Vietnam Day 5

Danang to Hoi An

Being driven from Da Nang airport to our hotel last night showed a pretty city, all lit up with coloured lights, and a huge dragon bridge (Google it for night-time images, it's so pretty!) The traffic is civilised, and there seem to be a lot of bars and beer halls where people have gathered.

This morning after breakfast in the hotel we went to the Museum of Cham sculpture, which is the only attraction in Da Nang. Most people use Da Nang as a transit point to get to Hoi An, and don't stop over. The sculptures were as old as the 8th Century, relics from sites that have been destroyed by the string of wars in the country. It, along with the original site, are recognised by UNESCO as having important historical and cultural value.

Snake naga, 11th - 12th Century

After the Museum, we had some time to fill before our transfer to Hoi An, so we walked across the dragon bridge, and then wandered around the streets.

The full dragon bridge across the River Han

The dragon's head

We came across a street filled with fruit and vegetable stalls on the footpath, and then discovered this crazy shopping centre that is probably the equivalent of a Plaza. Everything was broken into sections, with mazes of stalls. You could almost get lost in there, the pathways were so narrow. There was a shoe section - "Madam, you buy?" (He then looked at Sarah's feet, shook his head and said "No"!) There was a section for materials, including bolts of silk, with the tailors around the edge making up clothes. There was a clothes section, a household goods section, and a massive food section. This included buckets and buckets of dried fish and different types of shrimp, so the smell was rather pungent.

So ... much ... food!

The trip from Da Nang to Hoi An was along the coastline. For about 20km, there is either massive resort after massive resort, or else, land earmarked for massive resorts. The thing is, all of the promotional shots stuck to the outside of the fences are mostly faded and tattered, and contrasted to the gleaming 5 star proposal, when you see through the fences it is all just barren wasteland, up to the beaches. Straight after these resorts are small towns of probably the poorest type living that I have seen since we've been here. You know that they are likely to be gobbled up by the big corporations and turned into more resorts for tourists like us.

Vietnam is a land of juxtapositions. You see houses with beautifully painted facades to the front, but raw concrete on either side; mansions built next door to shanties; fancy new buildings going up, using sticks tied with rope as scaffolding; manicured gardens next to festering wastelands; brand new shiny Audis, Land Rovers and Toyotas on the road driving with run down lemons; WiFi available everywhere yet tangles of electrical wires with no common standard for pin type or even voltage. It's difficult to comprehend, sometimes.

Hoi An wasn't as I expected it to be, after all of the write-ups it gets, although that was my initial feeling. We walked into the Ancient Town, and I started to get a better feel for the place. There are tourists everywhere, so much so that they have 2 periods a day where they ban motorbikes in the centre of the town - you are only allowed on foot or bicycle. We can get free bicycle hire from the hotel, but the streets are not really any better here than Hanoi, and very very few people are wearing helmets. The old buildings are beautiful, and tomorrow we expect to be able to visit a few of the temples and museums etc. There are a lot of street stalls around, however they are all selling the same things. Every shop you walk past you hear "You buy? You buy?", but they aren't particularly pushy. Some ladies on the street stalls will approach you and then lead you to their bigger shops and try to get you to buy. Again, the pressure isn't too much, and they are pretty accepting when you finally beg off. Sarah had a go at bargaining, and had fun doing it.

Buildings from 18th - 19th Century

We walked back to the hotel in a cool, light rain. I am now sitting inside a girlhood dream - a canopy bed! I'm surrounded by white tulle curtains, pretending to be a princess. Sarah says I'm less like a princess and more like the boy in the bubble. She also says that my inability to get a drink of water through the curtain is my problem that I'll have to deal with on my own. Travelling companions!