Tam Tinh Vien Homestay

It's hard to say enough good about this homestay. The room was great, the breakfast was delicious, the hosts were super nice and your payment goes to support the orphanage on the grounds. Because we were staying longer than usual they did our laundry for us for free. If you want you can have lunch or dinner with them and experience tasty home cooking (also free if you eat at the regular time for them.) We had one or two meals there, other than breakfast, but also wanted to try restaurants in Hue. We met a lovely young woman whose name I don't know how to spell, but I think it's something like Hun. She grew up and lives nearby and is at Tam Tinh Vien quite often. She mentioned a pagoda in the hills nearby and offered to go there with us to show us around. Honestly, that visit to the pagoda and grounds ended up being the highlight of our trip. Thinking about all our interactions with the Vietnamese people, they do appreciate that our daughter is working in the country as a volunteer and perhaps that opens the door to some of the more authentic experiences like what we had here and elsewhere. Or perhaps our experience was typical, I can't know. There is also a local driver who grew up in the area that we hired several times to go into town, up to the pagoda, and finally for our drive to the Da Nang airport. After dropping us off he thanked us for helping him support his family.