rolled ice cream which turned out to be Grant’s first time having it. He was enthralled by the process and we ended up getting it two nights in a row.

Before we knew it, it was already time to meet Chantri and head back to the Airbnb to prep for Day 2. We asked about the floating village Tim had mentioned to us, but he said it wasn’t worth it at this time because it was dry season and muddy so we wouldn’t truly get a sense of the floating village with all the flowing water. So we prepped for another day of exploring temples. 

Our last day in Da Nang, we attempted a short run around 7:30 AM. However, we only made it about 2 miles as the heat and humidity made the run unbearable. So we ended up back at our favorite breakfast spot for the week for a meal.

After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and relaxed before our check out time. Even though our host said it should be fine, we had to negotiate with the receptionist to allow us to leave our bags for a few hours. After some broken English and google translate, he let us leave our bags for 3 hours and had to pick them up around 2 pm. We headed for our last massage in Vietnam and ended up receiving the hot stone added to our massage for free. We think it was maybe because we were repeat customers but weren’t entirely sure. And we had our picture taken once again. Maybe we’ll end up on their website, or maybe it was just for her own reference? We noticed a lot of tourism oriented folks around the world like to keep pictures of their guests.

We both agreed this was probably our least favorite massage of the trip but was still nice as we prepared for our flight that evening. We headed back to the Airbnb to pick up our bike and return it to Tigit. There was a group of Russians that were prepping some dirt bikes for their trip along with a Canadian returning his bike after driving from Hanoi to Da Nang. He kept trying to get them to give a written confirmation or picture evidence that the bike was returned in good condition but it seemed like he was having a hard time getting that across to the rental company. Though it was crazy because the guy just took the keys and helmets from us and said we were good to go without verifying everything was good from the bike standpoint. We trusted that everything was fine so didn’t go on the same push as the Canadian to get written confirmation.

We ubered back to the Airbnb and grabbed our bags before enjoying our last taste of Vietnamese cuisine, a bahn mi sandwich. I’m not sure if we just didn’t go to a great place, but it wasn’t my favorite. The bread was the best part though it was basically just a French loaf. My take away from Vietnam food would be their coffee. Because it is strong, they only serve a small glass. I usually got it with milk and would probably say it has become my favorite coffee drink we’ve had around the entire world.

After our quick lunch break, we headed to the airport. Grant nor I was actually paying attention on the drive so we accidentally got dropped off at the domestic terminal instead of international. It was just thankfully a short walk over to the international terminal. Standing in the check in line, there was a group of Argentinians that seemed to be on the struggle bus. Several of them had three plus bags and were dumbfounded when they had to condense the number of bags when their carryons were too heavy. The line was initially short behind us, but due to the language barrier they struggled to move through the process quickly and backed up the line. (They would also do this as they boarded the plane). While waiting for our flight, Grant finished the video below to summarize our motorbike adventures throughout the week.

Our flight to Cambodia was probably the most interesting one on the trip so far. The flight had been initially pushed due to maintenance issues. The plane was a turbo prop plane and they had us board from the back of the plane. Once on, we noticed the seat in front of us was broken and if the lady slightly moved back it would fall backwards and almost hit Grant. Our armrest was taped with duct tape and upon landing in Siem Reap, several overhead bins popped open (no bags fell out though). Thankfully the flight was less than two hours and I was glad to be on safe ground!

The last day started out with a bang (not literally). As we started our drive to the abandoned water park just outside of Hue, we had a couple of locals point out our back flat tire. I hopped off to let Grant drive it to the gas station while I walked the short distance. The workers then pointed to a shop across the street where they could work on our tire. They were able to patch the hole in the inner tube and inflate the tire. They charged about $2USD. After our short pit stop, we were on our way. Everything we had read said there were local “guards” at the entrance of this place that may ask for a cover charge (read: locals that have no affiliation but can collect money).

When we got there, we didn’t see anyone so we headed on in and drove around the park. Ho Thuy Tien was built in 2004 for $3 million USD and was opened prematurely before it was completely finished. The internet said it was mysteriously closed and has been abandoned ever since. It used to be a spot you only heard about from backpackers but now it has become a tourist attraction with a location spot on Google maps. We stopped by the amphitheater first before heading to the main attraction, the three story tall dragon at the edge of the lake. We walked through and climbed the stairs to the top of the dragon mouth to get the view of the park. Grant was able to grab an aerial view video on his drones. We were worried this so called “guard” would see it and try to take it. But thankfully we didn’t encounter him at all during our time exploring.

The other part of the park was the slide area in the middle of the jungle. It was kind of off the beaten path. We had it to ourselves for a good 15-20 minutes before others arrived and were able to grab some more drone footage and pictures. It is so crazy how fast the jungle overtakes things in this part of the world.

However, once we got back to our bike, we noticed the tire was flat again. We drove it slowly out of the park and asked some people that passed by if they knew of a shop close to us. “Asking” and “answering” is largely pantomiming in this part of the world if you don’t speak Vietnamese! One guy pointed up the street and signaled “500” with his hands so we assumed that meant go that way for 500m. Another guy told us there was someone about 1km up the road so we hopped off and walked the bike up the road. Everyone in the small town was so nice – 2 or 3 different people stopped to see if we needed help, even though we couldn’t communicate at all with words. We grabbed some cold drinks at a cafe on the corner and continued our walk up the hill. A local guy stopped us and said he could fix the tire in his garage shop. Grant tried to feign contempt at paying $500,000 VND ($20) but I was ready to just pay the fee to replace it to ensure we make it the three to four hours back to Da Nang safely. He did do a really good job – he ended up giving us a completely new tire and tube, re-oiled the chain, and made sure the chain tension was correct. Grant in the end admitted to me the $20 was well spent to get us home safe (we had 60 miles left, including through a huge mountain pass), even if it was half the cost of the entire bike rental for the week.

He fixed it quick and we were back in the road to Hue. We grabbed lunch at a Mexican restaurant which was surprisingly pretty good before cooling off in the AC. Grant kept telling me I should be thankful for this heat as I complained about the cold in Seoul. Honestly I was ready for the warmth but didn’t think we’d be jumping almost 50 degrees and it was hot. We waited until around 2:30PM before hitting the road back to Da Nang. Thankfully the cloud coverage helped to cool the temperature down a little making the ride a lot more enjoyable than the previous day.

We made better time this drive, but still had to make a couple of “free the booty” stops and drone stops. Once back in Da Nang, we dropped off the bike and headed to grab some Thai food. The meal was great and some of the best food we had had in Vietnam. Though Grant was a little saddened to learn the chef was a British guy living in Vietnam. I overheard him telling some guests that he had lived in Thailand for about 6 years before visiting Vietnam in 2020. He ended up finding his wife here and stayed. The restaurant had only been open for about four months and is still trying to get its name out there.

We ended the night planning out our last day in Da Nang before our evening flight to Cambodia.

Our next morning we had a long drive planned to Hue so we decided to grab breakfast at Bikini Bottom again since we probably wouldn’t have a big lunch meal. Plus the fog was so thick that morning we could hardly see the city from our apartment balcony! So it was for the best that we waited a little so we could actually enjoy the view while driving the Hai Van Pass.

Once we were sufficiently full, we headed back to our place to grab our overnight bags and head into Hue. We took the longer route that took us through the Hai Van Pass since Grant had read it was one of the most scenic drives near Da Nang. And it truly was! We stopped a couple of times so Grant could get some drone shots, which was sometimes a little scary as we were standing on the side of the road while big semi trucks and oil tankers passed by.

According to Google maps, the drive should take around 2.5 hours but we figured it would take longer with the possible breaks we would take. It ended up taking us about 4 hours to get to Hue after our “Free the booty” breaks. Grant could tell when it was time to stop for a moment once I started shifting my position behind him. Sitting that long on the back of a bike definitely made it feel like my butt was going numb so I appreciated any break we took.

We stopped at a local stand to grab a cold water and Coca Cola. We knew we were out in the country as the couple spoke zero English. One regret we had on that drive was not trying the sugar cane drink they make here in Vietnam. They send stalks of sugar cane multiple times through a press machine and collect the juice. It’s probably very sugary but guess we won’t know for sure! She had pointed to the machine when we arrived and we didn’t know what she was referring to but we watched her use it make drinks for local school kids as we were leaving.

Once we got into Hue, we dropped off our stuff in the Airbnb and headed to the Hue Citadel and temple area. Of course we found another historical site under restoration work so we couldn’t go into the main palace. But we enjoyed our time walking through the grounds! On our way out of the complex we got stopped by a group of locals that called Grant un-human because of all the hair on his arms and also commented on his red beard. We had a good laugh with them, especially when one of them wanted to touch his arms.

Grant had asked our Airbnb host for recommendations in Hue and he told us we should visit a local restaurant to try the pancakes there. Supposedly Hue has a very specific central Vietnamese cuisine that he said was best to try here. We grabbed the set menu to share (though we should’ve ordered one each) which included spring rolls, rice pancake, some pork rice paper roll and some oyster looking things that were basically just egg and pork on top. It was surprisingly really good but like I said we could have ordered one for each of us. We headed back to the Airbnb to relax and cool off in the AC.

We ended the night visiting the Hue Night walking street. I thought it was going to be another night market area but turned out to be a street full of bars for the Westerners to enjoy. We grabbed a drink at Mew bar and then went walking around to find dessert. We found a bar or club or something called SpaceX. We still aren’t exactly sure what it was but all the workers were sitting outside on their phones but were a bit rude so we didn’t go in to see what it was. We were able to find a gelato place and I tried their rose shaped gelato. The girls working there seemed annoyed they actually had customers and would have rather enjoyed sitting in the booth chatting and on their phones.

We headed back to the room to watch some Ted Lasso and plan out our next morning.

The next morning we had woken up early due to my coughing. I ended up catching whatever cold Grant had in Seoul. Thankfully we still had some cold medicine leftover so I could make it through the day.

Our plan for the day was to visit My Son sanctuary and then head onto Hoi An. The drive to My Son felt easier than the day before, but we could tell the more inland we drove the hotter the temperature felt. After parking our motorbike and grabbing our tickets, we started our journey through the complex.

We saw there was a traditional Champa show starting in about 30 minutes so we headed in that direction. It was interesting to watch all the different tourists interact. There was a group of Asian tourists that came in at the last minute as the show was starting and tried to grab some chairs to sit down in and the amount of people yelling at them to sit down was amazing. You still had to maneuver around all the phones that were raised up in the air to get a view of the show. There were three different dances they performed but the best one was the flutist (which we unfortunately didn’t grab a video of). He ended with a long solo where he kept removing pieces of the flute until he was down to just the mouth piece, all while making continuous sound for well over a minute. His breath control was very impressive!

We moved through the temples stopping frequently in whatever shade we found as it was sweltering hot (though we would soon see how hot Cambodia would be). Even the locals kept telling us “Very hot!” It was impressive to see the signs of the before and after pictures of the restoration projects at the sanctuary. They were built around 11th or 12th Century depending on which grouping they were in and the brick structures did not use mortar like we are used to seeing. The other crazy thing to see was huge craters very close to a lot of the temples from US bombings during the Vietnam war. As you travel through Vietnam, there are always so many reminders of how intense and brutal that war was, even to this day.

After exploring the temples, we grabbed a quick snack at the restaurant before heading back to Da Nang. We had decided since I was feeling sick and it was so hot outside, we would skip Hoi An and relax the rest of the afternoon in our Airbnb.

On our way back to Da Nang, we stopped at the base of Marble Mountain and walked through the garden area. We had a local woman stop by and tell us we should go hike the mountain and she would show us the way as she lived up there. She waited for us to finish our walk through the area and tried to get us to follow her once we got to our motorbike. We had to politely tell her that we were going to save it for another day and headed out on the road.

Back at the Airbnb, it felt nice to be in air conditioning and relax. I was able to get a quick nap in, as I didn’t get the best sleep the night before, while Grant figured out our plans for the rest of the week. We ended up grabbing dinner at a local pho shop which I think was maybe only my second time trying pho. This place was really good! And it was the perfect meal on a day I was feeling sick. The place next door was an Obama themed restaurant – we had seen a number of Obama references by this point and read that it’s because of his 2016 visit to the country.

After dinner, we stopped by the pharmacy to grab some more medicine since we were low on cold medicine from Seoul. I was surprised after giving her my symptoms that she cut out three steroid tablets along with three allergy pills. Those pills plus a nasal rinse were only $3.50! And no prescription needed for the steroid.

We also ran into an American family from Long Beach living in Singapore who were visiting Da Nang for the week. His wife was from Indonesia and gave us a bunch of site seeing recommendations for Bali. And she again told us how much traffic there was in Bali, but they told us we would be used to it living in Los Angeles.

The day had come to finally pick up our motorbike and try our hand at driving in Vietnam. We packed our daypack for Ba Na Hills and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading to Tigit Motorbikes for our rental.

Our entire rental fee for the rest of the week was originally $44 and that included a damage waiver. Crazy how cheap it was! That’s cheaper than most car rental places for just one day. They not once checked an ID or asked if we knew how to ride a bike – they just made sure to collect a $400 refundable deposit which you get back basically as long as the bike shows back up in whatever condition. We paid our fees and grabbed our helmets before Grant went out to test drive the bike. He had previously motorbiked in Thailand years ago so felt comfortable driving, though he would later say this was probably the most stressed driving situation he’s ever been in.

Then it was off to Ba Na Hills to visit the Golden Bridge. Grant had seen this on his research of places to visit in Vietnam and that was one of the main reasons of visiting Da Nang. However, we didn’t realize this was part of an amusement park so had to purchase tickets to view it. We later read that the Vietnamese government felt their own citizens were spending their tourism money in other Asian countries so decided to build this as one of their first major theme parks to attract Vietnamese and other foreign tourists to spend money in country. They had an impressive amount of construction ongoing even while we were there.

Once we left the city of Da Nang and were driving through the countryside, I became more relaxed on the back of the bike to enjoy the scenery and take some videos. I only got onto Grant a couple times about using his horn as we went through intersections. We learned during our time in Southeast Asia that they use their horns as more of a signal that they were approaching or to move over and let them pass. That’s unlike in America where we use our horns in a more rude/aggressive manner (I’m definitely guilty of that…).

Once we arrived at Ba Na Hills after about an hour of driving, we parked our motorbike and headed for the entrance. We ran into a group from France who were also motorbiking through Vietnam. One of them said, “The one rule about driving in Vietnam is there are none.” And it’s so true. We realized the whole goal of their driving was to just keep moving no matter how slow you go.

Once you entered after purchasing tickets, you had to take a cable car up to the actual park. We learned that this was built in 2009 and is the world’s longest single track cable car (almost 3-4 miles long). It took 16 minutes to get to the top! The amusement park is themed to represent an easy connection between Europe and Asia with various European sections including a medieval area and a replica of the Notre Dame and various Asian areas including a real temple that people were praying at. It was funny because this was the first amusement park that we spent more time taking pictures of the area instead of riding rides.

We did enjoy a couple rides on the alpine slide along with their version of a drop tower. We even did a 5D Western themed ride where we rode “horses” and helped the cowboys shoot the bad guys. Grant ended up being the big winner and his photo popped up at the end showing he got the most points.

We ended the day there grabbing pictures of what we initially came for, The Golden Bridge. It was pretty cool to see though it was hard to get a good shot since it was still pretty crowded. I think my favorite part was the cable car ride back down as we rode through the clouds for about 4-5 minutes.

Our drive back was fairly easy until we got closer to the city when we realized it was rush hour and had to go straight through the middle of downtown in a 1 million person city. Going through the roundabout was stressful as it felt like cars were going to crash into you. I knew better to say anything to Grant since he was focused on making it through the horde of motorbikes to get us safely back to our place. And he did great! But it did feel nice to finally get off the motorbike as I’m was not used to sitting on a bike for that long.

We went and grabbed dinner at the burger place that Mark had recommended for their pulled pork sandwich. However, when I ordered it they said they were out so had to settle for a chicken sandwich which was still pretty good. It was still crazy for us to see all of these restaurants so empty with a smattering of guests here and there.

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.

Our first full day in Vietnam we were craving some actual breakfast food so I found a restaurant called Bikini Bottom Express. We had been doing coffee and a pastry most mornings since it’s hard to find a true breakfast place in Asia (especially with food that were used to and not rice or noodles). The food there was really good and filling!

Since Grant had previously traveled to Vietnam, he knew the massages here were very cheap. We found one that had good reviews and headed that way to get a much needed massage after all this traveling. The massage was very relaxing and only cost us $16 each! I wish those were the prices in the US. I’m a frequent Massage Envy traveler and a massage there is usually $70! And they gave us some tea and crackers to enjoy afterwards.

To continue our relaxing day, we headed to our beachside bar where we ended up meeting the owner. He was originally from Turkmenistan and had lived in Moscow for a few years for university and working in nuclear aviation propulsion (or something like that). He had moved to Vietnam 4 years ago and started doing architect design work where he came up with the idea for the bar. When he found out Grant majored in aerospace engineering, he was so excited to talk engineering with someone. They ended up chatting for about 15-20 minutes, mostly about Starlink. As we were leaving, we asked how hard it was to drive a motorbike in Vietnam and he told us it wasn’t too bad so we went ahead and booked our bike.

The rest of the afternoon we enjoyed a quick break back at the Airbnb and ended up creeping on a wedding going on at the hotel below our room. With Grants zoom, we got a couple pics of the bride and groom singing to each other. Although we couldn’t understand anything they were saying, it was really good! We then took a quick swim in the water since we were finally back in warm weather. The water wasn’t too cold but the waves were really choppy. And I continued the saga of losing my sunglasses. I was already on my third pair by that point in my trip, which I lost when I got hit by a wave!

We had learned in our research of Da Nang that they do a show at the dragon bridge every Saturday and Sunday night at 9 PM so we decided to watch it by the bridge that night. It was about a 30-40 minute walk from our Airbnb to the bridge so we grabbed dinner about halfway. The hard thing about the food throughout our week in Vietnam was a lot of their “seafood” included a mix of fish and shellfish so I had to be careful with what I ate to not have a reaction to shellfish. Grant ended up trying the beef vermicelli with udon noodles while I stuck with the bibimbap knowing it did not include any seafood.

On our way to the bridge, we were to cross one of the busiest intersections in the city. We figured we would try to walk down the side street a little more to make it easier. But instead it just made it worse as we chose to cross in a section with construction on the street while motorbikes, cars, and big trucks are barreling at us. Thankfully we were able to safely cross and head onto the Dragon bridge. We didn’t realize how big a spectacle this was when we arrived. It was like the crowds you see in America on the 4th of July waiting to watch the fireworks shows. The city closes the bridge down to traffic for about 10 minutes while the dragon emits flames from its mouth off and on before ending with a shower of water.

After the show ended, we found ourselves exploring the night market where we tried Kem Kep. This is basically a literal ice cream sandwich containing a block of ice cream wrapped in a slice of bread. It actually was pretty delicious. As things are relatively cheap in the market, we grabbed a knock off Nike shirt for Grant, a two-piece set for me to wear at temples to cover legs and shoulders along with some knock off Ray Bans (which literally only lasted about 24hours before a lens popped out) – so much for sunglasses pair #4! For reference, my two-piece was priced at about $6.40USD and Grant’s shirt about $4USD. Even though you are told you should negotiate at the night markets we didn’t really because we felt weird trying to knock 50 cents off an already cheap item. The guy selling Grant the Nike shirt suggested he buy an XL but Grant went with his normal L and it was too tight when he tried it on back at the apartment! Should have listened!

We headed back to the room to plan out our next few days and decide whether or not we wanted to spend a night outside of Da Nang.