Da Nang and Hoi An: Two of the Most Popular Cities in Vietnam
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After my feet touched the ground of Suwannabhumi Airport, my mom came to me and said, “Let’s go to Vietnam.” Though I just came back from Maine and still had not adjusted from the time difference, this trip killed my jet lag!
We planned the trip a month ahead and booked the plane tickets and three hotels for three nights in Vietnam. I’d longed for a backpacking trip like this with my family, and it was like a dream comes true. The first day in Da Nang was quite hot, but My Khay beach was so pretty. We went for seafood at the restaurant opposite the Diamond sea hotel where we stayed for the night. The food was excellent even for Thai people who are so proud of our taste like us.
Then, we went to Linh Ung Pagoda, which is located on a cliff 14 km far from the beach. After that, we called a grab and went to Da Nang cathedral. The cathedral was not that impressive, but the city was! There were tons of motorcycles and people, but it somehow made me feel at home. We walked along the river, crossed the bridge, and ended up at the head side of the dragon bridge.
On the second day, we spent the morning in Da Nang jogging at the beach. Almost noon, we traveled to Ba Na hills, one of Vietnam’s most popular vacation places. We took a cable car uphill and stayed there for a night. There was more than enough to do there. We started by visiting the gardens, the French village, the famous golden bridge, to the beer plaza at night. The weather was not at its best because of the strong winds, but we still enjoyed this place a lot!
One of the places I enjoyed the most on this trip is the tea house in Ba Na hills. We went there before we left this magical place. It was super relaxing and covered with Japanese-Chinese culture, definitely recommended!
After we enjoyed the tea, we went down to Hoi An, an ancient city in Vietnam. Nu eatery was where we had lunch before checking in to the hotel. The restaurant is tiny yet classic. The food was amazingly tasteful and well-designed.
We finished our lunch around 3 pm, and it was so hot out, so we decided to go back to the hotel.
In the evening, we were fully charged and ready to roam! We bought a ticket to enter the old town of Hoi An. The Japanese-covered bridge was the highlight but always crowded. We also went to the temple to get the most out of the tickets, but it seems like just walking around the old town and absorbing the cultural experience was more than enough for me. I also got the lotus iced tea, weird but quite delicious. We ended the night with the view of the lantern festival, which is probably the most colorful one I’ve seen.
After we found out that there are some flights from Willard (a regional airport in Champaign) that are inexpensive, we started flying out from here instaead of Chicago. We got a really good price of plane tickets to Seattle, so we decided to go to more national parks! The two parks that we visited were Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. We thought about going to North Cascade as well, but the time was limited so we planned to visit there next time. Visiting these two popular national parks in the fall was such a good choice–less crowd, nice weather, and fall foliage!
Midwest surprisingly offers us many national parks to visit all year round. One of the national parks near Illinois is the Mammoth Cave National Park in Cave City, Kentucky. We rented a car from Champaign and drove around 5 hours, excluding small stops in Indiana. We had never been to Kentucky before, and we believe that not many international students had been there. Plus, this was the first time we visited a cave in the US, and we start with the world’s longest known cave system!
We’d been thinking of visiting South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and Badlands national park for almost a year. Then an opportunity came when one of our friends gave us a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from Delta. We did not hestitate even a bit in buying two tickets for a round trip from Chicago to Rapid City, SD. Although it was an impulsive trip, we had a lot of fun observing the wildlife in the great plains of South Dakota and North Dakota.
Although Poy graduated from the Scripps-Oxford joint Ph.D. program in Biochemistry for half a year and already started working at UIUC as a post-doctoral researcher, his graduation ceremony was held way later in May 2024. His family also came from Thailand to attend his graduation ceremony in San Diego. We then spent over a week afterward traveling around the west coast, including California, Arizona, and Nevada. It was my first time (and his family’s first time) doing a road trip in the west coast. We enjoyed a huge variety of natural wonders that the west coast has to offer.