Surf Through Ly Son Island & Hoi An Ancient Town
Hi everyone, I’m back with my travel’s experience.
This time I will not share any group tour or trip with fixed itinerary. This post I’d like to share with you my self-experience once I travelled with my Vietnamese friends whom I knew when travelling through Vietnam several times. I heard that Vietnam has so many naturally beautiful island which wasn’t known by so many travelers, so that they still keep their own natural beauty. I was recommended this island named Ly Son by my Vietnamese friends so many times but for me as a foreigner I don’t know how to get there and even I wondered whether people there can speak English or not? So when my Vietnamese friends ask me to join there trip to this island, I agreed right away. Then here we go.
Ly Son island
At first, we took a flight from Noi Bai airport to Chu Lai airport – Quang Ngai, it was a really small airport which looks like a bus stop. Then we took a mini van straight to the harbor which the speedboat to Ly Son depart twice a day at 8 a.m and 3 p.m. We arrived at the harbor at 20 a.m so we bought tickets for the afternoon then went around a bit to have lunch.
First day’s lunch was just white rice and some meats, eggs as usual but the taste was totally different from what I had in Hanoi, sweeter and had more flavor.
After almost 2 hours on the boat, it was a bit terrible for me because I had dizzy with car, train or speed boat. Here we are in Ly Son Island. My first impression was how blue the water is!
Checked-in the hotel then we rented 2 motorbikes from the hotel we stayed, then let’s go exploring.
My Vietnamese friends were my guide even this is also their first time being here. We went to a mountain which had Vietnam Flag tower named ThoiLoi,wow what I have to say was AMAZING, how could Vietnam have a place like this, too natural and clean. From the top of the mountain you even can see both blue ocean and green field. That was how Vietnamese is in my mind. Simple and pure.
Standing on the peak of the mountain, you can enjoy the brilliant beauty of the island, with blue sea and cloudy sky, with green fields of garlic and dark brown architecture.This island as my friends told me it is famous for Planting Garlic. It was the first time I saw a Garlic field which is growing up.
Too hungry to keep going, me and my friends decides to stop at a local “restaurant” to have some foods. Seafood was very well-known here also, this “restaurant” they get the fish,squid,oyster…from the sea then cook it directly after, it was so so fresh seafood. I must say it was the most tasty fresh seafood I ever had in my life.
These two foods were Ly Son’s specialities, it looked like spring roll but it was not, it is RAM which made from seafood or pork, you can have it with rice paper and some vegetable, roll it up and put the roll you just made into their special sauce. It was wonderful! The sauce they made was their secret recipe, so special.
After having food, we’re too hungry to keep moving on so we decided to stay in our hotel and play some boardgame.
The Cau Cave
Next morning, after eating this special noodle soup with fish ball,we were heading to a cave called “CAU CAVE”
This was an amazing beauty of nature I had never seen before, it made my heart stop for a few second. Then we moved forward to a secret Pagoda behind the cave.
The Hang pagoda
The Hang pagoda has a large yard with a lotus lake at the center and a statue of the Goddess of Mercy looking out to the sea. Around the yard are ancient tropical almond trees creating an imposing scene. In front of the pagoda is a well called “Heaven well”. Visitors often try to get a little bit of water dripped from the mountain stalactite believing that it will help relieve them from tiredness. The Hang pagoda is cool inside where there are two small, one is the way to heaven and the other is to hell, according to the locals.
That night we decided to try a Vietnamese meal with rice and some foods served together, so good!
Hoi An old town
Next mornig, after breakfast we checked out then get the boat at 8 a.m to get back to the shore and heading on a taxi to Hoi An ancient town which was 4 hours drive from Sa Ky port.
Anyway this is 5 colored-sticky-rice with some peanut salt and dried pork, also one of the specialities on Ly Son Island.
After sleeping too long on the bus, we arrived at our hotel in Hoian, put the bag off then went on exploring rightaway.
I think I don’t have to say so many things about Hoian,because its own ancient beauty was saying so much. How wonderful it is when Vietnamese people can still maintain this valuable beauty.
Full of lanterns and flowers.
Hoi an by night. It looks sparkling.
This is the pagoda bridge which appeared on a Vietnamese Dong according to my friend.
And ofcourse the specialist to do in Hoian is FOOD. Here we tried ricepaper with grilled pork, ice-cream, sweet potato pie, Mi Quang (Quang Nam province noodles ), Kao Lau, and a drink called MOT, it was made from herbal tea,some lemongrass,… so many things as I don’t really know the name.
We also tried a teahouse which was so special, all staffs was deaf and mute people so they order by paper or if you need any thing, just give the the wood which have names of stuff that you might need as you can see in the picture.
Because we only had 1,5 days in Hoi An, not so much but we really want to eat all the things, try every single food. So that we’ve tried as much as possible as I showed you guys up here.
Next morning, we took a 14-hours sleeping bus at 11 a.m go back to Hanoi. Say goodbye to Hoi An, to all the best memories we have made, all the tasty food here. See you again someday when I have a chance I definitely come back!
What a wonderful trip!
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