By this Author: Rhondalee

You could see Lady Buddah from the grounds of our Hotel.

Lady Buddah is 72 metres high and 17 metres around and she is thought by the locals to. protect sailors. She is taller than the Empire State Building
and 17 metres in diameter. You can actually climb to the stop of lady Buddah’s Head; it is 17 floors high (we didn’t climb it). The scenery of Da Nang is beautiful,
and so is the Lin Ung Pagoda. Admission is free and there is a souvenir shop as well

We thought it was going to rain as the clouds moved in, but luckily there was only a couple of drops.
. I’ve included a couple of web links, the first one has more pictures of the grounds. https://wanderlustmike.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/lady-buddha-da-nang/ and http://ladybuddha.org/.

Da Nang like other Cities and towns in Asia has numerous markets. In Da Nang the most well-known is the Han Market where everything can be bought. There is the wet market, a section for clothing, dried goods, Chinese medicines, clothing, flowers, food stalls, insense; You name it, they got it.

I have to say one of the things about travelling for me is learning about the culture, the people their foods but there are some things, environmentally related that I do not like and one of the things that I witnessed in the Han market was someone buying a large sized I mean maybe XML size of ===seahorses===. The horses didn’t have their shells on so maybe they were babies. I was upset and did do a Google search and I don’t think it’s illegal to sell them, but it is to fish them. I also know what I saw was part of the culture and they are mainly sold for Chinese traditional medical purposes, but I doubt there is any medical evidence that supports the use of seahorses for medical needs.

Our time in Vietnam started with landing at the Da Nang International Airport. Sort of a bad sign when our taxi 🚖 driver couldn’t find our lodging. We had booked 5 nights at Dan Oasis. It had been well reviewed but the location was not close to anything to even buy water, or getting our laundry done. We didn’t mind taking a taxi to the beach because it’s so cheap, but for us not being able to find a variety store close by, was a big turn off. I have to say, the food at Dan Oasis was great and the staff were excellent. I think this accommodations would be great if you’re staying for a day, heading too or from the airport.

Since we arrived at the airport late afternoon, we ate at their restaurant and the following morning after our breakfast headed out to get water and a SIM card. Well, we spent all day in the heat, looking for a SIM card. We were both agitated and grumpy and hot..add tired to that list as well. We were so discouraged about our location that we stopped by different hotels to look at their rooms and get quotes. After getting some water, and not being able to find a SIM card we returned to our room. We told the staff we couldn’t find a SIM card and they were shocked. Well, we actually took the SIM card out of one of phones and showed it to them. The owner took our phones and drove out and got us two SIM cards. Apparently, what the stores advertise as SIM cards in Vietnam really refers to top-ups. I have no idea what a SIM card is called in Vietnam.

During our five days in Da Nang we went to the beach once. The beach was formerly known as China Beach during the Vietnam War. The beach in February was still chilly but I did go in.

We also found a seafood restaurant about 2 blocks down that we went to a couple of times. We had their seafood hot pot a couple of times, but their was a huge selection of seafood available but we weren’t sure of how to order or to say how much we wanted plus how we wanted it prepared. This place was always packed and cases of beer were delivered to the tables along with a bucket of ice. We think that the beer wasn’t cold because electricity is expensive, hence the ice is put in the beer glass. We have also seen this in Thailand. We were shocked to see people just tossing the shells 🐚 from the seafood on the floor, but we were told that’s the way it’s done. We could not believe how inexpensive the food was and the beer......get this. 11 beer 🍺 for $7.

If you have never been to Da Nang, you would be surprised to see high rises and tons of construction going on.

We decided that we would like to see Lady Buddha for one excursion, the Han Market another day, visit the beach again, and of course contact Mrs. Thao, my employer when I taught in Vietnam. So, the 5 days would be full

Vietnam had it’s ups and downs. Tom was really out of the box for this leg of the trip, which initially I thought was weird because we had both been to Vietnam together several years earlier. After several discussions about this we came to the conclusion that the problem was that when we had travelled in the past we hit spots like HCMC and Mui Ne which are more geared towards tourists and caommunicating in English is not so much of a problem. For example menus are written in both Vietnamese and English. Also, because I had spent a year teaching in Quang Nai, Vietnam, where basically very, very little English is spoken so this aspect of the trip was not new to me. In retrospect I also realized that I really didn’t have much to worry about in Quang Ngai because everything was pretty well taken care of for me/us the teachers. Our employer spoke English, our meals were prepared for us. So, I suppose this leg of our journey was a real learning experience for both of us and for Tom a real big learning curve.

In this section of the blog there won’t be as many pictures and dialogue as per the previous sections, especially when we were in Quang Ngai as I have a separate blog under the title of “The year long journey” which outlines my one year living experience in Quang Ngai Vietnam. This blog is also on Traveller’spoint.

We didn’t see all we thought we would, we back tracked back and forth a couple of times and had some really great moments meeting and introducing Tom to my former employer Mrs Thao and one of my student’s (Minh) family. No word of a lie we were wined and dined and treated like royalty. We also had a fantastic time in Hoi An and spent about 6 days there. This is what our itinerary ended up looking like:

Da Nang
Quang Ngai
Hoi An
Da Nang
Bangkok

So, Let the journey begin!

So, we are off again. It's now February 18th and we're making our way to Vietnam but we decided to spend two nights at an Airport Hotel; the Ibis, Jakarta for 2 nights (we really liked it there). We had booked our flight out of Borneo through Nusa Trips way back in early June. We booked through Nusa because we were unable to book a flight with our visa credit card in Indonesia and during my research I found out that Nusa Trips would take Visa credit card (if you've read earlier entries, sorry to bore you with this as I've already mentioned this scenario). Well, as mentioned previously, I tried to log in to Nusa Trips and create an account from Canada, but was unable to do, something I think to do with my last name (2 last names) and birth date (leap year). But guess what, it didn't work in Indonesia either. However after reviewing their website I felt assured that as according to their website, if there were any changes they would contact me by email, and they did have my email address, because after all, they had emailed me my e-ticket. Right? WRONG!

Our flight was to take off at 5 to 10 in the morning via Wings Air. So, we get to the airport and early and when it opens (yes, it is not a 24 hour airport) we are told by one of the counter staff that they no longer do the same layover in Pontianak (our short layover point before going to Jakarta). I over simplify, it wasn't that easy because the English was broken. However, the service we had was very good and we were directed to the Lion Air counter (Lion Air owns "Wings Air".) Luckily we were re-routed and our only inconvenience was to fly an hour later plus our total flight time wasn't any longer than the 3 hours it had been on our original booking. We were very grateful for the great service and that the Lion's Air rep spoke not bad English, 'cause I think we could have easily been told so sad too bad had to pay for another flight.

What did we do in the meantime with the extra hour? We found 2 t-shirts that fit us (finally) and we were happy that we had purchased our stuffed orang-utans while we were in town because one was double the price what we paid for the 3 we had bought. And last but not least, before boarding , a stop to the airport washroom

Yes, these type of washrooms are not uncommon in Borneo, actually throughout Asia but in the bigger hubs you see them last often Let's face it, Borneo isn't the mega tourist destination such as Thailand's Chiang Mai, Phuket etc., which cater more to tourists such as European and North American and have a better established tourism industry. With that being said some say that this type of washroom is more conducive to going to the washroom than our "modernized way" (think of Squatty Potty"; if you haven't heard of it Google it).

Luggage intact, we spent $20 for a 5 minute ride to the Ibis Styles Airport Hotel. We absolutely had no intention of going to downtown Jakarta; horrific stories of traffic jams....heck we were here to relax and not get stressed.

We really liked to IBIS. (Jl. Tol Bandara Prof. Sedyatmo Kp Rawa Bokor RT02 RW04 Kel. Benda, Tangerang, 15125, Indonesia -
Phone: +622129327777) Room was great, they had a pool which I didn't use because on the second day it rained. There was a gym, which I used and was so happy to be able to. Buffet breakfast included and the price worked out to approximately $50.00 Canadian/night. After our $7 a night this was a splurge!

Now, if you decide to stay here be warned that there is no where else to go there, like walking to a restaurant or such, so we used the hotel restaurant and we liked the meals. They had a buffet which I suppose was the best deal because if you ended up ordering things separately it would cost you about the same or more but honestly, the first day I just couldn't do the buffet dinner I was just wanting something lighter and different, so I had a shawarma. Funny ehh, you would have thought I would have had one beforehand but in all honesty while we were in Pangkalabun, we found such good places to eat and liked the food it was just easier to do that then find a place or try to explain what a shawarma was (don't know if we would have had to do that; but we just were very happy with the food and places we had ate).

After spending a frustrating hour or so trying to do our on-line boarding with Air Asia (due in part to my out-dated IPAD), we had dinner packed our stuff with plans to have our morning breakfast and head out to the airport. Our flight left at 11:35 the next morning and transportation booked (like $10.00).

So, our last day in Borneo has finally arrived. Our routine pretty much stayed the same as it has been over the last few days. There was however, one thing I definitely wanted to do and that was find a t-shirt for my daughter and myself. Had luck for my daughter, but the pickings were slim for a size large...their large is like our medium (or smaller). Tom wanted to take a last walk around the town. In particular to listen to the sounds coming from the Swallow houses. He said he was mesmerized by them and he felt like he was in a trance (he did get lost once 'cause all the buildings look the same)

After dinner, (at our favourite restaurant) we got ready for the next day as our flight was to leave at 10:00 a.m. Good! There was time for breakfast. I had booked the flight many months before we left Toronto. It was difficult to book this flight because most airlines in Indonesia do not take our credit cards (they have their own). The exception for this was Air Asia. Through my research, I learned that I could use a company called Nusa Trips to book our flight, and they would take Visa, which is exactly what I did. I remember trying to create an account for their websitefrom home, but was unable to do so because as I recall the form did not take my whole name and my birthdate (leap year) was a problem. I assumed I could do this from Indonesia, but didn't have any luck while there either. But since the company had my email address and it mentioned on their website that if there were any changes they would contact me by email.

We had decided to not go in one day to Vietnam but to do a 2 day layover in Jakarta (but not right in Jakarta). We had no desire to stay in Jakarta or go into town. We just wanted to chill. We were going to spend 2 nights at the Ibis Airport Jakarta and then after that we would be using Air Asia to fly from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur and then onto Da Nang Vietnam.

Good-bye Borneo! I have learned so much. I hope my children and their children will live to see the Orang-utans will no longer be a critically endangered species.