2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 12 - Singapore & Flight Home

Day 12 - The Extended Layover

My 2022 and 2023 September Asia trips both ended with me taking the Longest Flight in the world. Both included a short layover in Singapore - it was enough time to visit The Jewel, which is beautiful, but i'm still unclear why it exists. In 2023, I had a bit more time, so was able to walk the main drag of the city riverfront and views. This year, because the better timed SIN-EWR flight didn't have mileage seats avaialble, and the one flying tomorrow to JFK did, I'm getting 20 hours in Singapore. Probably this sounds like a lot of time, but when sleep time is in the middle of it, and your supposed 3:20pm arrival time slips by 45 minutes due to storms that ran through Singapore at just the wrong time, it ends up not being as much time as you would like.

The flight was 45 minutes delayed, but Changi's super efficient immigration (just scanners) and quick baggage system allowed me to still reach my hotel, teh 21 Carpenter (a Marriott Design property - free night!) right in the heart of the city by 5pm. After spending about five minutes unpacking, I left for my only real bit of tourism, visiting the National Gallery of Singapore - a place I hadn't been to previously, and also conveniently located an eight minute walk away from the hotel. The walk also crosses the river, and gives great views of the main financial district one one side, and the glowing Marina Bay Sands and Marina Bay architecture on the other side. Singapore truly is gorgeous.

The museum itself is large, split into two halves with an open atrium in the middle - it is a great, great building, but the layout for the museum aspect got really confusing, made more challenging with two of the exhibits (of about eight total) being closed for a re-installment opening in May, and another requiring a special ticket. The ones though that were open were all quite nice - first a large exhibit featuring the paintings and drawings of a famous Chinese female artist. The second floor had three interconnected exhibits of art featuring Singapore - from early artwork from Colonial times, to various native groups to a large modern art section at the end. On the whole, I always prefer art museums that focus on loacl artists and not recycle the old European styles over and over again.

The time at the National Gallery was nice, and I was hoping to go for a bit of a stroll around the waterfront, but this is where the 45 minute delay caught up to me. Instead, I didn't really have time before trying to get a few last craft brews at Voyager, which is a craft brewhouse which had some good options but was quite expensive - not sure if this is a Voyager specific thing, or a Singapore thing, but I didn't have time to have any more than like two half-pints anyway, two execellent IPAs.

Dinner was at Candlenut, the first michelin star peranakan restaurant (nyonya type food), where they have alacarte and what they call their "ah-ma-kase" which is an 14 course tasting menu - though served in a more communal way. Basically it starts a bit normal, with four little bites as amouse bouches, then a soup and then seven things come at once, portioned for how many people are in the part (in this case, just me). The dishes were all quite good, but their alacarte menu also read fantastic, and looking at some of them too. On the whole, though, Candlenut was excellent and one of the more affordable fancy spots in Singapore.

From there I had listed out a couple nigth spots, first starting with cocktails and Backdrop, a speakeasy located in a mall near Orchard Road (which is also more or less where Candlenut was). There took a bit of time to get in, but once I did I was presented with some incredible cocktails - from a broccoli and cucumber cocktail, to brilliant plays on classics. It also led me to believe with some certainty that the problem with Voyager was about Voyager itself, as the cocktails here were New York prices but barely more than the beer there.

Anyway, Backdrop was a pretty special cocktail spot, and quite crowded even as it got fairly late on a Sunday (I remain disallussioned about staying in a location on a Sunday Night), and was just a perfect way to end my cocktails tour of Asia. Not sure out of all the new ones, which were my favorites - Bar Not Found in Chiang Mai is certainly high, high up, but same can be said for Black Wolf in Danang, and even this.

The final stop for the night was also conveniently about five minutes from the hotel, on a little stretch in Boat Quay which has late night food and drinkeries, including one place that seemed tailore made for me - a place that served Singaporean food classics and craft beer. Literally that is basically their name. From their otudoor seating, yuo get a perfect view of the  Marina Bay Sands and other buildings, sipping away a good mix of craft options from Singapore and beyond, and having some lovely lamb satay. I was able to pack a decent amount in my one day in Sinagpore, and all it made me think is that at some point on one of these trips, I should spend a bit more time here.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 11 - HCMC

Day 11 - Strutting Around Saigon

There's very little in Ho Chi Minh City from a sites perspective that I hadn't done before on one of the prior trips. In fact, most things I've probably done more than once. I don't really come back and back for the sites, but for so much else that is great about Saigon - the people, the food, the nightlife, the vibes. I will say one thing I won't do again - come in April. All of the places on this trip would've had better weather had I kept my original dates in February, but alas that wasn't meant to be.

I had a list of things I was hoping to check out today in HCMC, with a well designed schedule to pair up outdoor / lack of AC sites with a stop with AC right after. AC is the elixir of life and places that have it in HCMC blast the shit out of it (thankfully). The first stop in that respect is a weird one - The Ho Chi Minh Museum of Fine Art, which is a nice six minute walk from the AirBNB. The museum itself is always quite nice, a good mix of standard offerings with rotating exhibits - some of which were just excellent this time. The weird part of the museum is only about a third of the rooms have air conditioning - usually reserved for the special exhibits. But the ones that don't are right next to the ones that do - its just weird why they couldn't have spent for AC throughout. If anything, the way it is setup, the rooms without AC despite having fans feel hotter than normal outside does given the ever so slight breeze that was there. Anyway, I won't complain about the AC in every one of these - especially since the real wild card in that respect was fully air conditioned this time in the War Remnants Museum.

As for the Fine Arts museum it is all Vietnamese artists and many exhibits and sections where you can feel the impact of the war - the colors, the imagery, the sadness, but also the life. Art commemorates these moments so well. The best exhibit featured a mix of tapestry, metal-work, sculpture and more from one singular Vietnamese artists who died a few yaers back, and it was all stunning. Equally so was their side building which had a great showcase of sculpture, a place I would've loved to spend more time at if not for the fact that that particular building had no air conditioning.

From there, we took a cab up towards the heart of HCMC, to the Independence Palace, which is a must do that I somehow never did until my last trip. The palace is laid out wonderfully, adorned beautifully with large, vibrant meeting rooms, the private quarters, and of course a fascinating walk through the bunker below. Also we got tickets for the side exhibition (within the grounds of Independence Palace, which doubles as a park basically) which was a combination exhibit on the building of the initial palace by the French and it being taken over by Dinh Diem after Vietnamese Indepenence though the infighting and uprisings against Diem would see him killed as the final form of the palace that exists today is getting built. Again, one of the weird ironies of this building is the palace was only actively used as such by the head of the South Vietnamese, who would lose the war.

From there, we were a bit spent (no AC in the palace...) so headed to lunhc at Bep Me In, which is a really well reputed restaurant but also a block from our AirBNB allowing us a chance to get a few minutes of R&R. Bep Me In is a fascinating restaurant just serving street / normal Vietnamese dishes but served just perfectly. Our best was a sesame and bamboo fried pork strips, or a rice noodle & lettuce wrap caramelized pork belly. When you come here, you realize how much of their food focuses on pork over other meats. 

In the afternoon, we first did the War Remnants Museum, which I was considering skipping and definitely would've if they kept the AC off (as they did in my visit in 2024), but alas, the ACs were blasting in every room so if anythign I spent more time here than I have in years/visits. It was packed of people doing what is still the reaction I have after seeing these a few times now - just astonishment, sadness and reckoning. The museum never pulls any punches - exhibits like the one which just has photos taken by photojournalists from all sides is marevlous, but more impactful when you see the plaque towards the end of it that lsits out all the journalists & photographers killed or presumed dead.

There was a new exhibit which spotlighted on one particular lady who rose the ranks from first a spy to then an ambassador for the burgeoning country, and just told her life story - which was lovely. Their normal rotating exhibit on the ground floor this timew as about the key C1 transport sea lane near Saigon and how kids were used by both sides to send material across in hops they wouldn't get attacked (which for the most part, they weren't). Overall, my friends were gobsmacked and I was similarly happy I went.

From there, we split up, with them seeing a few Wats / Temples, of which are all outdoor / no-AC, and things I've seen a few times by now. Instead, I walked around the heart of the city area, past the still-being-repaired Notre Dame Cathedral, to the charming book street that is housed right behind it. Hard to find a better people watching / spot in Saigon than this. By this point, there was a close by mall that I walked through for a few minutes just to cool down before I headed back towards the main thoroughfare as it neared dusk to do some last bits of shopping. I wasn't planning on getting anything, and resitsted all sorts of temptation at a nice stonework store named Grade B, but did end up getting one small thing at a different souvenir shop. I have a problem, clearly, that compels I must get at least one souvenir from any place I visit.

We met back together or a few brews at Pasteur, which again the original location was essentially empty except for us and a couple other folks who came and went. The brews were as great as always, as was the pork jerky which we shared. Overall, Pasteur Street is still to me the premier craft option in Saigon, even if I do worry about quality control with their expansion to more gastro-pub style resteraunts.

What I worry less aboiut the quality of is fine dining in HCMC, with us going for an amazing meal at Coco, which is one of the other michelin spots in town hat isn't Anan, which I had been to previously. Not that Anan is bad - it is excellent, but recent reveiws seemed to highlight a lack of changing of dishes and some staleness - hopefully places like Coco and others can force a reversion of course for Anan. Anyway, to Coco - it was an 11-course meal going from North to South of Vietnam, with a lovely train map motif to spread through the meal. Now, most of the dishes were clustered in the Southern half of the country (the third course was from Danang, which is very much right in the middle of the country) but who cares - not like I know the specificities of Northern v Southern Vietnamese food (other than Pho being from the North). The food itself was pristine and inventive and I'm already mentally gearing up for my tasting menu reviews at the end of this trip.

We had all agreed we were going to stay out late tonight, a combination of it being our last night together (we all have slightly different flight paths back), wanting to stay awake even longer than normal to get a bit closer to US time, and maybe most importantly because HCMC is a fun, fun spot on a Saturday. We did intend to try a new cocktail spot (would be new for me) in Death & Happiness, but they were re-opening after a two month renovation and had some live DJ for hte occassion and were packed - we could've stayed and stood but given we were probably only htere for two drinks, we just headed back to Summer Experiment, which stays just awesome. I was able to coax one of the bartenders to let me take a menu home with me - convincing him that I've both been here a bunch and am now bringing people over. Took some negotiation, but that is part of my job so I won (plus we bought a round of shots to take with the bartender staff as well). Summer Experiment is probably rising oa notch or two on my list.

And of course, we ended the nigth with the famous (for me) The Observatory and Pho Quynh combo. I don't know what it is about the dichotomy of the two rooms for The Observatory, but being able to every now and then step onto the terrace and listen to still very good house music and take in a view of HCMC from above, and then go back and get your faster stuff just works. It works without the balloons. I do probably need to ask myself is it still my favorite EDM club in the world if balloons aren't a thing - but even if I do drop it down, it maybe goes down only a handful of spots as so much of it is still just awesome. I've had so many great nights here over the years, and it was great to enjoy it with friends this time. Same thing with Pho Quynh, where I had to wait for a table to 15 minutes (hurts when you ened a 4-person table), showing just how popular it was even at 3:45am. Overall, same for HCMC on the whole. When we planned the trip, for me it felt a bit tacked on, but I think 1.5 more days to traipse around a place I'm so at home with (the Cape Town of Asia, I called it) is never not a good idea or capstone to a trip.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 10 - Danang to HCMC

Day 10 - Popping the Balloon

Let's cut to the chase - the biggest relevation of today was the fact that The Observatory no longer sells balloons. Ho Chi Minh City banned them last year (somehow, my Google algorithm failed to make me aware of this). Doing some digging online, there were a few people who took way too many hits and passed out and the city government said enough is enough. This hurt, I mean a lot. Mostly from a reputation perspective, because I had played it up for a while - most pointedly rewinding a week earlier in Chiang Mai, telling them that the weak ass balloons ReD was serving was forgettable; "just you wait". Well, all I'll say is luckily Saga had good ones. Actually, let me add another point, The Observatory was still great even without them - at its core it is a really great club period. Actually, let me add a third point, which is more a preview of a piece I'll likely write on the flight - HCMC is changing, and in many ways for the better, but it is also getting more "professional" let's say, and banning  people sucking nitrous oxide in your clubs probably fits with that shift.

Anyway, this is getting way ahead of myself here. Let's start with the first half of the day in Danang, or more correctly, in the My Son sanctuary area about 90 minutes outside of Danang. We booked a private car to take us there and back, which worked really well. My Son is honestly closer than 90 minutes if people weren't hyper vigilant of sticking to very slow speed limits in Vietnam (seems to be a way to reduce chances of crashes with motorcycles and cars - admirable, I guess), but you do see some nice scenery on the way. It's about equidistant from Danang and Hoi An, creating a nice triangle with the two.

The My Son Sanctuary is a large area with about 10 temple complexes built by the Cham people, a Indian originating group that ventured out into the wider Southeast Asia subcontinent spreading Hinduism - so these are very much Hindu temples. The Cham were around for about 1000 years, so the temples date from between the 4th and 13th century, though most of the main buildings still standing are more from the 10th to 13th century. Some are still getting rreconstrcuted - the US bombed a lot of it during the Vietnam War.... 

The first step is taking a short shuttle bus / cart ride from the entrance about 1km into the park. From the dropoff point, there is an elongated circular path that goes by all the temples areas. The path is about a km long, with majority of temples being at the end (the halfway point,, I guess). It was silly hot and humid, so this was all a bit of a tough go, but the temples themselves are quite serene. The main ones towards the back are really well built up and large. Like with any archaeological site this old, there is a certain just coolness (no pun intended) roaming around this remote area so far away from any modern civilization. 

There were a ton of giant tour groups with guides, adn enough in English, that just by milling around we could overhear a lot of what they were telling their groups. To be honest, none of it was all that amazing to necessitate getting a guide, and probably spending 50-100% longer baking in this heat. In the end, despite going "fast", it still took us about 90 minutes to see all of it. I woiuld say that My Son is a must do if you visit this little section of Vietnam.

We got back to Danang around noon, with about 90 minutes to kill before we had to head to the airport. For lunch, we decided to just go back to Kenta, wanting another Bun Bo and to try some of their other offerings - the best this time being a lovely pork rib stewed in clay pot of lemongrass and ginger. It was lovely, Kenta is lovely. There's so many great spots that fit my "non-tasting, non-fancy" segment that I don't know what I'll have to do to that list as we go.

The flight from Danang to HCMC was uneventful as you would expect. The only notable bit was probably realizing just how close the airport is from downtown, as my window seat view gave me a view of the terminal on takeoff, and you can see the bridge that was near our hotel in teh background, and not like how say the Freedom Tower is at the background of JFK takeoffs - but like really in the background. 

Before we knew it, we were descending into the urban maw of HCMC, and after a quick traipse through their lovely new domestic terminal (granted, maybe it isn't all that new, it's just I rarely fly domestic flights in or our of HCMC), we were met with the crashign reality of the urban maw - a drive from the airport to our AirBNB in the heart of the city that took roughly as long as the flight. Part of this is just the outright deference placed towards motorcycle riders. It's so slanted in their favor, for some of our trips we took separate motorcylces of Grab knowing it would be quicker (also they come much faster in HCMC at least). By the time we got to the AirBNB, it was dusk, which is the perfect time to make the 15-min walk from the AirBNB to the main promenade of HCMC to see the floodlights, the opera house, the glow of a city on teh rise. 

Another example of the city on the rise was going to Pasteur Street Brewing for a few cold ones, but realizing first I had to do some googling to know which Pasteur Street outpost we wanted to go to - as since my last trip, the notable craft brewery has opened two larger brewpub establishments. We passed one later in the day and it was packed. The old & trusted was mostly empty, to the point I wonder at what stage they ax the original and just keep the brewpubs. 

For dinner, we want to Laang, a reputable "elevated street food" option in the downtown, fit with its blindingly light blue decor. The weird part is there were only two other tables eating. Now, this is a Friday Night, and we shpwed up at 8:30. It was similarly empty my only other visit back in 2022. I have to assume this is just a weird coincidence because it seemingly stayed open in the 3.5 intervening years, and it has thousands of seemingly real Google reviews. Anyway, the food remained fantastic, the best thing being a rice noodle dumpl,ing of pork or an exceptionally bright and fresh squid salad. Actually, the best thing might be the strong, sharp, ice cold black coffees taht we all scarfed down at the start of the meal. Laang is a great option to try a bevy of Vietnamese classics - I just hope they do more tables on most nights.

I wanted to be an uber-traditionalist for my experiences, and go to Summer Experiment for cocktails and then The Observatory. We very much did those things, but my friends convinced me to do at least one new cocktail spot tongith (given we have a tasting menu tomorrow that will probably limit how many places we can go post). We did go to one other spot, Snuffbox which is a lovely speakeasy that serves some quite inventive things, including one take on a negroni that used Sichaun Peppers (the mouth-nubming one) in a pretty great way. In the end, glad they convinced me to try out a new spot, versus just doing the same ones over and over again (I would've suggested The Gin House, which used to be my HCMC go-to, until I learned it had shut down, for good this time).

While Snuffbox is pretty good, it isn't Summer Experiment, which continues to be super inventive, wacky and candidly should probably be higher on my favorite cocktails list. Had a mix of the classics - like their one cocktail which is basically ice cream, to new genius ones, like a Pho-tasting cocktail in the homage of a bloody mary. The crowd was graet, the scene was great. My friends were a bit disconcerted when we had to walk down the strange alley adn up three flights of stairs, but I told them something great would be on the other side, and I think their trust in me paid off for them.

And now we got to The Observatory, and while there are no more balloons, everything else is still great and more professional. They have a whole bunch of new branding under "The OBS" signage, which is noce. Their card machines worked without any fuss (was purely 50/50 before) and their drinks are still good and cheap. The music is still great, today being far more about the inside dark club where they had a guest DJ from Japan taht came on at 2am and probably kept going until 5am of whenever.

We left at 3am, because I had to take them to maybe the best part of HCMC, which is that super late night Pho and Pho Quynh. So many yaers later, it is still great. It is still crowded, it is still a scene, it is still everything you want to end a night. The pho comes out quick, the broth is brilliant, they give ample meat, and there is truly no way to make the experience better. And just shows, you don't have to get high (balloons) to have a good time in HCMC.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 9 - Danang

Day 9 - A Day in Danang

Yesterday was the day to explore the premier attraction of this area of Vietnam, namely Hoi An. Danang is an afterthought to some degree. Case in point, my parents didn't remember Danang, but when I said I'm visiting Hoi An, it immediately clicked into focus. That all said, Danang does have a few hidden gems inside its glistening city. I already covered a couple of them during the half day we spent at the beach and peninsula, and I should note Danang seems like a lovely place to live / just laze around. And fine, even if there aren't top flight sites, it's still quite good.

We started the day next door to the hotel, at the Danang Museum, which was renovated a couple years back and there seems to be a clear split in google reviews of the place before and after, with the after being a decent improvement. The main piece seems to be upgrading the building, and there now being AC. Truthfully, the building is lovely, a modern metal box blending beautifully with an old colonial building. The museum is mostly on one floor, which tells you in painstaking, insightful and loving detail the story of Danang, from its early people's, to the French colonial period, to of course the war, where being in the middle of the country, Danang was at first a US stronghold that got slowly beaten down. There are even some War Remnants like exhibits at the end. Already doing the mental gymnastics if this then absolves me of my usual trip out of pennance in HCMC. Overall, the Danang Museum is quite nice and a good way to spend an hour away from the heat.

As was our lunch at Kenta, which is a lovely little restaurant deep in the heart of the tourism/expat/hostel neighborhood of An Thuong, which is the area where for instance Saga is housed, but during the day it also has a ton of restaurants. Sadly, many of these are more Western cuisine - yoiu walk these blocks and its literally ~50% white folk. But nestled within all this is Kenta, which while the patrons were still majority foreigner, the menu is authentic Vietnamese classics. Their specialty is Bun Bo, the slightly sharper, spicier cousin to Pho. It was so good, the broth so clear, the meat so perfectly poached. We also split a few other dishes, the best of which being a make it yourself rice paper wrap dish with beautifully smoky pork balls. Kenta was a wondserful lunch. Having spent time in Thailand away from Bangkok got me to re-love Thai food, but I don't know if three days in Vietnam have made me go back to thinking that this is my favorite cuisine.

Our post lunch activity was firmly not spending time indoors, actually quite the opposite. In the Souther part of Danang city proper rests the Marble Mountains, a series of five contained peaks that house many treasures. The main of which is the "water" mountain, and has an incredible combination of temples, pagodas and caves - man made caves for the most part, but ones with intricate carvings, haunting cavernous ceilings, and much more. You can walk up, or you can, like most sentient people, take an elevator. But before that is a cave that is more at ground level - granted this also required going up and down a lot of stairs. Even once you reach the top by elevator, there's a lot of stairs. There's also wood carvaed benches everywhere - the Vietnamese know how ridiculous an ask this is. I sweat a lot, but for one of the few times on my trip here, I saw pretty much everyone similarly challenged.

It's worth it though, with the caves, the viewpoints and pagodas all just lovely, all blending and balancing perfectly with the mountainside forest. The best are probably the caves though, which are so well adorned, haunting (yeah, I overuse taht adjective) and thoughtful. They also all feature some natural element - say one with a waterfall or two with openings at the very end upwards to the sky. The temples too are quite nice, including the other Chua Linh Ung (same name as the one on Son Tha Peninsula). On the whole, the Marble Mountains is quite a nice, if tiring, site.

We were pretty beat at that point, and I had fully sweated through everything, so we did a quick earlier-than-nromal R&R at the hotel, before heading back out for a stroll along the Han River. Tnere are quite a few bridges in Danang crossing the Han, but the two most impressive ones are abouta  15 min walk apart, with the first of them being right outside our hotel. Down the riverfront is the Dragon Bridge, so named due to the large Dragon structure on each side. Both these bridges light up and are more beautiful at dusk/night, but even in the day, they are quite impressive. 

Our intended end point was right after the Dragon Bridge, with a stop at the Museum of Cham Sculpture, which is a fairly moderately sized museum that features, well, sculpture from the Cham era (aroudn 1000 - 1300). That's it, that's the deal. It's in the name. What's nice though is that Cham sculpture is quite impressive, from large statues, to freizes, to various depictions of Hindu gods. The Cham people would get more play tomorrow when we visit the My Son Temples Ruins complex 90 minutes outside Danang, but this aws a nice preview. I love museums like this - not too big, super focused on topic, but take that topic to every extent.

That was our last stop of tourism, and on the whole Danang city proper has a fiar day-and-a-half worth of things to see. If you add in food and nightlife, it has more than that though. We went to a different Bia Ha location for a few brews, did our second R&R stint (seriously, the humidity here makes it far worse than Chiang Mai was) and then headed to dinner at Nen, the Michelin rated tasting menu spot in Danang - one of two tasting menu spots, but this being the one that serves Vietnamese food (the other is French). I'll recap it later when I cover each of the tasting menus (gotta do something on that 19-hour flight back home), but all I can say is Nen was perfect, it was brilliant. The care, the story, the exactness of the ingredients, the surprise of each dish. Maybe it's because my expectatiosn were, for whatever reason, slightly reduced, that it was one of my favorite meals in a while.

Post dinner was quite nice, if repeating some of the earlier activities, from Black Wolf for cocktails and then Saga to end it. Black Wolf was shockingly empty - I do worry when I visit these places that are fairly empty how they stay in business. Granted, this is not the heavy tourism season, and it was a Thursday, but a bit worrying nonetheless. More busy was Saga, and it was a great time closing the night, other than of course our customary Pho. For that bt, I'm already excited to share with my friends the brilliance that is Pho Qyunh tomorrow night in HCMC, but Danang is pretty good on the late night / 3AM Pho as well.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 8 - Hoi An

Day 8 - The Lanterns

Danang itself is a large city, the fourth largest in Vietnam, and an upscale one, but by itself isn't a huge tourist destination. The real tourist destination is the pearl of a town known as Hoi An, located 45-55 minutes south of Danang. It's close enough, and the two so easily though of in tandem, that it has me thinking if need to adjust my city rankings to basically combine these two as one city in that list. You can argue that Hoi An is more a suburb on Danang than its own city - you basically don't leave urban roads to get between the two, its truly within one hour, and the airport for Hoi An is Danang. Anyway, I'm leaning towards doing that for my rankings, but this is less about my rankings. This is about a fairly magical, if hot and sweat-filled, day in Hoi An, which is about as perfect a fully tourism-focused town can be.

The day started with going to the main beach near Hoi An, the An Bang beach, which is the same coastline as the My Khe Beach and the other beaches in Danang, but more secluded, more "beach" rather than strip of sand in a city. That said, I probably prefer the scale and options (and the concrete jungle behind you) of the Danang beaches. Anyway, it was a nice time people watching and soaking in the sun and getting my feet wet - and there's some nice shacks and bars / coffee shops lining the main two roads off of the beach, where we gulped down the Vietnamese classic of draft beer poured into an ice-filled glass, which while that definitely does water down the beer, it also keeps it cold on this humid as hell day.

From An Bang, we headed into the actual town of Hoi An, which is centered around its "old town" area that is roughly a 10x20 block stretch with a river running through the middle. This area is pristine and lovely and we would walk nearly each block of that old town. Hoi An smartly does not allow any grab cars to go into the old town (both cars and motorcycles), and the true interior blocks around the river are pedestrian only. It sets up just a great atmosphere. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

The say two to three blocks leading into the old town on the North end already start giving you a crash course into what Hoi An is all about - lanterns adorning nearly every shop, tree, structure and lovely, ornate architecture on every block. Oh, and commercialism - tourism is the industry here, and not in a bad way. From a bevy of coffeeshops, eateries, and of course stores (though that's more pure old town), every block has something.

One of those somethings was our lunch spot at Quan Cao Lau Thanh, which is a place that as its name would indicate, serves just one thing - Cao Lau, which is a super-local soup-ish dish of rice noodle, mint, basil, roots, and a combination of sliced pork with deep fried crackling, all with a base of broth htat is more a dressing than say a pho. It all combines for something really special - the broth so crisp, clear and tart (it's definitely spicier than Pho). More than anything, eating at a place like this is just great - it's basically a food cart that has a little seating area with three ladies that just crank this dish out with great precision. It's beautiful to watch. We also split some meat boa buns which were quite good, but the real star here is the Cao Lau itself, which was staggeringly good.

The next four or so hours was the first of two blocks of just traipsing around Hoi An Old Town. There are a few sites scattered around, be it a series of like 4-5 temples, all fairly small but still quite ornate, and then a few heritage house type museums. We went to two of those, the more popular of which was around Vietnam's long history of tea. That wasn't all that interesting other than the free tea. The more interesting was a place called "Precious Heritage Art Gallery" which is a house converted into a mini-museum that focuses on the local tribes of Vietnam - generally with a wood model draped with the local dress, and then a hauntingly beautiful large-scale photo behind it from a well known French photographer Rehahn (well known in photography circles I guess - so well known he goes just by Rehahn). It's truly beautiful.

The shopping aspect is overwhelming, but I will say the level of curation isn't bad. Many are selling clothing, and there's a few all-types-of-wares spots taht sell normal tourist stuff - not crap by any means (some hidden gems) but all clearly mass produced. Then you have the more itneresting stores selling specific stuff - most of these are selling clothing or large artwork, but then you have some pottery, clay, metal work, jewelry and other stuff. Which ones did we go to? Well, just know there was a correlation near 1.0 of which places had air conditioning or at minimum many, many fans, and which ones we went into. It was hot, it was humid - so much so it seemed to be impacting everyone, so yeah, access to air conditioning was seen as more beneficial at times to authenticity.

As you walk through these roads and lanes of the old town, you get a bit overwhelmed by the beauty and consistency of it all - and it starts with the lanterns. Of course, they would be even more beautiful and present at night (still to come), but even during the ady it gives a clear tapestry to the roads, from them being hung at many stores, to stores that sell them, to lanes where there are lanterns hung from side to side. In the case of that last one, it reminded me a bit of Oaxaca, and in a weird way I think the cities are quite similar. Oaxaca is larger, more of a "city" but the vibe is very similar, in a good way. Little did I know how apt taht comparison would be.

After getting through enough walks and doing one through the riverfront, we wanted a bit of a reprieve, so we went to 7 Bridges Craft Taproom. I should say this wasn't so much a "bit" of a reprieve, given we took a couple reprieves to get coffee during the day, again as much a way to escape the heat as anything else. But 7 Bridges was really nice, a mix of an indoor bit at the beginning, with a large makeshift canoe for a communal table in the middle, to a lovely garden area out back. The beer was pretty good as well. 

By the time we left 7 Bridges, it was about 6:15pm and darkness was starting to descend on Hoi An, which is when this place really comes to life. Helps I guess that the temperature, and seemingly, humidity, drops quite a bit, but more importantly, the lanterns get lit. Every lane becomes magical, but nothing mathes what happens to the river, where hundreds of canoes with lanterns on them start rolling down the river. It's quite a scene, it is incredible - hard to describe really. Yes, there is a bit of "over tourism" maybe happening in Hoi An at this point, but places like this deserve that level of patronage. The shops and everything are still flourishing as well in the evening, but at night you reject going inside shops to get some AC to instead remain on teh streets soaking it all in.

We did have dinner in Hoi An, going to HOME Hoi An - the local location of an upscale restaurant that exists in quite a few large Vietnamese cities. The conceit being the menu is heavily adjusted to highlight the local area cuisine. I had been to the HOME in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, both on my 2019 trip, and enjoyed both meals. Safe to say, HOME went 3 / 3 after this one. I don't know if the menu was all that different, but the meal was great as is. We got a selection of things, my favorites being a caremalized chicken thigh that was flash grilled and brushed in this amazing sauce, or a veal salad that was so bright, refreshing and fresh. You can say going to a restaurant taht is something of a chain is a bit of a cop-out, but HOME really is very good, and most of the other restaurant options in Hoi An aren't all that unique - not taht they're bad, but they're all variations of HOME more or less (other than places like the Cao Lau cart). In the end, was another great meal.

Our time in Hoi An had one last element, which is visiting one of the cocktail bars, and after some hemming and hawing, we decided on Mezcal Cocteleria, which is a Mezcal/Tequila forward cocktail bar upstairs of a mexican restaurant right off the edge of old town. Weird, I know, but its run by Vietnamese folks who just happen to love Mezcal and want to showcase that spirit to their local peoples. Two of the bartenders were fascinated when I told them I had recently been to Oaxaca. The cocktails themselves were excellent, strong, inventive and the bar as a whole could've existed in Oaxaca easily - again, Hoi An is the Oaxaca of Vietnam, a comparison I do wonder if I'm the first person to make.

From there, having lived many days in our time in Hoi An, we headed back to Danang for some more merriment, first checking out another cocktail offering, Black Wolf, and then back to Saga. Black Wolf was excellent, probably my favorite within Danang to date. It's one of the places that have no menu, you just tell them some stuff you like and they'll whip something up. Mixed results with some of these places over the years, but they were excellent, even if some of the choices are a bit odd. For instance, for my final drink I had asked for something smokey, and while they did give me something smokey, I did catch him pouring in way more Jaegermeister than I would've ever expected. Still tasted great - sometimes just trust these guys, I guess.

Saga also was great, a bit more crowded (Wednesday v Tuesday...), and more lively. The scene is great, with a decent beer selection (including a local IPA), and of course balloons which for better or worse my colleagues have started to like as much as I do. The only weird part was they decided to clsoe up shop at 2:20 (listed closing time is 3am), despite the place being somewaht still crowded. We weren't quite ready to be done, so we roamed the few nightlife heavy blocks aroudn Saga, found mostly things that are worse impressions, though did briefly stop by for a song or two at Blends Social Bar, where they played music aimed directly at us. I guess also aimed at people between 18-26, as we felt summarily old and left and called it a day and night, a busy, eventful, lovely, day mostly experiencing the cute little gem of Hoi An.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 7 - Danang

Day 7 - Heading into the Swamp

The weather in Danang portends to be a good 10-15 degrees cooler than it was in Chiang Mai, but as I would soon learn, there is an advantage when it comes to being in the nountains at 100 degrees compared to being at sea level at 85, in that it is insanely humid in Vietnam. What appears pretty clear is that while this is the "dry" season, in that there is no rain (which for any vacation is undoubtedly a good thing), there is also full humidity, and this seems like it will very much be the case in Ho Chi Minh City, which is also sitting at an average daily temperature in between the two places. Anyway, enough metereology.

As mentioned in my last entry, we did all successfully wake up in time for our 5am grab van to the airport, which is a close 10 minutes away at this time of day. Checking in was oddly a breeze without any issue, which I only mention because it shouldn't have been this way. We were flying Vietjet, an airline that is fast reaching near AirAsia levels of dominance across Southeast Asia (see: domestic flight in Thailand on an airline named Vietjet). Vietjet is a low cost carrier and is notoriously trigger happy on charging people for the excess fees. My ticket came with 20 kgs checked in baggage and I was showing up the airport with 23 kgs, likely clearly overweight. Somehow, not a peep from teh check-in person. That was the first sign that my time in Vietnam was going to be good (and yes, ignore the fact this was a domestic sector in Thailand).

The next surprise was an interesting set-up where Thailand lets you do outward immigration in outstations if you have a connecting international flight onwards through Bangkok, which is lovely, because other than the fellow passengers connecting into Vietnam, there was no actual international flight leaving Chiang Mai at this time, so we were through immigration in thirty seconds. You then also get put into a corner of the International Departures part of the terminal, and in this area, group numbers are also not a thing, so despite being group 6 (mostly because they board the plane back to front), we were able to board effectively right away.

I slept through most of the first flight, had a Dean & Deluca capuccino and sausage roll during the layover in Bangkok, and before I knew it, was boarding the flight into Vietnam. We landed early, and were through immigration in Vietnam in record time (for Vietnam). It was here where I had my second big surprise, where I had gotten my Vietnam visa application finished but didn't print it out, just had the pdf on the phone. Not only was this not an issue, after just flashing it to the immigration officer, eh didn't even look at it, and just stamped me through My hunch is while he was flipping through the pages of my passport, he saw the Vietnamese stamp show up enough times (would show four entries and exits) that he figured I'm very much a friend to Vietnam.

Oddly, the impetus for this entire trip was moreso Vietnam than Thailand. Not to say this is a good thing, because I was dumb to not realize how great Chiang Mai was, but the main intention of this trip was to see Danang and Hoi An, the two pearls of the middle of the country, the halfway point between HCMC and Ha Noi. In 2019, I went to those two places, but due to the vagaries of Vietnam's weather, the middle of the country was having their rainy season still (this was September), so I avoided the middle, visited Laos instead. There was a longing of missing out on the middle that I wanted to complete.

Anyway, with that long preamble over, within an hour from landing we were checking in to our two suites in the Courtyard Danang. On this drive itself we came to learn a few things, the most important of which is that Danang is no secondary city. It is as built up, as impressive as Hanoi, if not HCMC. It si glistening. The Courtyard is a 45-story tower where the top half are luxury apartments, it was stunning - aas was the view from our corner suite overlooking the Han river with a peek of the Pacific in the distance. Again, stunning. It would look even better when we came back to the hotel prior to dinner and the bridges and buildings on the island portion that separates the Han River from the Pacific is all alit.

Our first stop was the beach, My Khe Beach to be exact, which is the main stretch of beach within the Danang city center, and I mean this in the best way, but it reminded me so much of the Gold Coast in Australia. Actually, not even sure why I'm qualifying that - the Gold Coast is known as one of the premier beach stretches in teh world. Here you have the same apartment buildings on one side, a large promenade stretching from the road to the beachfront with art, sculptures, gardens, etc., and then beach - stretches and stretches of pristine beach, with waves that were more forceful than we expected. We stayed there for about an hour (there are some in the group more pro-beach than yours truly. 

From there, we went to one of the many seafood places on this stretch taht serve fresh seafood prepared to order (literally, in this case, catching the pomfret and flounder from the tank). We split a couple standard squid and prawn apps and then various preparations of the fish. They could use more salt, if I have to give any critique, but this place was letting the freshness speak for itself, and gave some excellent sauces as well. The pomfret we got have sashimi (which I have to imagine is prepared in advance, and not from the fish that was removed from a tank in front of our face fifteen minutes prior) and half in a normal grilled preparation that was just perfect. The grouper we got steamed with mango and lemongrass, and was excellent as well. All in all, there are a lot of places in Danang to eat, many of which have way too many five star reviews to where its clear there's some bot-farm reviews going on, but this was good enough.

The rest of our afternoon was spent on the Son Tra Peninsula, a large forested mountain on the northern edge of Danang, with the Pacific on its three water sides. There are a few different sites and attractions and trails scattered around this large landmass, though we were disappointed to learn due to recent mudslides, the raod leading to the summit viewpoints was closed. Still, we got our money's and time's worth, starting with teh first spot, the Linh Ung Pagoda (Chua Linh Ung), a large cliffside temple area with a giant buddha statue overlooking the water and Danang as one highlight, and a series of temple structures, with an interesting combination of more modest carving and decadence compared to what we saw in Chiang Mai (comparing it to all of Chiang Mai's places we saw, not just yesterday in Chiang Rai), but more greenery, more open space, more of a style akin to Japan or Korea. It was lovely, and had some great viewpoints of the Pacific and Danang. 

The last stop was the most tiring, but also maybe the most fun - the area is called Ganh Bang, which at road level is a little outcrop with a coffeeshop / beachfront bar type place serving drinks. To its side is this little path, seemingly to the sea level which is probably 400 feet or so below. The trail is not steep but somehow treacherous with this sandy rock getting ground down si the footing is far less firm than you would expect. To combat this, there are makeshift ropes tied to trees. Makeshift is probably too critical, they're tied well and sturdy. The overall hike takes 10-15 minutes if you don't stop much, which somehow we didn't. When you do reach the bottom, you get this perfect little slice of rocky beach. The water is perfect, there's weird and interesting shells all over, it's just magical and the perfect gift after dealing with that hike down. Of course, you still get the hike back up, which was paiunful (this reaffirms my position that hikes that go up first and then you come back down are 1000% better than the alternative), but on the whole this was a fantastic experience.

From there, we went back towards the hotel on mainland, going a bit South of it, through some HCMC-style taffic, to Bia Nha, a Hoi An based craft brewery that had about ten beers on tap, four IPAs and a great milk stout. The beer was good, but the setting, into one of the alleys that are so commonplace in HCMC, was perfect. The more we got to see this part of Danang, the more it just reminds me of HCMC, but if anything a more distilled HCMC with less of the sprawl of the megalopolis. 

Dinner was at Nha Bep Xua, a small, but well known, eatery on the island, a stones throw of our initial dinner choice of Bep Cuon, which is larger, Bib Gourman spot that serves upmarket street food. I'm sure it is good, but also had a 4.9 on Google with 16,000 ratings, a string of which happened in the last hour (be it when I wrote this, or when you read it), which screams rating manipulation. Again, I'm sure it's fine, but Bep Xua was similarly rated with seemingly real reviews, and was excellent. We split a few items but also got their acclaimed Xua (pork and mushroom egg pancake with you put into larger rice paper wraps). Oddly, if anything this was my least favorite dish compared to an amazing caramel prawns (reminds me of how easy dishes like caramel fish are), to a wonderful pork and woodyear mushroom spring roll. On the whole, the food was wonderful as was the location, down another bright, airy, beautiful alley-way.

Our post dinner plans were caught offguard when we had planned first to visit a bottle shop that usually has live music, but it was unexpectedly closed - it seems a true mom and pop operation (in the middle of a very residential area, something like Alice in Cheongdam in Seoul) and the "pop" decided to close up shop when he didn't have customers for a moment. Anyway, by this point the traffic isn't too bad, and the city small enough, that we were pretty quickly able to pivot to trying out the first of a few different noted cocktail spots in Danang, this one being 2Bar, which was Japanese in style (their free nibbles - a standard all over Asia - was slices of nori) crafting exacting, stellar drinks. They had only a few house specials, but otherwise served a bunch of very spirit-forward classics. All in all, 2Bar is great - also housed in a fairly residential area, and I hope they have success in teh years to come.

The second spot was Van, which is in a far more bustling late-night area, is a far larger space (though fairly sparse, as you would expect arriving at 11:30pm on a Tuesday), and had some great stuff, including two curry/pho based cocktails, which we sampled both and were blown away. On the whole, Van was an incredible experience, but then again so was 2Bar, and maybe so will Black Wolf, the main outstanding spot we'll look to visit either tomorrow or (more likely) day after. The last stop of the night, with us somehow all feeling fairly awake despite the early start, was at Saga, which is probably the best EDM/Techno club in Danang. There's a few other spots that will pop up on research, but all seemed larger and more Bangkok in style (tables, escorts, etc.). Saga was not that at all, a small but airy space with some amazing DJs, open and playing hard stuff seven days a week, and they had great balloons, a welcome reprieve after struggling with Chiang Mai. It was a wonderful way to end a great first day in the Danang area, a place that I was already excited to visit and already feel like I was understimating.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 6 - Chiang Rai

Day 6 - The Old City

Chiang Rai is a city that sits three hours north of Chiang Mai. It was the old capital of the Lanna kingdom (one of the kingdoms within old Siam), and the city's name literally means "old city", with Chiang Mai meaning "new city". I knew none of this, by the way, when the day started, but this was the history part of a wonderful day visiting three spectacular temples in Chiang Rai, the white, blue and red temples, so named for obvious reasons when you see them.

Now, the day wasn't without issue, primarily the fact that the tour was sold on Viator as taking ten hours, meaning a 7am start would roughyl equate with a 5-6pm finish, but as the guide mentioned at the start of the tour of the 12 of us in the sprinter van, it would take closer to 12-13 hours - which admittedly makes a whole deal of sense just mathematically. 6 to 7 hours of this day would be spent just driving the road to Chiang Mai and back and between the temples themselves. Then there would be the time at the temples, which you know in these larger group tours is always longer than you realistically need, and finally add in the couple of stops to visit local shops and wares. Add it all up, and we should have known the ten hour estimate was bunk, but this resulted in us knowing pretty early our 7pm dinner reservation at Chawee was kaput. By the way, I don't blame the actual tour company here, but Viator for misleading us. Anyway, luckily the tour itself was more than worth it.

As I didn't bring my laptop with me, I'm writing this a day later at our layover in Bangkok airport, and I can confidently say that we should've looked into spend a night in Chiang Rai, which seems like a lovely city even outside the temples. My parents also swear by it a bit. Anyway, just adding it to my list for next time - which similarly the ill-fated Chawee gets bumped to as well.

The first stop on the tour was probably the weakest, about thirty minutes in, the visit a "longneck" peoples village - a village of the community that migrated from Burma (chased out, in reality) and now number around 10,000 around Thailand. This village had about 200 at peak, but most have actually started to integrate into Thai society and thusly leave for the day. The ones staying behind are all pleasant, dressed well with the crazily heavy gold rings around their necks, so heavy we would learn the reason they look "long" is because they push down the shoulders (which makes far more sense than the alternative, I guess). The stuff they were selling was all fairly plain, so if anything it was more of a stop just to see these peoples. Seems voyeuristic, but you have to pay extra (~$10) for this part of the tour, and as we would learn by stop three or so, the same four or five sprinter vans and one large coach bus were all partaking on these stops.

The next stop was more of a pure rest stop at a coffee shop which was also near a natural hot spring, which looked nice but smelled awful (read: sulphur). By this point, we were roughly an hour into the trip and ready for the long stretch on the way to the first of the temples, a 90-minute car ride, the beginning of which was through the hills and mountains. The last half of which was twisting and turning through various offshoots to get aruond a massive construction project to build a proper highway.

We finally reached the white temple around 11:30, and it truly is hard to describe. Granted, the blue temple is similarly hard to describe, but the white temple complex is surreal. We would learn that this temple was built just about 30 years ago, by a famous Thai artist, who took the chance to build a temple to really show off. The main area has a series of four connected mini temples with a bridge between them and all of it (the temples, the bridge, the sides of hte pond below you) are crazily carved with angular edges, dragons, haunting imagery, and so much more. It is like you are in a gothic cathedral meets something in Star Wars meets pure white. It's incredible. Yes, it dulls the experience a few percentage points to know how new this is, but after a while you realize that's silly, we should just be taking this in for what it is, which is magical.

The rest of the White Temple complex is similarly so, with the other main attraction being a man-made cave with tons of carvings inside, of dragons, fish, buddhas, other imagery. Yeah, it;s fake, so it's no Ellora Caves, but who cares, its still stunning. As was the large gold pagoda on the side, which if it was not connected to the larger White Temple and was a standalone sight would probably be seen as might impressive on its own right - Chiang Mai's answer, I guess, to the Kinkaku-Ji. On the whole, the White Temple was so memorable, and an excellent way to start the tourism part of the day.

This was followed by a buffet lunch at the type of place you expect from this type of tour, but it was conveniently located right next door to the White Temple, and honestly the food was fairly good, but more importantly there was quite a spread. The only meat was chicken (I guess playing it safe given the amount of international tourists) but in many ways, from a really nice, sweet pad thai, to a ginger stir-fry, to a spicy, sharp mince / larb type thing, to of course their own preparation of Khao Soi, which was nowhere near as good as Euang Kai Sam, but was honestly quite good itself. On the whole, for the biggest question mark on these types of tours, the food was good.

Better was the Blue Temple, the next stop on the tour, which is essentially what happens if you take the White Temple, strip away the bridges and ponds, and squat it right in the heart of the city - and of course paint it all blue instead of white. While this description probably makes it sounds worse (and it probably is like 10% worse) it is still incredibly impressive and picturesque, featuring a bit more greenery and dynamism in the carving (the colors help) from tigers, and various other animals. Also, the inside of the main temple, with its giant large light blue buddha and frescoe and tile work aplenty everytwhere was just incredible. That they packed all this decoration and brilliance into a basically tiny city block is amazing.

The final stop was the Red Temple, and while it was also quite nice, if they follow my spirit of "save the best for last" they probably would've reversed the order of the visits. The odd part is the main attraction is not red, it is a giant 30-story tall buddha statue where you can take an elevator to walk inside the top of the head - as in you can look out the eyes for windows. What is incredible though is the inside hollowed out top of the head is as intricately carved as any of hte prior temples - and in a way much like the White Temple at the start, with angular carvings and beauty everywhere. The "red" element is a large pagoda (in the classic sense) off to a side hill which is indeed red, but honestly not all that intricately carved or interesting compared to the buddha or definitely the blue or white temples. Still, the temple complex itself is situated at a really nice clearing where you get a good view of the sprawl of hills in every direction. On the whole, the temples as a combination are incredible and easily worht the six hours of driving to get there and back (or, you know, just plan it differently so you can stay there...).

We did reach back on the early end of the guide's guesstimate, but were left with a bit of a conundrum of where to go. The last thing I hate not really having planned is meals, and while I had a few alternate options shortlisted during my research, one required reservations and the other was unexpectedly closed, so we walked 10 minutes away from the closed spot, past a series of massage spots (50/50 legitimate vs. rub and tug) towards a really nice street of a ton of bars and eateries, and absolutely the type of place I want to stroll aroudn more if/when I come again. The place we went to was called Alice, which was decent - serving not as good but still generally acceptable versions of the key dishes we'd had at a Euang Kam Sai, like Khao Soi. The best dish was a glass noodle seafood salad which to be fair was excellent, but I think they took our "make it medium spcy" to mean don't make it spicy at all. That said, probably not the worst thing given my stomach had been iffy for a couple days and we're about to spend much of the next morning flying.

That was the end of my time in Chiang Mai, as I had to play adult for a few hours and take a work call at 10:30pm local time. We have to get up at 5am tomorrow for our flight, so this already was not going to be a late night, so it was a nice alignment to have this bethe one night I had to basically give up. The rest of the group went back to Bar Not Found - I will say, there wasn't even a thought of them staying in, but even had they given that a thought, I probably reject it outright. They had their fun, my call went fine, I slept at 12, I'll take their word for it that they came back by 1, and we all got up for the flight (spoiler alert).

In the end, my time in Chiang Mai was fantastic. I got more or less four full days here (especially since we got in early from Bangkok compared to the ETA) and loved nearly every second of it. The biggest "miss" wasn't really Chiang Mai's fault, but when we had to call an audible for dinner on the last night, or dinner on the first night when Euang Kam Sai was too full, but in both cases our quickly ID'd backup was more than fine, especially the first night where the fish larb was up there. The city is lovely with its old town in the middle but still built up in many ways. The food is amazing, but that was to some degree to be expected. What was not as expected was the cocktail bars, the breweries, the clubs, the late night food, the sense of place and more than anything how amazing all the sights were. I talk in this entry about how spectacular the White, Blue and Red temples were, but to be honest, the Wat Ben Den two days back or the Twin Pagodas yesterday were nearly as good. Chiang Mai is a special place, and while I'm both annoyed that it took me this long to visit, and that I wasn't able to spend more time just wandering around the city, I'm more overjoyed knowing that I'll figure out a way to come back.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 5 - Chiang Mai

Day 5 - The Other Wat & Waterfall

Hey, would you look at that, more Wats and Waterfalls to fall in love with, more great Thai mountainous scenery, this time more hills, more cliff-faces, more farms cut into the above. Today was our turn to get out of town a bit, heading South towards the Doi Inthanon National Park, a sprawling area that includes a half dozen waterfalls, quite a few temples, including the most notable "Twin Royal Pagodas" and some small towns.

The best part of the tour, in reality, was how stress free it was - so little time spent watching tradesmen do something for thirty seconds followed by some subtle pressures to buy anything, and so much time just spent in nature and in the heights of Thailand. As we were the only people on the tour, we were able to convince the company to start a few hours late, which both allowed us to sleep in a bit, and trade lunches from the tour planend one (which is not free, hence them being OK shifting it) to us hitting back Euang Kam Sai for the second straight day. I usually don't like repeating restaurants, but the food was too good and the menu too extensive, meaning there was so much of it we hadn't yet seen. We split about six things, the best probably being a chicken thigh, lemongrass and other spice mash type thing steamed just perfectly inside banana leaf. That or today's alternative to Khao Soi, which was a soup with various pork pieces, from blood to belly to fried crackling to mince, along with a pure, tart broth. On the whole, I really can't recommend Euang Kam Sai enough.

From lunch (which we had between 11:15 - 12:00, so lunch is a bit of a incorrect name here...) we left for Doi Inthanon. The great part starts with the drive out of the city, which on the downside has too many traffic lights (which almost always run in like 90-second segments on each side), but on the plus-side, and outweighing the minus, was kilometer after kilometer of somethign of interest in the landing between the two sides of traffic, be it lovely, colorful flowers of various purples, red and yellows, or later on makeshift little temple-like buildings over a canal. The road quality and roadside beauty, in this part of Thailand is just excellent.

It takes about 75-90 minutes from central Chiang Mai to reach the entrance of Doi Inthanon park, which at its entrance is already a bit elevated, and therefore significantly lower temperature, which was sorely needed after 72 hours of 100+. The first stop is about 30 minutes into the park, with lovely views on winding roads and switchbacks, and that is the Wachitaran Waterfall, the largest waterfall in the park and one of the more accessible ones. I say accessible because while there are a good 6-10 waterfalls in the park itself, most are either too small, or quite far from the main road requiring a hike that isn't impossible, but takes too much time. If I return to Chiang Mai (or more likely at this point "when I return"), spending a longer day roaming the hiking trails of Doi Inthanon would be a must do, but for today we "settle" on the one large waterfall that isn't a far distance from the main road.

In fact, it's basically right at the road, but there's about 20-30 minutes of walking trails to see the waterfall from various vantage points. It is a stunning waterfall, not the biggest but so picturesque, such a perfect balance of size, power and placement to just fall perfectly off the cliff, with just a ton of great sightlines. There's a makeshift bridge in front of it giving kind of the classic head-on view of the waterfall. Then there's a path of stone stairs on the left side that rises about two-thirds the way up the fall for a great side view, and then a series of steps downward from the bridge that get to the bottom fo the waterfall wading pool and creek running downwards. All of it is serene.

The waterfall was a nice entry into Doi Inthanon, with the next stop being at the high point of the park, another 20-30 minutes of winding roads leading to the top. When we got there, the temperature was at 20 celsius, a good 21 degrees color than the weather back in Chiang Mai. The elevation sits around 8000 feet, and you can feel it, but the cool air felt better. The high point is interesting because it isn't actually a viewpoint, it is just the peak up a gradual slope and covered in trees - the walk to tget there and around is lovely, about a 30-40 minute walk through teh hills and forests. It's serene, beautiful but the one downside is there is no real view. There are of course other viewpoints scattered around the park, which we did go and visit, which gave us the pictures of vastness we wanted.

The next stop was probably the centerpice of a visit to Doi Inthanon, the Twin Royal Pagodas, which you can see the very tops of from a distance sitting near the edge of a mountain, but whose true beauty is fairly hidden. You park in one area and then take these little rikshaw/jeeps from the parking lot to the main area of the two temples - the ride takes five minutes, the last two of which are just splendid as you head up towards the pagodas and see flowers, beauty and sharpness everywhere.

The twin pagodas, named so with one being for the Queen, the other the King, sit up on a hill, reachable by escalators (you walk down steps, which I guess you could walk up...) are just stunning. They're fairly new, but so intricately ornate. Each on the outside have these sharp depictions of various gods, idols and tapestries carved in stone or wood on all sides of the 16-sided pagoda. Each area has two levels on the outside with this series of artwork. Those are great, but the insides so much more staggering. The queen pagoda inside is more traditional, with a large seated buddha, a giant lotus flower carved on teh roof, and frescoe artwork on each side. The king one more regal and new, with a large standing buddha in the middle and artwork on each side, with a mystical night sky like representation on teh ceiling. The pagodas are excellent, but arguably they aren't the star of the show here.

The star might be the greenery, the perfectly maintained gardens and flower at all levels - in the area where the shuttle jeep drops you off, on the slopes that you rise up on the escalator and then extending from teh pagodas. Sadly, the area near the King pagoda is being renovated (and if my understanding is correct, they are building a third pagoda), but the queen side had gardens of hydrangaes, roses adn other flowers, extending in two circles that also give you incredible views of the vast park and forest below you. It is a remarkable scene.

That was essentially our last bit of tourism in Doi Inthanon, with the only exception being a quick stop in a village at the edge of the park that had a nice coffee factory (ok, the one "salesy" aspect of the tour), but even that came with free coffee which was strong and needed. The drive back to Chiang Mai luckily didn't take too long, as we didn't have too much time between are round 6pm return, and needing to leave for dinner at 6:30 to Friend's Table - another showstopping tasting menu within Chiang Mai.

Friends Table sits about twenty minutes outside the city center, a large glass building at the base of a luxury hotel. It is truly a great spot and a great menu, 11 courses perfectly built, constructured, crafted and presented. There is one downside though, and one that was maybe more of a poor coincidence, than anything else, which is most of the dishes we had weren't really Thai. Now, most had Thai ingredients, local produce, etc., but the menu of the moment (the chef changes menus every 3-4 months or so) was if anything more Japanese in some of hte preparations. Now, it was excellent; like some of the dishes were truly stunning - from a small wagyu khao soi, to a brilliant play on a tostada, to a peking duck main that was just unreal. Friend's Table is an excellent restaurant and reasonably priced, but it was not the best representation of Chiang Mai cuisine.

The meal took an efficient two hours, and left us with some options for cocktails and night spots. The first was our last cocktail spot (or I should say my last - to be explained in tomorrow's piece) in Chiang Mai, a place called Bitter Truth, which sits right at the edge of old town, with a large glass facade, a sleek bar and some great drinks. Probably the sharpest, strongest cocktails of all of the spots (I guess that plays into the "bitter" name), if a bit small on the sizes, which I would say is more of a Chiang Mai thing, than specific to Bitter Truth. All in all, the one true standout cocktail spot in our time in Chiang Mai was probably Bar Not Found, but all were quite good.

The last spot was a bit of a random, but great, way to end the night. We had gone back towards the area where Gladwell sits, as that is one of teh two cocktail spots we found that close at 1am, the other being its sister spot (next door) Noir CMI, but sadly both were closed as their team was having a retreat - fun for them, not so much for us. Instead, we called an audible and went to a live music bar right next to it called Melodic CNX, which was packed on Friday when we came to Gladwell, and to our surprise nearly as packed today on a Sunday night. The music was loud, but good (mostly Asian language songs), the crowd was loving it, the drinks were decent and cheap and there were pool tables upstairs that we hovered around. All in all, for a place we / I put no effort into researching or finding, it was a great spot to end the night. "Sometimes, those spur of the moment places are just better"... says I, someone who meticulously plans trips to a degree they shouldn't be. Anyway, maybe just another reason to come back to Chiang Mai and just experience it all without any real fore-planning.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 4 - Chiang Mai

Day 4 - The Wat & The Waterfall

Tomorrow and Monday we've given ourselves over to the Viator Tour Gods. Not worried about this, the locations are far away, adn the tours seemingly well structured enough. Both will require earlier starts than we would like, but both tours begin with long drives. Anyway, I'll cover those days on those days. Today, however, we left it open. There was a clear plan, to head about an hour North of the city to visit the Wat Ben Dan and the Buatong ("Sticky") Waterfall, but no real settled logistics on how it would work.

In the end, that didn't prove too difficult, as the Astra Condo complex has a taxi counter where we were able to get a driver for the second half of the day, in the end coming out to about $15/person, which was a steal. To some degree, we were kind of annoyed we didn't just think of doing this for the other two tours, but anyway, we were able to get the logistics squared away early in the day (early being 10:30), and get ourselves oriented. 

The morning would be one of shopping and strolling around, visting the Jing Jai Market, which is a beautiful market complex a bit North of the main part of the city. It was packed, as the market which is open daily has quite a few more vendors on weekends, including a farmer's adn fresh food market in the back. It's hard to really describe the Jing Jai other than it may be the platonic ideal of a weekend market. The stalls and stores are overwhelming, even if they are probably a bit too clothing-forward for my taste. But there were dozens of handicraft stalls which of course I perused and then purchased at a few. The area has about 12 "buildings" (some are just open air with roofs) but then also a godo half dozen avenues and alleys with stalls on both sides. It's really overwhelming, in the best possible way.

The food market there also seemed excellent, with tons of vendors selling various types of Thai food, from a bunch selling various breakfast / egg related things (not a shock, given the time), to stands with Satay, pad thai and much more. We had all decided to go back to Euang Kam for lunch, but we couldn't leave withotu at least some satay, which was excellent (if not Northern Thai). On the whole, the Jing Jai was a perfect way to slow-start the day, adn if not for the oppressive heat, we could've stayed longer.

Lunch at Euang Kam Sai was incredible. We got there at 11:45 and got the last remaining table (honestly, they should just expand) and it is hard to describe both how vast and scrumptious every bit of their menu tasted, how tough it is to whttle down on what to get, and how good everythign we ordered was. The star was the Khao Soi, the classic Northern Thai muslim-influenced noodle soup dish, that was truly one of the single best mains I've had anywhere of late. The broth was brilliant with a perfect blend of heat, spice and sweetness from the coconut milk. It helped offset the spiciness of the other dishes, the best of which were both baked / steamed in banana leaf (just a brilliant way of preparing something), including a baked pork, egg and cream dish inside a banana leaf which becomes something of a spicy sausage. All in all, Euang Kam Sai was just brilliant, and will go quite a bit up my Non-Tasting Menu list (just have to decide whether it is "fancy" or not, though my definition there is fairly loose).

From lunch, we went back to the Astra to get our taxi and venture Northward for the main part of the day. The only sad part was the drive wasn't all that interesting. Chiang Mai is to some degree in the mountains, and so are the sights aroudn it. Maybe tomorrow and Monday's tours will get more "mountainous" in the views during the drives, but for large stretches the drive (about 70 minutes there and back, 30 minutes in between the two sites) were boring. Luckily, that is the only negative I have, and if anything, everything else about the two sites is an amazing positive.

Wat Ban Den is hard to describe, in that it is the biggest, most ornate, most staggering Wat complex I've seen. I would say other than the famed Wat Po in Bangkok, but in reality, this is better. Now, I know some of the Wats in Chiang Rai that I'll see on Monday are also super well regarded. There is a chance this declaration of mine will last all of two days. But for now, this was incredible. 

It is very much not in the mountains (like say, the Wibongsa Temple in Jeonju, Korea). It is on flat land, but it is sprawling and every part of it is insane. There are about 20 different temple buildings. Some are wood, and insanel carved wood. Some are stone, with carvings of full pictorials. There are carved and decorated animals everywhere, including many of a weird peacock/bird and elephant hybrid that I fully enjoyed. There is no large Gold temple like there was yesterday, but instead a more gigantic, but still regal, black one. I'm running out of ways to adequately describe what I witnessed, just know that I had to limit myself to not take 200 photos there itself. Even the interiors of the temples were ornate and beautiful, without ever comign across as ostentatious. On the whole, Wat Ben Dan was just an incredible experience.

As incredible, really, was the Buatong Waterfall. I've been to a lot of waterfalls. Largely, they fall into two camps - one are true giant waterfalls and the others are small waterfalls where you can swim, walk, climb them, etc. The former are your Niagara's, Iguazu's, Victoria's. Those are great. The latter are your Kuang Si in Luang Prabang, and now your Buatong, and arguably they are more fun. Buatong means "Sticky", which is a play on the fact that the limestone that the water cascades down 100 meters over a series of intervewning falls, shallow pools, etc., is "sticky" enough to be able to easily climb it. I'm no geologist, so I cannot begin to explain how this exactly works. It results though in you being able to descend about 300 feet on steps and then climb the waterfall back up.

Truly, you are walking up water flowing, at times fairly strongly, over rock. The limestone is just stable and "sticky" enough to never feel unsafe. The more steep areas they have makeshift ropes to help you, but I got the sense that was way more for people who were getting nervous than something actually required. There were a few "pools" in between the four different falls that they break up the area into, but sadly none deep enough to swim in (like the Kuang Si), but this whole exercise was beautiful, unique, idyllic, and above all become the most enjoyable hike I've ever been on (yeah, it was tiring). The Buatong Waterfall is a must do. This whole circuit is - and round trip took us five hours to do all of it, getting us back into town early enough to get a couple brews before dinner.

Today's spot was oddly named "Sucking Stones" brewing, but despite the name was quite good, including an excellent Porter. On the whole, Thai craft beer isn't up to the standard of say Vietnam (hey, would you look where I'll be in a few days!), but it is still quite good, if catering to American-heavy tastes (see the prevalence of IPAs). We didn't have too much time at Suckign Stones, as our first tasting menu meal of the time in Chiang Mai was at 7:30pm at Redbox.

It's hard to describe Redbox, as it was a collection of ranges. For one, despite this being a Saturday Night, there was only one other table in the restaurant that was full. That didn't dull the enjoyment, or quality of the food. Per Google, the place is mightily heavily reviewed, so I imagine that truly this just isn't tourist season. Anyway, the meal was awesome, a truly elevated version of Northern Thai classics in many ways - just perfect dishes really. A few too few courses for my like, though the portion sizes were hearty. On the whole, Redbox was excellent.

As was our post-dinner stop, which was supposed to be one of two cocktail spot but we ended up liking it enough, and they let us place an order at 11:45 (they close at 12, as most places do) that it didn't really make sense to seek another spot other than Bar Not Found. They had a somewhat creative speakeasy entrance where when you go up a flight of stairs you're met with four brightly colored doors, of which only one is the real door. The bright colors is an early example of the throughline of the decor inside (more vibrant colors) and the drinks, which all are given a name of a color (think blue, turquise, whale shell, papaya, sea green, etc.) which do actually describe the colors of the drinks. The cocktails themselves were inventive, colorful, strong and overall excellent. Out of the cocktail spots I've tried so far in Chiang Mai, Bar Not Found is my favorite.

The final stop of the night was back at Red CNX, which as expected was more crowded, but not overly so. It was a great crowd, and a great collectiion of DJs that traded off and on more than I've seen elsewhere (as in less "everyone gets an hour" set, more just tagging in and out). Other than the balloons not being as good as those in Vietnam, everythign else about Red CNX was excellent - teh music, the vibe, the space itself (yeah, a lot of red tint) and the crowd. A great way to end the night - if you don't count going to the Issan (Northeastern Thai) late night food restarurant for a selection of great basil stir fries to end what was just a great day in Chiang Mai.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 3 - Chiang Mai

Day 3 - The Hazy Mountains

My weird jet-lag somehow led me to getting up at 6am, despite us sleeping at 2am, and while I was able to coax maybe 30 minutes more of sleep, I didn't really get a full night in any way. That said, as I write this around 6pm, I didn't really get tired or catch up on sleep anywhere. Not the flight, not the various ubers, not even the 45 minutes we took for R&R at the AirBNB before heading out to a craft brewery. It might all come back to get me tonight say, where I could easily get sleepy early (I really hope this isn't the case...), but alas, maybe all it was that kept me going was the energy of a new place.

Not only a new place, but a new airport as well in Chiang Mai, my 172nd (yes, I track these things...). We left the Aloft around 7:45, and reached Suvarnubumhi Airport around 8:15, quickly checked out bags and went into the domestic part of the terminal, an area I never went before. Not to say I missed out - the airport is a bit more cramped in the domestic area (basically the lower floor of the head-house - the best part of the normal terminal). The lounge was adequate, but especially after our flight was delayed 30 minutes for unclear reasons, we were all a bit annoyed we left so early.

The flight was unmemorable other than the nice peanut and chicken salad wrap they gave, which was excellent, if a bit oddly timed (the flight after its delay was from 10:30 to 11:30). Before we knew it, we were descending, to which the captain told us there was a smokey haze all around Chiang Mai, so we wouldn't be able to see much on descent. Not that it mattered to me, as I had picked an aisle seat (which is odd, usually go window on the shorter flights...), but from peeking over my friends, it did indeed seem hazy and impossible to see anything. This was a shame in the sense that the claim to fame for Chiang Mai is it being in the mountains and what-not, but alas, when we were actually on the ground, in teh city and even later in the hills, it wasn't too bad. It did remind me a bit of my trip to Denver in August 2021, where the Alberta wildfires were creating a haze where you couldn't see hte mountains in teh distance.

We quickly checked into our AirBNB, which is a two-bedroom condo in a large, upscale condo building that judging by the people walking around seems to be 75% tourists/AirBNB guests, this despite some funny fliers stuck on the front door saying this is not a hotel. Anyway, we were able to check in early, whcih was nice, put the AC on as we left, and then head out into the wild new world of Chiang Mai.

The first stop was lunch at Busarin, which even on the way we got a good view of what Chiang Mai seems to be - a supersized version of the towns like Gyeongju, or Takayama, or lets even say a Luang Prabang - places that just ooze history and purity in a way that a Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh loses slightly (not to say this hurts those megatropoles). Busarin itself was fantastic, a little four-table restaurant that serves just impeccable, unassuming Northern Thai cuisine in these lovely pink porcelain plates. We split a few dishes, the standouts being fermented rice noodles topped with crispy pork and crispy salmon (two dishes), and then a roti with lamb curry, which was just fabulous. I'm very much hoping over the course of my four days here I will get to really understand Northern Thai cuisine, but Busarin was a great start, and the curry the best of those - pungent, deep, spicy, aromatic, brilliant. The dessert we got of the sticky rice with thai custard was also brilliant. A great start for what should be an amazing four days of food.

Judging by our series of temples we visited next, this should also be a great four days of tourism as well. Each of the following three days will see us go further afield into the mountains (Sunday and Monday being group tours), so we stuck relatively close to Chiang Mai today, but even "relatively close" means spending some time in the mountains. The first stop was Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is high in one of the mountains right outside of Chiang Mai. The drive there takes about 40 minutes, the last two thirds being up teh mountain with many, many switchbacks. On the way, you pass a few different small shriens and hiking trails (and a small waterfall - which if you take the adjacent trail leads to a bigger waterfall). At the end is the large Wat complex, where you can either climb the 300 steps to the main area, or take a funicular. We took the latter (we did walk the steps down). The setting is pristine, even if it was still 100 degrees, at least there was ample tree cover. The wat complex featured just a staggering number of buildings, from a large, wood carved canopy with an overlook of the city, to multiple shrines, tot he main temple complex in teh middle, befit with a startingly gold temple in the middle. We would come to learn this set-up of buildings is kind of the norm, but the elevation, teh way it mixed the mountainside and greenery, and the various carvings (even down to some fancy benches!) was just awesome.

The next two stops were temples in the city, and more specifically, in the bleeding heart of the city, the large square set-up inside of a man-made canal surrounding this area on all sides. It's an unmistakable square feature when you pull up Chiang Mai on Google Maps, and that middle part is just pure bliss - rows and rows of streets with shops, stalls, cafes, restaurants, with just incredible architecture - ratan, and ornate roofs adn trims, and bamboo and so much more. It works like a Hanok Village, just blown up a bit. The real star of this middle area though is the temples. 

Our first stop was Wat Phra Singh, which took the style of the one in the mountains, stripped out all the mountains parts of it, and played up the beauty. The main building was exquisitely designed with this frescoe like frieze, and the large gold structure in the middle was larger and more gold than before - thsi was almost a gold akin to the famed Kinkaku-Ji in Kyoto. The final temple was maybe the best / most interesting, but what was crazier is on the ten minute walk from one to the other, we passed like four different smaller temple complexes, all quite ornate and interesting in their own right. THere's a reasony why the more famous and larger ones are so, but these small ones offer ample picture opportunities as well, even if in minor.

The final stop was Wat Chedi Luang, which sits more or less right in the middle of the old town large square, with maybe the best main central temple, with just a stellar interior, and then more interestingly, a large old school Stupa Buddhist Temple behind it. The Stupa is giant, regal and gives off straight up Angkor Wat or Ellora Caves like vibes, despite being in the true center of this giant city (Chiang Mai is the second biggest city in Thailand). Wat Chedi Luang was a great way to end our tourism part of the day.

Right across the street from our AirBNB complex sits a little strip mall that houses the nicely named Grumpy Old Men brewing, which is a lovely little brew-pub serving up a few of its own pours. The patrons and barfolk were all Thai, but the IPA-heavy draft list made it seem it was definitely catering to American tourists. 

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, as the first place we tried to go to, Euang Kam Sai, was too full and despite their door saying they close at 9, I guess their last order is 8pm, and we arrived at 7:30 where it seemed impossible we would get a table in the intervening 30 minutes. So yeah, that was a bit disappointing, but we made the best of it, heading to another similar type of restaurant, Puang Thong, which sits on the river, open air (lots of fans, thankfully) and a long menu with pictures. This is the type of place that people come to Thailand to eat at and enjoy. We'll be back in tasting menu land tomorrow, but for tonight we split a bunch of things, the best being a super spicy fish larb (we asked for "medium" and an even better sausage dish. The ingredients, the spice, the lemongrass, galangal, etc. are just so strong and pure. Northern Thai food is just pristine.

As was Chiang Mai's cocktail scene, which is crazy impressive. There's a good dozen or so reputable craft cocktail spots all over Chiang Mai. Most close at 12 (which seems to be a bit of a soft cutoff for anything that isn't a club/dance bar) and a few at 1. So many have super high Google ratings, which at first screams a bit of malfeasance going on, but you start reading the reviews and realize that, no, just for whatever reason cocktails are an art here. There was a lot of discussion on which ones to do which day, and in the end there isn't a huge logic here. For today, we went to both the Gladwell Cocktail Bar and Demon's Murmur. 

Gladwell's is a bit more traditional in setup, with a long bar with about 8 seats and then some couches and what-not. Demon's Murmur was smaller, darker with only bar seating (about 12 seats). Both are dimly lit with spotlights for where your drinks are and behind the bar. The whole set-up, seriousness of teh presentations, the flavor profile, reminded me a lot of going to cocktail spots in Japan or Korea, and I say this in a very good way. Both places were excellent, my favorite being one called a "Thai Dessert" at Gladwell's which had some emulsified coconut sauce dollop taht you mix into the drink and create this almost coconut milk type taste which was just stunning. Second place goes to the final drink, a martini cut with a Thai rice wine, at Demon's Murmur. On the whole, excited to try more places over the next few days.

The night ended though at a familiar ending point - an EDM bar. In this case, I guess two of them, both housed just north of the big square. Red CNX is the EDM spot, which was classicly lit, cool, airy, with balloons (though sadly not as strong/nice as the ones in HCMC that I'm already now dreaming of) - it was fairly empty throughout as it seemed to be more gearing up for tomorrow night - shows in the price with tomorrow being 300 THB entry (~$9) vs today at 100 THB. Howver, in the same complex sits Locked In, which is more dubstep, DNB, style and today was featuring a guy who rapped (seemingly extemporaneously) over a backing track adn he was incredible. The vibe in both were great, adn I can absolutely foresee Red CNX being a ton of fun tomorrow when I imagine it will be more crowded. Will save my real takeaways of it until then.

The final act of the night was going about half a mile away where there is make-shift Super Late Night Market with about 10 different carts selling normal Thai fare, which is about as perfect way to end a night in terms of food. At least for once it wasn't gyro, even if the Thai food wasn't incredible and more standard fare (basil beef, pad thai) than Northern Thai classics. Still, just a great scene to end a great day that was the real first day of the trip. The vacation juices fully flowing now.