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| Howdy from Hoi An! |
Today was originally scheduled to be Vietnamese cooking class day. There was a slight change in the schedule so the cooking class is now on for tomorrow. We moved our beach day to today.
As I had previously mentioned, Hoi An is a coastal town in Central Vietnam. Our hotel (Hoi An Silk) is a few miles inland near the city center and historic ancient city. Getting to the beach was as simple as taking the shuttle the hotel operates on a daily basis.
With towels, hats and sunscreen in the backpack we took off on the earliest shuttle which was 9:40 am. The shuttle runs directly to the beach and offers two different options, a "public beach" and a "private beach". We had nothing else planned for the day so we opted to try them both.
First up was An Bang Beach, which is the public beach. We were dropped off a couple of hundred yards from the water, making it about as easy as possible. The street leading to the beach as well as the shore along the beach had a number of different shops and restaurants including several "tailor shops" where you chose the fabric and they would make you a bikini. Had we only known, we wouldn't have packed our suits!
The body of water that Hoi An is located on is the East Vietnamese Sea. At least that's what it's called in Vietnam. If you are across the way in China the same body of water is called the South China Sea. Whatever you want to call it, it's part of the Pacific Ocean. The warm water had some fairly large waves which kept most people on shore, but there were a few hearty souls out in the surf. The sand wasn't "Anna Maria Island White". It was a little darker in color, more like what you find on the east coast of Florida It was firm and we enjoyed walking for about 50 minutes along the shore. The only negative about this beach is that sadly there was quite a bit of trash along the shoreline.
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| An Bang Beach...…..the public beach |
We then caught the bus to the private beach which was called the Silk Beach Club. It was only a mile or so from the first beach. Walking the beach here is a little harder right now due to a beach restoration project that's going on but it did look much cleaner. There were plenty of lounge chairs as well as a few cabanas near the shoreline and a restaurant. It also had a large swimming pool that we enjoyed for an hour or so in the afternoon. It was so much that we made a full day of it, taking the last shuttle (4:35 pm) back to town. We're rested and relaxed now and will be ready to cook tomorrow!
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| Our home for the day. Beth told me I fell asleep for a while...…...I can't remember |
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| The pool had a swim up bar and tables |
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| Showing off my pedicure and still sending an occasional picture like this to a few of my good buddies back at Huguley |
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| We took this selfie to send to our friends Ed and Judy Laue who are in Sydney, Australia. They had just sent us a picture with the Sydney Harbor Bridge in the background. |
