Full Stop

In my last post I said we were almost at a complete stop. Now, we are. Full stop. It's going to take dynamite to get us moving again tomorrow as we head out to the airport to fly to Hanoi. The end of the trip is slowly coming into view, but there's much to do yet between now and March 9 when we fly from Beijing back to Seattle.

Last night we went into Hoi Anh for dinner and to walk the streets. As I described in my last post, it's quite lovely along the river at night. Actually, it's quite lovely in the evening. The structures in the river are illuminated at night, as you shall see.

These little coracles are, apparently, quite common in Viet Nam. They're used for fishing.

We were looking for Cao Lau, a dish only found in Hoi Anh. It's made with noodles that are browner and chewier than the usual. Their qualities are supposedly due to the local water. We ended up at La Vie.

Where we found Cao Lau. Actually, every restaurant seemed to have Cao Lau. I was, sadly, underwhelmed, but the spring rolls and "white rose" were tasty and the restaurant was all decked out in the requisite lanterns.

At the restaurant we met a trio of folks, a man, his wife and his mother, from former East Germany and had a nice chat in German mixed with occasional English. That was fun. Then we set off to see the lights. It was very pleasant, a warm, lovely evening.

These are those structures in the river you saw in the first photo, now all lit up.

The Japanese Bridge once separated the Japanese part of town from the Vietnamese part. It supposedly is the only covered bridge in the world with an attached Buddhist pagoda.

It was a beautiful night. Walking was delightful. We stopped at a cafe for some dessert and coffee and caught a cab for home.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today we went for a walk on the beach. On March 8, 1965 the first U.S. combat troops came ashore at China Beach near Danang. That, as it happens, is where we are. China Beach goes on for quite a way, but it's not totally crazy to think those marines might have come ashore where we were standing today.

For us, at least, it's a strange thought.

The beach in front of our resort was pristine.

Once past the limits, it changed.

There was a coracle with no fisherman.

And a restaurant with no customers.

And sand crabs. They were invisible until they moved and then they were so quick they looked like sand colored fluff being blown by the wind. I enlarged and enhanced this photo and the crab is still nearly invisible. It's a miracle of camouflage.

We finished our walk, went for a swim, and let Huong cater to us for one more day. Tomorrow we go to Hanoi.