Welcome to My Khe Beach, also known as China Beach. China Beach was a place of rest and relaxing for American servicemen at the start of the Vietnam War. It is also the site where the television series China Beach took place.
My Khe Beach is in Da Nang, which is central Vietnam. We flew into Da Nang yesterday from Hanoi. The Da Nang Airport is on the same site as where the Da Nang Air Base was located and with the US escalation during the war, it became the busiest airport with a single runway, handling 2,400 take offs and landings per day.
Da Nang is a modern city that looks like a mini Miami Beach. We are currently overlooking the beach relaxing at the rooftop pool at the Four Points Hotel. Earlier in the day I went on a 13 mile bike ride exploring the beach front area.
Going back a few days— on Monday, we did a day trip outside of Hanoi to Ninh Binh Mountains and went on a one-hour bike ride in a local town in the spitting rain next to some beautiful mountains. On a clear day, we assume the Mountain View’s are stunning, but due to the fog, we can only guess. We then went to the Hos Lu Temples of the Dinh and Le Dynasties, which go back between 968 to 1010 (sort of old). During lunch we had local food, including goat meat. We than took a small boat on Tam Coc where we passed paddy fields and went through caves. The Vietnamese boat rowers rowed with their feet (interesting). We finished the day at the Mua Caves where we decided not to climb the 500 steps in the rain to see fog.
After a 90 minute ride back to Hanoi, we had dinner at Don Duck where I had a duck dish and Jane loved the duck spring rolls.
The next day we finished our laundry at the AirBNB in the morning and headed out. We went to the Vietnam National Museum of History. We split the day at the museum by going to lunch at Bun Cha Hong Lien. The nondescript restaurant was made famous in 2016 when President Obama and Anthony Bourdain had dinner together at this restaurant. We both ordered the Combo Obama which consisted of Bun Cha, Fried Seafood Roll, and one Hanoi Beer. The food was excellent; Jane says it might be her favorite meal we’ve had since we began this trip. Leave it to Obama for not steering us wrong. After lunch we walked around the French Quarter and spent some time in an art gallery. We went back to Beer Street, because, you know, beer.
After a relaxing morning on Wednesday, we were off to the airport to Da Nang. Before heading out last night, we were invited to a Marriott Bonvoy Happy Hour where we had a few drinks and delicious appetizers such as beef and spring onion skewers and bacon wrapped asparagus. We then walked two miles to the night market where I had fried pancakes with shrimp and eggs (very greasy) and Jane had pork and mushroom fried spring rolls.
Today has been a good day to decompress. We had a lovely breakfast and FaceTime with two of our three kids this morning.
Traveling Walters 