Last day of Vietnam and lots of travel to  get home! We started the day super, super early so that we could get one last day trip in before our flight home.

We woke up some time around 5am so that our guide Thao could pick us up at 5:35am. I was bummed to go without our lovely hotel breakfast, but sacrifices must be made! We loaded into a small van, the first passengers, and proceeded to pick up a Welsh couple and an Iranian family with a little boy.

The destination was My Son sanctuary, a series of temple and building ruins from an ancient people with spiritual resemblance to Hinduism. We arrived hours before the ruins officially opened, just after sunrise, so we had the whole place to ourselves. It was beautiful and quiet.

Okay, well, the Iranian boy was not quiet, and he was only interested in climbing on the temples and ruins (not allowed!), but I thought he was cute. At one point he found something interesting on the ground and called out, “Eh-rrr-lee-bo-dy! Eh-rrr-lee-bo-dy!” as he beckoned us excitedly to him. I was the only one to look. I think it was some bugs, haha.

And speaking of bugs, the cicadas were out! Here’s a molted skin that our guide tried to get us to hold. (No, thanks!)

There was an interesting conglomeration of stones making up the buildings – some original, some attempted restorations from various periods of history. The fascinating thing was that the original stones actually looked the newest because the techniques used then were so much more robust.

Some of the buildings could be entered, but it was a little scary inside with no lights!

The whole compound was extremely beautiful, and I’m really glad we visited.

After the tour, we wandered back and were driven to a little spot where we had some noodle lunch (yummy but very greasy!).

Then we had a couple hours to kill back at the hotel, but check-out time had passed, so we lounged by the pool with our last set of cheap, yummy cocktails.

My biggest regret from Hoi An was not swimming in this pool! It actually started pouring rain after a while, which only made me want to swim more since it was still so warm outside. I did dip my toes in, though!

It was time to make moves, though – moves to downtown Hoi An for a visit to the hospital to get a pre-flight Covid test. ‘Twas quite stressful trying to get the test sorted out because our time window between testing and flying was only 24 hours, and it was a big Vietnamese holiday, so everybody’s hours were strange. The test went off without a hitch, though! Both negative! Phew! Sean accidentally cramped his shoulder because he tensed up so much when the nurse administered his test.

We then had a fairly frustrating last few hours in Vietnam spearheaded by our driver who had taken us to Hoi An from the airport. I really regret giving him my phone number! Why did I agree to that?!

He started messaging and calling us at 10am even though we didn’t have our flight until the evening. Finally, I was so bothered by being bothered that I just told him he could take us to the city we’d be flying out of – Da Nang. We were starving, and the day ended up gorgeous, but he had booked a hotel room for us somewhere in the city to nap. I don’t know, man, it was all very strange.

We passed by some beautiful beaches filled with kites, and so many times, I wanted to just shout, “Actually, let us off here! We don’t need the hotel!” I wish I had, but I was so confused and tired that I was just going on auto-pilot.

He dropped us off at a hotel that his wife worked at (I tell ya, the tourism industry is so intertwined!), and it ended up being a pretty lackluster and sketchy hotel. The bathroom wall was leaking yellow water, our key card didn’t work in our room, etc. Very frustrating. All I wanted to do was eat something and take a nap on the beach, but it felt like we had to nap in the hotel so as not to waste the money. So strange. Big regrets!

We did manage to get a nap in, but it didn’t help much since we were so tired. We stumbled outside and around the corner to a giant seafood restaurant for dinner. The entire center of the restaurant was filled with tanks where you could choose your own fresh seafood, live and ready for the pickings.

We ordered a seafood noodle dish and oyster congee, and boy, did our eyes bug out of our heads when the congee was delivered! The bowl was huge!

The waiter was confused that we were so shocked. “So big!” I said, and he replied, “No, it’s small!” Lol, what??

Both dishes were yummy. We then got our last strange taxi ride, across the famous Dragon Bridge, and to the airport.

Our flight ended up leaving very late, and I cried in the airport because our layover in Hanoi was only two hours long. I was sure we would miss our flight to Seoul and that we’d have to buy new tickets, and it was all my fault because I hadn’t planned for a longer layover in case something like this happened.

Sean tried to console me, but I was pretty inconsolable. We were also waiting in an area surrounded by massage chairs that kept telling the people sitting in them to pay or leave. It was not a great time.

We left around an hour and a half late, and we sat in an emergency exit row at the front of the plane. We tried some really sketchy airplane food (bad idea), and then explained our predicament to a flight attendant. His eyes widened when we told him the departure time of our next flight, and he helped us disembark the plane first.

WE RAN through that airport, but we actually had to exit the building and run to a completely different terminal for the international flights. It was probably a five minute run with our bags, and my body was not happy about it. When we got to the desk agents, we then had to do a Covid test verification and visa verification, and man, was it stressful. Everybody else was so calm, and finally, they assured us we would make our flight.

Turns out the big Vietnamese holiday was causing delays all over the country, so our flight to Seoul was also delayed. I was so relieved.

I ended up feeling super nauseous on the five hour flight to Seoul, and Sean was sitting in the row behind me instead of next to me, which sucked. I spent over half an hour on my knees in the airplane bathroom. Not a fun experience, let me tell you. And the poor girl next to me was probably terrified because I kept taking off my mask and bending over my sick bag. I never did puke, but it was like a terrible dance for five long hours. It was also fun trying to explain “nausea” to the Korean flight attendants. (I resorted to miming, and that got the idea across pretty quickly.)

This day was capped off with ten hours in the Seoul airport, because it turned out South Korea had different testing requirements than the US, so we were not permitted to leave the airport. Foiled again!!! This day, man.

It was probably for the best though, since I was still recovering from my nausea. We napped in various resting areas of the airport, shopped around a bit, ate a bunch of snacks, and saw a little traditional dance performance.

The flight back to Seattle was much nicer and less nauseating. Asiana’s meals were also much more delightful than the scary food we’d had on that first domestic flight.

All in all, this day was so long and eventful. And boy was it nice to get home!

Thank you Vietnam for a lovely trip. (No thanks for the nausea at the end.) You were just as beautiful as I’d hoped!

Trân trọng/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa