We were really looking forward to the tour we had planned in Nha Trang, Vietnam so it was a relief to see that it was still on the revised itinerary. After three days at sea we were excited to be getting off the ship! We woke up that morning, grabbed breakfast, and got ready for our day in Vietnam! We were scheduled to tender into port so Harry and his Dad got our tender tickets and we were all prepared. Unfortunately the weather we were in the day before hadn't let up much and the seas were still pretty rough. Apparently it isn't safe to tender into port in 15 foot seas we just. kept. going.
This put a real damper on our mood. We had spent two unexpected extra days in Singapore, one of which was spent on board, and were now going to be on the ship for five days straight at sea before getting off. The cruise line did give us a full refund, but honestly the fare wasn't expensive to begin with. Connor and Jameson were already cruising for free. Our flights actually cost more than the cruise! I would have rather they kept the money and us be able to go on the trip we paid for. Some people were in much worse predicaments though. Some had saved for a long time and used all their vacation time to go on this trip. They would have to work for years to save enough money and time to take a trip like that again. That put things into perspective and we got over ourselves and made the most of it.
We spent the next day at sea doing typical cruise ship stuff.
Finally! We were able to see land as we made our way to the port in Chan May!
When on a cruise it is totally acceptable to order three deserts when you can't make up your mind, right? ;)
Off the ship!
There really isn't anything to see or do in Chan May itself so we took a tour that visited the nearby towns of Hoi An and Da Nang.
On our way to Hoi An!
The streets are very busy with lots of motorcycles and a crazy amount of power lines.
Quan Cong Temple in Hoi An
Spiral incense hanging from the temple's ceiling.
A few sights around the temple.
Offerings
After visiting the temple we made our way to the shops that line the street. Hoi An is a great place to shop. You can find lots of awesome things for super cheap!
These are silk worms used to make scarves.
This lady is making lanterns that are famous in Hoi An. You can get a beautiful lantern for a few bucks!
Silk embroidery - amazing!
A Vietnamese lady in a traditional coolie hat selling her vegetables.
After a little shopping we stopped for some yummy Vietnamese food!
The restaurant had really neat cooking stations all around.
The food was soooo good! It was probably some of the best food we had on the entire trip.
They called this a Vietnamese pancake...it was awesome!
This shows a water line from flooding that happened just a day or two before. Crazy! I think it is a pretty common occurrence so they just pick everything up and get back to business when it goes down.
The Japanese covered bridge dates back to the 18th century. It was constructed by the Japanese living in Hoi An as an easy way to reach the Chinese quarter across the water.
There's a statue of a dog at one end and a monkey at the other because the bridge was started in the year of the dog and was finished in the year of the monkey.
Lots of local people were fishing near the bridge.
Next we made our way to Da Nang to visit Marble Mountain. We stopped at a shop selling tons of stuff made out of various stones. It is now illegal to extract rock from the Marble Mountains so they transport it from nearby provinces and carve the stone there.
Marble Mountains is a cluster of 5 marble and limestone hills that house peaks, caves, tunnels, and temples. We took an elevator ride up to explore!
Of course I met up with my bestie in the mountain!
We stopped off here for a few pictures and to get a glimpse of the huge Lady Buddha statue.
These coracle shaped boats are really neat! I would have to think it takes a good bit of practice to learn how to row one of those things.
Us with our tour guide!
Inside of the boat on a really dirty beach.
Back to the ship we go!
But not before stopping to let the random cows cross the road...
We LOVED Vietnam and would go back in a heartbeat! After our day in Hoi An and Da Nang we were even more bummed that we didn't get to visit Nha Trang.
Dinner at the Asian restaurant on the ship...in their coolie hats, of course.
The next day we docked in Sanya, China. When we planned our trip, we decided that we weren't going to get off the boat in Sanya because there really wasn't anything there we were interested in seeing. We knew that it is typically much cheaper to get spa treatments onboard on port days so we planned to bring the boys to the kids club and treat ourselves to a massage. We thought about going ashore once the itinerary changed, but we would need to either get a Chinese visa or go on a cruise excursion. I'm not a fan of big tour excursions and I couldn't find anything we wanted to do to justify spending extra money so we went ahead with our original plan and stayed on board. We obviously had lots of down time since we got on in Singapore, but it was still nice to enjoy the spa at a discount.
The following day we were at sea (again), making our way to Hong Kong. The kids had been practicing for the whole cruise to put on a circus show on our last day. Jameson had a very impressive tiger face painting.
The kids earned points for doing certain things around the ship...a scavenger hunt sort of thing. One of the biggest point items was a selfie with the captain. We finally found him!
Connor had been talking nonstop about their circus performance and it was finally time for the show!
Our little baby tiger :)
And the circus performer!
It definitely wasn't the cruise we thought we were going on, but we made the most out of it and really had a good time! Our time on the ship may have been coming to an end, but the trip was far from over!
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