While many of our trips have been focused almost exclusively on culture, we’ve been careful on our Southeast Asia tour to make sure we visit places with natural splendor. And water. I think we’re both living our best lives when we’re neck deep in warm water.

Hội An is right on the beach, to which we’ve made multiple trips, and our Airbnb has a pool, which we use at least daily. But there’s also excellent, accessible (to old people) snorkeling nearby, so we took a speedboat ride out to the Chàm Islands, part of a UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserve.

The Chàm ruled Vietnam and Cambodia in the pre-Angkor/Khmer period. The eight Chàm Islands were part of Champa territory, and were occupied by the Chàm as long as 3,000 years ago. Most of the tours stopped on the big island, Hòn Lão, at Bãi Làng village. That stop includes a tour of an old pagoda, a visit to the Ancient Well, where locals begged for mates, and a visit to an authentic local market.

Color us jaded, but we opted for a boat with an extra snorkeling stop instead of a Local Color walking tour. Stopping at Bãi Làng to register with the authorities confirmed our choice, as there were hordes of people debarking for the ground-based tour. About 3,000 people visit the islands every day, which is a cruise ship’s load, and it looked just like that, as all the boats arrive at about the same time in the morning. This was the scene on the mainland dock, as everyone queued up for their boats.

Our tour skipped the Bãi Làng scrum, and also focussed the snorkeling on smaller, more out of the way islands. We weren’t the only boat at our two dive spots, but there were only one or two besides us. We had plenty of underwater runway.

Our first stop was about the fish. There was a definite feeling of swimming in an aquarium, which is the very best part of reef snorkeling. The water offered an initial shock of cold, but warmed up really fast (unlike the heart-stopping water of Lan Ha Bay). We were in the water for about 45 minutes at each of our two stops, and we were warm the entire time.

Our second stop was more about the coral formations than it was the fish.

And that took us to our final stop, Bãi Ông beach on Cù Lao Chàm island. We got a surprisingly good lunch at the beachside cafe and enjoyed a couple of hours of swimming and lazing. There were even showers and changing rooms available before we hopped back on our speedboat for the mainland.

This outing didn’t really provide an opportunity for cutting cultural commentary, which I know is why y’all are here. Being in warm water is good, snorkeling is fun, and reef snorkeling is magical. Not a lot more to say.

Also, I Kickstarted an underwater case for my phone, and this was my first time using it in the field. I’m pretty happy with the results, and it will stay with us as part of our regular kit. This will not be our last underwater adventure. Promise.