Outside Hội An

I thought I was ready to try riding a bike again, but Lucky had already hired a motorbike to take me on our morning excursion. I had to admit that it was probably a longer ride than I would have enjoyed out to the rice fields beyond the old city.

Jason connected with his cowboy roots, riding a buffalo around the paddy, while I tried plowing, hoeing, and planting rice in the mud.

Lucky and another guide talked about their experiences working their family fields, but agreed that the buffalo they'd known as children were much thinner than this more comfortably padded example.

After we treated our new buffalo friend to some greens, we said goodbye and headed out to the Bay Mau Coconut Forest.

We boarded round boats made of tightly woven bamboo and got out on the water. One story about their shape is that it allowed the fishermen to avoid the French colonial boat tax by arguing that their vessels are actually baskets, not boats. But it is more likely that the shape simply allows for better stability and maneuverability in the shallow, brackish waters of the miniature delta.

Jason transferred to one of the more familiar shaped fishing boats and made a very creditable cast of the net.

We rowed through the maze of waterways between thick stands of Nypa palms. The area was a significant hiding place for Viet Cong fighters during the war, providing food and other resources as well as impenetrable shelter.

Emerging from the quiet backwaters, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a fairly raucous crowd of boats. Music was blasting from multiple landings, while the boatmen entertained the tourists by playing bumper boats and other games.

Alice transferred to one of the boats offering spinny rides. She held on tightly while the guy expertly whirled the boat around and twirled his paddle like a baton.

As we headed back into more open water, Lucky mentioned that the Chinese tourists generally want crowds and loud music, so the locals create that experience for them. I said that we prefer the illusion of discovering something new and he gave me a little smile and said “Oh, we know. “

Jason had done so well on his first try at fishing with a net that his boatman pulled out a different kind of net, weighted with little cowrie shells. He played it out and then beat on the edges of the boat with his paddle “to confuse the fish.” Then he showed Jason how to reel in the net. It took several minutes to pull it all back in, but there were about ten fish caught in it, which they seemed to think was a very good catch for that late in the day.

One of the fish he pulled up was a cute little pufferfish. Lucky explained that they are one of the fugu species that are poisonous to eat unless you really know what you're doing. We tossed that one back!

There was a jitney waiting at the landing to take us back to our hotel, where we had lunch at the Yellow Bicycle coffee shop. It was beautiful out on their terrace and we sat in the shade and watched the boats on the river while we enjoyed our food. Alice and I indulged in egg coffee for dessert.

In the evening we strolled down the street to a rather bare bones restaurant serving Italian pizza and pasta, then went back to our room to watch Wake Up Dead Man, the latest Knives Out movie.

The next morning we checked out and headed toward Da Nang. On the way we visited Marble Mountain (Ngũ Hành Sơn) which is actually a group of five mountains named for the traditional Vietnamese elements: water, fire, metal, earth, and wood.

Our first stop was a workshop where they carve different kinds of stone into a wide variety of statues and other objects. Quarrying in the local mountains was recently banned, so they are now working with stone from Quảng Nam, further north along the coast.

Their showroom was crowded with pretty things we didn't want, but Alice found a bowl of stone rings and walked away with three of them.

One of my favorite pieces was this lemon bonsai.

From there we crossed the street to the elevator up the water mountain, Mount Thủy. I felt a little silly taking that shortcut, but once we got to the top, there were still a lot of stairs to climb around the various pagodas, temples, and caves and I was glad to have saved my knees for those.

Xa Loi Tower was built in 1997 and contains the largest number of stone statues of any pagoda in Vietnam.

Worship on the mountain dates back to the time when this area was Champa. The lingam-yoni within Tang Chon Cave has been there for centuries, since the mountain was an important center of Hinduism in the region.

The Huyen Khong cave is one of the highlights, with an opening at the top allowing natural light to shine on the large image of the Buddha.

It was a warm day and we'd done a lot of climbing, so we were glad to descend the steep stairs back to our van and continue on to Da Nang.

We made a stop for lunch at 4U Seafood, right along the beach. They had the largest arrray of fresh seafood tanks I've ever seen at a restaurant.

We sat out by the view and ordered too much food. Perhaps the most visually spectacular were the lightly grilled oysters with crispy onions and peanuts.

Stuffed to the gills we made it to the airport in plenty of time for our 5:40 pm flight, which was then delayed until 7:00 pm. But at last we were on our way to Saigon!