The Marble Mountains and Da Nang.
A lot going on today, first saying tạm biệt (goodbye) to Hoi An, and, later in the day, xin chào (hello) to Da Nang. All went well with my half day tour pickup, right in front of the hotel, and it turned out there were several other people on the tour not returning to Hoi An,and instead going on to Da Nang. like me.
A signup sheet went round as we got started, and you know when you’re old when the van is filled with middle aged people, but the next oldest person was born in 1969. Sheesh! The person sitting next to me was a very interesting guy from French Canada, who is nearing the end of three months in Vietnam, two of which he spent on a rented motorbike traveling the whole country, with some hairy motorbike stories to tell of near accidents. He said it took him about a month to feel safe on the bike due to the crazy traffic in and around the cities. He actually bought a bike in Canada and learned to ride in preparation for this trip. He’s a young(ish) guy of 53, who‘s now retired from the Canadian military after 25 years, having risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His adult son was now touring Vietnam with him, having joined him for the last three weeks. Some interesting fellow travelers along the way, some with pretty interesting and adventuresome travel stories.
As the tour got underway, plans changed along the way, due really to poor planning on the part of the tour company, because today is the day of the Ironman Vietnam triathlon, and traffic was stopped, bumper to bumper for miles due to the bicycle race part of the triathlon, throwing off the entire tour schedule. Sherlock, our guide, so named because of his love of Sherlock Holmes, decided to switch the pagoda we were intended to visit, and so we didn’t visit the Linh Ung Pagoda on the Sơn Trà Peninsula, home of the 220 feet tall “Lady Buddha” statue, one of the tallest Buddha statues in Vietnam, standing on the side of the mountain and looking out over the sea. Instead, we visited the very beautiful and idyllic Quan The Am Pagoda at the foot of the Marble Mountains, which wasn’t a bad swap, but nevertheless I really wanted to see the Lady Buddha statue, as I imagine was the case for the other tour customers. Still, the Quan The Am Pagoda was lovely, with wonderful views, and the tour was still a good one, with Sherlock keeping us entertained in the shuttle van.
Our first stop was a marble statuary business, one of many giant production yards in the area, where they create and sell sculptures of many types, spiritual, religious, and non-religious, from the very very large to the pretty small, and have a huge inventory, and a very large and impressive indoor showroom and gardens. It reminded me of the Viet Pearl farm we stopped at on the day trip to Ha Long Bay, where at least part of the object of the stop today was to create opportunities to buy something from the massive showroom and grounds, which were full of statuaries of every size and theme, including moderate sized and giant statues that have to be shipped. Showroom staff, all women, sort of follow you around in the showroom, pointing out things you’ll want to buy. Beautiful place, though. Some of the statues are made entirely by hand and are works of art, and I saw a couple of stone masons working on these, whereas others are produced partially by machine, and others completely by machine.
The mountains, actually Ngũ Hành Sơn, or Mountains of the Five Elements, are a group of five marble and limestone hills just south of Da Nang, and about 13 miles north of Hoi An, each named for the elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Although marble was extracted from the mountains for centuries, giving rise to a strong and generations old local statuary industry (like the one we visited), this has not been the case since the 1990s, when the government prohibited quarrying there, as the industry was destroying the mountains. Although the area around the mountains is still filled with businesses and stores specializing in producing and selling marble statues of every kind and every size, ironically the marble is now brought in from areas other than the Marble Mountains, including other nearby quarries, as well as being imported most typically from from China, India, and Pakistan, and sometimes Italy.
Then to the Marble Mountains, where we once again faced steps built into the mountainside, although not too bad compared to some of the places I’ve visited. Still, a couple of hundred steps up. Unsurprisingly, the site was bustling and crowded, with lots of tourists just like us.
Before visiting the pagoda atop the mountain, we visited the Âm Phủ caves, which were huge, although not as massive or cavernous as the Sung Sot cave in Ha Long (now that’s a cave), but pretty big and pretty impressive, nonetheless. These caves were used by the Vietcong during the war, as military headquarters and hiding places, and also as a hospital for the wounded, because the mountains are full of hidden chambers and tunnels. Inside, there are multiple caves at different levels, with different legends describing each level, and filled with carvings, statues, and symbols of various Eastern religions and beliefs. Impressive! Easy to bang your head, though, as one member of our tour party did, ducking as you pass through very low passages and cave entries. Ouch! Actually, it wouldn’t be difficult to get hurt inside, and the stone steps get pretty pretty slippery.
Of the five mountains, we were at the most visited, Thuy Son, the water mountain. Very beautiful of course, and serene, or it would be if not for all of us visitors. The temples and pagodas were wonderful, as were the views. Atop the mountain was the second cave we visited, the Huyền Không cave, also an impressive piece of work, again filled with statues, carvings, and symbols. Incredible stuff, this.
Next and last stop was the Quan The Am Pagoda, at the foot of the Mountains. This was very good substitute for the Lady Buddha as it was beautiful and serene, and quite unlike Thuy Son mountain, the pagoda was relatively free of hordes of visitors and peaceful. We were invited to light incense there, and pray for whatever we hoped. It was a lovely ceremony, actually.
The tour wrapped up with lunch at small local restaurant, covered by the booking fee, and after that I and several others left the tour, which headed back to Hoi An. It didn’t take too long to grab a Grab, and of course, several other taxi drivers tried to steal the ride as I was waiting for the ride I booked. It took maybe 20 minutes to get to my hotel, and the driver asked me if I could use his services again while I was here, so I booked him to take me to the airport around 8:30 tomorrow morning, All set! The ride to the hotel was about $6, and the airport ride will be about $5.
But the hotel, the Haian Riverfront Hotel – that I was not expecting! It is a high rise 4-star hotel, and although I did spend more than on many of the other hotels I could’ve booked here, mostly because I wanted to be in a walkable part of town, it was only $54. It was not what I was expecting at all, and it was in a great location, right on the river walk along the Han River, minutes from major sights. My 11th floor room was spacious, with two balconies, each with great riverfront views and views of the street below. Plus, it had a round bed. Now that’s class.
While walking around An Hoi last night, with a million spas and constant invitations to please come in, I had considered getting a massage as my back was feeling a little tight. The Haian Riverfront hotel had a spa (of course), and I decided to get a back massage. Before I could even ask, I learned I had a complimentary 30-minute foot massage, so I combined this with a 30-minute back massage, for which and I received a thirty percent discount (or could get a second massage at no cost, but I’m leaving in the morning), so the lovely one hour massage costs a little more than $11.
I got to my very nice room, dropped off my back pack, and up to the 19th floor I went to get my massage, which was booked for right then. It was lovely, but I had to work very hard to not fall asleep, which always ruins the massage as you sleep through it. My feet were first bathed in lemon and spice water, while I (again) drank green tea – I haven’t drunk so much tea since I was in my mid-teens, plus I was given a small cup of ginger tea upon check-in.
The massage was very good, but the odd part was that the masseuse was probably the least friendly and most non-communicative person I’ve met since I began this trip. All business, with not a single smile and the use of the fewest words and gestures possible, from start to finish. No hello, no goodbye. Maybe she was having a bad day, maybe she just received some upsetting news, or maybe she doesn’t like her job, or… well who knows, but definitely an unusual and unfriendly presentation, and especially for someone in her line of work. But the massage was very nice, although the only trouble with a massage (aside from falling asleep), is, half an hour later and it’s like it never happened.
Then out I went, into Da Nang, although by now it was probably around 4 in the afternoon, The weather was nice, just a tad cooler than it has been, and I followed a small itinerary I made of places in the area within walking distance.
Da Nang took much damage during the Vietnam war, and much of it has been rebuilt since then, resulting in many new buildings and a fairly new city in that sense, and it semes largely like a modern cosmopolitan city, with large tree lined avenues and boulevards with many contemporary buildings and much recent construction. It’s the third largest city in Vietnam, but with a population of about 1.4 million, it’s dwarfed by Ho Chi Minh with a population of about 12-14 million and the capital Hanoi, between 8-9 million. Of the three, it is the new city due to its major reconstruction and ongoing development.
The first stop was the Han Market, which is even more huge than others I’ve visited, with two very packed floors, jammed with both vendors and people. The first floor was foods, toys, luggage, produce, shoes, meats and fish, and other general goods, and the second floor was almost entirely clothing, cloth, and tailors, some doing the work right there, with the aisles and lanes between vendors not just extremely narrow, but also densely packed with people, and very difficult to pass without pushing your way through, although no one seemed bothered when you do. Another really wild scene.
I passed Da Nang Cathedral, built in 1923 and one of the best known buildings in the city, on the way to the market, but being Sunday and with Mass in process the church and grounds were temporarily closed to visitors. That was the still the case when I returned later, and although the cop securing the grounds smiled and was happy for me step past the gate and into the grounds to take a photo, the grouchy old guy waving people in and out (mostly out) was having none of it, not even a photo, the minute I stepped an inch past the sign. I did the best I could to take a couple of shots of the pastel pink church, but with the sun directly behind the church it was hard to get a good shot. When I came back much later, the church was closed and gated up.
I headed back to the riverfront walk, just a couple of blocks away, which looks like it stretches for miles, along both sides of the Han River, and first walked the lovely path north to the Han Bridge which spans the Han River, and then crossed it to reach the east bank. The bridge is a swing bridge in which the central part of the bridge rotates 90 degrees to allow ships to pass along the river. It was opened in 2000, and was the first swing bridge designed and built by Vietnamese engineers since reunification.
I followed the walking path on the east side of the river, now heading back toward the Dragon Bridge, a little over ½ mile south, and which also crosses the Han River. I noticed all the chairs that were being placed along the length of the walking path facing the river, and numerous small tables, in preparation for the many locals and visitors who come out here on weekend evenings to enjoy the cooler evening weather along the river, and, closer to the Dragon Bridge, for people to enjoy the fire and water show that takes place at the bridge at 9 pm on weekend evenings. The dragon-shaped bridge, almost ½ mile in length, opened in 2003 and is probably the most famous modern landmark in the city.
The business, shopping, and major nightlife district seems to be mostly on the west side of the river, as well as most of the high rise buildings, but the east bank also has many high rise buildings, and I saw evidence of a lot of construction, with high rise cranes and derricks throughout the area, as well a giant high end shopping center and movie theater complex on the east side.
I stopped in at a few shops along the way, walked quite a way past the bridge, figuring where I might get the best shot of the fire and water breathing dragon later that evening, as I definitely planned to come back (and did), and wanted to first scope it out as I knew it would be jam packed later (and it was). I visited Love Lock Pier, just north of the Dragon Bridge, where people place locks to share and show their love (a new tradition picked up from cities in other countries, and now popular around the world), where there are great views of the river, Dragon Bridge, and the cityscape on the west side of the river, where I watched the sun sink low in the sky and go down behind the cityscape opposite (where my hotel is located).
I crossed the Dragon Bridge, enjoying the views along the river, and now that dusk was settling, lights were coming on and some of the high rise business buildings and hotels on the east bank and heading north along the river, which is where they’re clustered, were covered in moving led images that changed from moment to moment – very Blade Runner-ish. The Han Bridge was also light up, with its central structure lights changing colors every few moments.
I visited APEC Park on the west side of the riverfront, although it was dark by now, which offers a good example of the city’s development and orientation. It was opened to commemorate the 2017 Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Da Nang in 2017, and redesigned and expanded in 2022, and now has well lit riverside walking paths, public plazas, gardens and lawns, sculptures, events spaces, and cafes and eateries, intended to reflect Dan Nang’s orientation as a modern international city. It’s a lovely space.
Eventually, I made my way back to near the Love Lock area, just north of the Dragon Bridge on the east side of the river, around 8:30 as festive crowds were gathering, and settled in to wait for the 9 pm show, where the dragon head breathes actual fire, followed by spurts of water. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, although had seen photos. The bridge itself gets closed to traffic soon before the show, and was crowded with people waiting to see the event from up there, or from the observation areas on the stairwells leading to the bridge. I figured the best spot was down below, but the event lasts long enough – maybe 15 minutes – so it was possible to take some photos from several spots. None of them came out well, as the phone camera just doesn’t have the capacity to take clear shots in low light, unless using a tripod and extended exposure time, but I did my best, but most importantly enjoyed the show.
After the fire and water show ended and the crowds slowly dispersed, I walked back across the bridge and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat, settling on another small local place, and after that headed back to the hotel to enjoy my one night in a high class joint.
Tomorrow morning, after my one short half day and evening in Da Nang, I fly to Hoi Chi Minh city for my final couple of days, before heading back to Toronto, and then home.