Da Nang to Hoi An by motorbike (Vietnam) – 2022

We’re in May 2022. Vietnam has just reopened after Covid, and we’re meeting our friend F. in Da Nang for a weekend in Hoi An. We each rent a motorbike and decide to ride from Da Nang to Hoi An. We pick up F. at the Pullman, where he stayed the night before. He leaves his suitcase there and keeps only the essentials in a backpack. We each have a small backpack too.

There are several possible stops along the way: Ngu Hanh Son mountain, with an old military hotel inside, Ba Na Hills, where French colonists used to vacation to escape the heat… but we won’t do all that because I’ve visited them way too many times. If you’re looking for natural stones, stone sculptures, or marble pieces, this is the place to be!!

Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai

I expected to see the ocean all along the way, but no such luck! Hotels, condos… have all blocked access to the ocean, and we can barely see anything. We decide to stop at the Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai (Booking linkbetween Da Nang and Hoi An, for lunch. There are tons of 5-star hotels in Da Nang, but as we get closer to Hoi An, their number drops because Hoi An is too small to host a proper 5-star hotel. We discover that Four Seasons offers a day pass for those dining on-site: we can also access their huge pool. And by paying more, we can even use one of the rooms for an afternoon.

We push our luck a bit further by checking out their lobby, spa, gym, and the most expensive villa, with a private pool and an entire villa that looks like a traditional family home from olden times. I don’t even dare look at the price of that villa, which I easily estimate at 1200 euros a night. This is the kind of hotel where wealthy Vietnamese spend their precious vacations. There are even more expensive and exclusive hotels for the ultra-rich, because you can’t even set foot in such hotels without reserving a room.

What I’ve learned at Dubaiis that there’s a risk when you visit increasingly expensive hotels: you start feeling like you don’t have enough, that you should do more, earn more… because there will always be products, services, or hotels that are out of reach no matter your income. If it’s not because of their exorbitant prices, it’ll be because you’re not part of some club or another… Desire never has limits, so it’s up to us to rein in our cravings.

Unfortunately, the food isn’t top-notch, but it’s generous.

I’d spend the whole afternoon by the pool while F. got a massage at the spa and JB enjoyed the gym. Each spa room is a stilt house with an outdoor space where you can linger after the treatment to meditate. F. would later tell us it’s a particularly interesting experience: the spa uses a kind of singing bowl but made of stone, before and after the massage. Each bowl activates a chakra. Those bowls seemed to have a strong effect on F., as he had an almost spiritual experience listening to them. At 6 PM, we could attend a singing bowl ceremony, but we still had some road to cover and I didn’t want to drive in the dark. Still, I think we should have stayed for that ceremony; it sounds marvelous.

Let me show you this gorgeous hotel:

And the spa:

We arrive in Hoi An just before sunset and get a glimpse of the rice paddies.

Our hotel in Hoi An (Amanity, booking link) is a 4-star hotel a 10-minute bike ride from the old town. The hotel provides bicycles. From 6 PM, you can’t enter the old town by bike; you have to leave them at the parking lot and pay 10,000 VND per bike. Anyway, it’s nicer to walk in the evening. We chose to be in Hoi An on a full moon day because the old town is only lit by lanterns. To be honest, apart from the boats, it’s not much different from a regular night, because every night there are lanterns lit, but it’s even more visible on full moon days. I’ve written so much about Hoi An that I won’t present this town frozen in time again. You’ll find all the info here

We have dinner at a restaurant just next to the old town (Com Linh). Simple and efficient, they serve the famous chicken rice (rice cooked in chicken broth).

Day 2:

JB and F. have to work in the morning. I take the opportunity to get a massage at the spa. The massage is very energetic, but there’s also a part where the masseuse uses hot stones and then a hot bamboo stick. I love it! Let me show you our 4-star hotel. Unfortunately, it’s a bit noisy because of the kids jumping in the pool from early morning. The hotel is called Amanity Hoi An, booking link.

We hop back on our motorbikes to head to the beach, An Bang, passing by the rice paddies. This road is very picturesque, a must-do at least once! Usually, I’d eat on the beach at a buibui, but F. tells me he has a fragile stomach due to mild food poisoning at Pullman Da Nang, so I take him to a 4-star hotel particularly suited for nomads, with a pool and workspaces. We really like the place, but they don’t have much food. After some insistence, they agree to serve us fried rice and lemonades facing the beach.

In the afternoon, we visit a silk producer in Hoi An (I still can’t buy anything there; it’s too expensive and the colors aren’t trendy enough), but the place is beautiful!

We stroll through the old town streets and taste the famous herbal drink in Hoi An.

My friend H. runs two shops in Hoi An; go check them out:

• Sunday in Hoi An: where she sells lots of silk items and bamboo bed linen
• Moments in Hoi An: a cafe/bar/cocktail spot in a beautiful old house

We settle into one of the three cafes with rooftops in Hoi An.

That’s when F. tells us he has a stomachache (aka vomito). We order him a Coke hoping it’ll pass, but it doesn’t. After the vomito, he seems to feel better. We think it’s due to the food poisoning he’s been dealing with since Pullman Da Nang.

F. feels much better now, and we go to see the lights and charter a boat to burn candles on paper flowers and let them float on the water out to the ocean. It’s to imitate a woman who was waiting for her husband and sent him messages out to sea.

As we’re about to get on a boat, JB starts feeling unwell (aka vomito). It’s too late for me to find a restaurant or someone’s house… he can puke right there, at the foot of a tree 😀 I’m paralyzed and besides buying him a bottle of water, I don’t know what else to suggest.

But after a bit, JB also feels better and we continue our boat ride as if nothing happened. We don’t dare eat anything and head back to the hotel after buying some awful-tasting meds at the local pharmacy. The pharmacist took a long time asking about symptoms and advising us, and his treatment seems to work because after that JB and F. feel much better.

We list everything we ate and think there might be a problem with the fried rice at lunch, since the hotel didn’t seem to want to serve us food in the first place. As for me, after witnessing both incidents, I figure I might be sick too. In case of food poisoning, the best solution is to get rid of the poison, so I do a preventive vomit ahahaha because our hotel room has two levels. If something happens in the middle of the night, I know I won’t have time to make it down that long staircase to the bathroom.

Anyway, we all three take meds and eat ultra-safe stuff for breakfast at the hotel. This incident will be memorable, and I still blame myself for insisting on the fried rice when we should have gone elsewhere, but hey, no harm done.

Day 3:

We ride back to Da Nang on the motorbike. Along the way, we pass many tourists in swimsuits, their skin burned by the midday sun. So reckless! We three are covered head to toe, of course. After spending a lot of time in Asia, you start to fear the sun.

Today’s plan is simple: crash at F.’s hotel. At first, we wanted to opt for a day pass at another 5-star hotel in Da Nang, but F. has to stay the night in Da Nang anyway and kindly offers us to spend the whole day in his huge (really huge!) villa at Premier Village Danang Resort (Booking link), which also belongs to Accorhotels.

F.’s suitcase is still at Pullman, the hotel right next door. Both hotels are Accor properties, so I ask the receptionist to go fetch his suitcase from the hotel next door, or call them and have it brought over. She comes up with some excuse, but we insist and insist as if we don’t understand why not, and 30 minutes later, F.’s suitcase magically appears in his villa.

We wait a long time for an electric car to take us from the lobby to the villa. Anyway, just as the service at Four Seasons was flawless, here you get the feeling you’re bothering the staff. We’re really really happy to be invited by F., but we notice, just like him, that something is off. Even the grass, even the choice of trees… it doesn’t feel 5-star… we laugh and tell ourselves we might be too picky or too spoiled (since Covid, we’ve been spending a lot of time in 5-star hotels, especially in Thailand: JB is Platinum at Accorhotels, F. is Platinum at Marriott, so we’re luxury hotel consumers). But indeed, something is off, and we don’t know why. Luxury is in those tiny details like that, and those who frequent 5-star places can tell the difference between international standards and local standards.

Our friend J., who’s used to luxury hotel chains, later explains that since Covid, many luxury hotels have lost experienced staff. Even GMs aren’t as experienced as before, so service quality is dropping worldwide, and it takes time for service to be as smooth as before. But here, in this hotel, there’s a design issue too, I think. For example, the pool bar is set well below water level, so not only can’t you see the sand from the bar, but you can’t see the pool either 😀 The reason luxury boutiques all look the same regardless of brand is because the interior is done by the same architect. And if that’s the case, it’s because the design by that architect generates more sales than other designs and gives a luxurious vibe, it’s as simple as that. There are subtle rules the consumer doesn’t know, but they sense when they’re not followed.

The photos always make you dream, so here they are:

The hotel’s pool and beach. The beach isn’t private, but to get there, you have to walk a long way from the city, or access it from nearby hotels.

The villa: 2 bedrooms, a huge living room, and a private pool. We had almost direct access to the beach (garden – garden – beach!). I preferred the private pool to the communal one opposite the beach. It’s deep enough and gets sunlight until sunset, so the water is nice and warm. As much as the common areas are mismatched, the villa is incredible—I could see myself living there forever haha 😀

At noon, we order room service: pasta, safer for the stomach.

To thank F. for the generous invitation, we invite F. to dinner at the Japanese/Korean restaurant across the street. We have to grill our own meat, and they even offer Japanese wagyu. It’s really good, I recommend it! Thanks again F. for this weekend full of emotions.

With that, we return the motorbike and call an Uber to take us to the airport. The advantage of Da Nang is that the airport is right next to the city center, so you can fully enjoy the city—no need to spend an hour like in Hanoi. After Da Nang, we’ll move on to some nice hotels in Saigon beforeheading to Bali.