Vietnamese Addiction of Pinoy Teleseryes in Hoi An (Vietnam)

I had to find an internet cafe to print my web check-in boarding pass.

Though there were several in this ancient city of Hoi An (A UNESCO World Heritage site), most of their printers weren't working. Finally, I found Thang Long Restaurant by the riverside and they offered printing/internet service. On a dead hour, sometime in mid afternoon, there was hardly anyone dining. Most of their half-a-dozen waiting staff were transfixed to a teleserye playing on a hanging television.

I'd sneak a peek and I thought, "Boy! These guys are addicted to teleseryes! And at 3 PM yet. Wicked." I'd mind my own business again and check on my USB stick. Intermittently I would raise my head towards the television. "Hmmm. So they have a Dennis Trillo lookalike in Vietnam," I'd tell myself. Our Dennis is better looking - and definitely a better actor. This one looked bland and too short for Pinoy standard. ;)

But while I was winding down my online activities, I suddenly noticed other familiar faces (Bianca King, et.al.) Reality hit me! This was a Philippine soap, one of those forgettable GMA teleseryes. So forgettable that it's been shown, dubbed in Vietnamese and lapped up by common Viet folks! They were glued to the screen I decided not to get my snack there! Or run the risk of getting ignored altogether. Thanks for the patronage, guys.

Hoi An, aka Faifoo, sits on the South Central Coast of Vietnam's Quang Nam Province. It is home to 120,000 people, once the epicenter of the spice-trading Chams. This well preserved ancient city is 598 kilometers (372 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon and 812 kilometers (505 miles) from the capital Hanoi.

Now let's kick the Chinese intruders and land grabbers out of our democratic existence, yeah? But wait, Vietnam is a socialist republic run by communists, isn't it?

This is the Eye in the Sky!

Cua Dai Beach - Sheer Isolation Away From Hoi An (Vietnam)

Hoi An, An Hoi, Cao Dai, Cua Dai. Chiang Mai. Chiang Rai, Chiang Saen. Don Det. Don Kho, Don Khong. Having fun yet?

Like many places in Asia, particularly Thailand and Laos, terminologies and nomenclature in Vietnam are essentially word plays, and sometimes easily interchangeable. But in the ancient royal city of Hoi An in central Vietnam, one could visit an island called An Hoi, just across the river bank, navigable on foot through a bridge. But that's not what I'm writing about here.

SHEER ISOLATION

Four kilometers northeast of Hoi An, situated in the Cam An area, is Cua Dai Beach which boasts of a surreal combination of raw beauty - golden sand as fine as powder, clean waters, spotless beach, wind swept pines, relatively inexpensive resorts, and the feeling of sheer isolation.

No one was there when I visited. You'd probably find visiting this beach essential after trying to exhaust your coupon system in Hoi An; an exasperating ticket system that, for 120,000 dong ($6) allows you to visit only 5 local attractions (one museum, one old house, one assembly hall, the handicraft shop or a traditional theater, and either the Japanese Covered Bridge or the Quan Cong Temple). They require these tickets for entry. After racking my brains deciding on which places to see and which to get rid of, I ended up buying 2 of those darn tickets. That way, I didn't have to decide which places to scrap off the list. How's that for being thorough?

Cua Dai, which literally means "big sea mouth", is easy to remember if you've visited that weird religious congregation near Saigon south of the country, the Cao Dai church. The 3-kilometer beach has moderate slopes and equally moderate waves, a curiosity considering the strong winds that rush to the shore in these part of town. I hired a motorbike taxi to take me there. "You could walk northward to get to Da Nang," informed my mild-mannered driver. If that was a suggestion, I'd say "no thanks".

Am not walking 30 kilometers from here.

This is the Eye in the Sky!