Mountains, Marines and Mrs Duong

We were up early this morning to be ready for our guide to pick us up at 9 am from outside the hotel.  Jeremy, a young american guy who had been unable to find work in the USA, had come to Vietnam because it is cheap to live.  After a spell teaching English, he bought a couple of old US army jeeps and set up his tour company.  He drove us the short way to the historic Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains are a cluster of five marble and limestone hills and are named after the five elements; Kim (metal), Thuy (water), Moc (wood), Hoa (fire) and Tho (earth). 

The only one which is accessible to tourists is Thuy, or Water Mountain.  Jeremy explained that the Vietnamese are obsessed with shiny brand new things and are embarrassed by the old.  So they are very proud of the new elevator they have installed to access part of the mountain - even though you have to climb steps to get to it and even more steps when you get off to be able to access most of the mountain!  We didn't bother with the elevator and climbed the steps - and there were plenty of them!  Poor Louise still has a painful knee, but managed most of the steps, just missing out on a couple more of the steeper sections.  The steps themselves are amazing - and as you can imagine, they are cut from the marble.  But for a nation of people who tend to be quite small, they have big steps - often about 18 inches high.  It's hard work climbing them in the blistering heat!

All of the mountains have lots of caves and tunnels and we were able to explore the caves and see the temples built right into the mountain.  There are a variety of Buddhist and Hindu grottoes in the mountain and it was very busy, with lots of local people visiting to make offerings and burning incense.

Most of the shrines had "guardians" as in the picture above, one on each side of the entrance to protect the Buddha.

There were two elderly Vietnamese ladies at the entrance to the main shrine selling incense.  They were apparently in their seventies, and one of the ladies had jet black teeth.  Apparently, it was from chewing the Betel Root, as black teeth were once considered a sign of beauty.  The other old lady had since tried to bleach her teeth and they were mainly white, but with black edges!

There were burial shrines for some of the senior Buddhist monks, and the height depicted their seniority.  The Buddhist monks try to achieve seven stages of enlightenment.  The two we saw were five stories high, meaning the monk buried in there had achieved five stages in his lifetime.  The idea is that when they are re-born, they are able to start at a higher stage rather than back at stage one.

There were spectacular viewing points at different stages up the mountain of the expanding city of DaNang and the famous china beach.  Louise and I didn't make it this high up, as Jeremy had warned us that there was a section where you had to scramble over slippery rocks, but the Paul's were rewarded with this view!

We then came to the largest chamber of all, in which there were several shrines.  The lights on the rocks are from the sunlight shining through the hole at the top of the cave, it was stunning!

The pagodas are mostly quite new.  They like to pull the old ones down and replace them from time to time!  The colours are created by piecing together small pieces of crockery to form a mosaic.  Apparently, the crockery is not random, but especially made and then blessed, before being broken and used.  You could even see "Made in China" on one of the pieces of crockery!

Of course, we had to give Buddha a belly rub!

The temple below is a very rare entirely wooden structure and was absolutely stunning.  Made entirely from intricately carved mahogany, it is still used by the Buddhist monks daily.

We then started our descent down to the bottom, using a different path to the one we had climbed.  This viewing point showed a small suburb of Danang and Jeremy could point out to us the shack in the middle.  Apparently, all  properties were once like that - a small shack with land all the way around.  He said that bit by bit, the land to either side and to the front would be used to build a tall, thin house, and in many instances, the small shack would still be there surrounded by the newer properties.  He also showed us a photograph from the 1960's and the whole of this area was just barren land.

Bizarrely, this view point highlighted Jeremy's theory that they liked modern things.  They had a modern, shiny coin-operated telescope for the views.  The only problem is, there are no coins in use in Vietnam, so it is totally useless!
We carried on with our descent and it is not easy to see from this picture, but there was an entire family of about 6 or 7 members dressed in identical maroon coloured robes.  They were all carrying food, drink, etc and we were told that they would be coming to celebrate the life of perhaps a Grandparent who may have died recently.  Apparently, they would spend the day on the mountain praying and reminiscing.

Further down the steps (they seemed to be never-ending), there was a local guy with this massive centipede, which he had caught and trapped in a water bottle.  He would fill the bottle with rice wine and let the centipede ferment.  Apparently, it would be a really nice drink eventually!!

Once back down the mountain, Jeremy took us to a local lady for a drink of sugar cane.  She was pressing sugar canes through a mangle type device and gathering the juice, which was then poured over ice - it was amazing!  Nowhere near as sweet as you would expect and really refreshing!

We then continued along the coast to Monkey mountain, but stopped to see a local boat-builder on the way.  He was an elderly guy in his seventies and built the small round boats used by the local fishermen.  He had colluded with the Yanks during the war and because of that was forbidden to ever get a proper job by the government, so this was his only way of getting an income.  Apparently, any higher officials who helped the enemy are still discriminated against to this day with their children and even grand-children not being allowed to attend school!

He showed us how he split the bamboo cane, initially about the size of a drain-pipe, using a cleaver type knife.  Once he had made a split at opposite sides, he then pulled the upper half upwards whilst standing on the lower half in his bare feet!  The whole cane was then split over and over again until he had small strips which he could weave into a mat.

Once the mat was big enough, he would then bind it to the frame and plug any holes with cow dung.  The surfaces would then be varnished several times until fully waterproof.  He could charge about £75 for a boat.

Our final stretch along the coast took us past one of the main fishing villages and there was a flotilla of fishing boats anchored off the coast.  Jeremy said that the whole of the coast line used to have small fishing communities all the way along, but since tourism was now a growing industry, officials had restricted the fisherman to small areas as they did not want the tourists to see the poor fishermen.  They can't seem to grasp that the fishermen are exactly the type of thing that we do want to see!

Then the road climbed and twisted its way up and around the several peaks of Son Tra peninsula, and we stopped at several points to admire the view over the South China Sea. 

Paul took this amazing panoramic photograph from high up the mountain. 

He then sat and had a chat with Confucius!

This is a photo of us in the Jeep.  It was built in 1967 and is one of many left in the country when the Americans pulled out.  Jeremy said he doesn't have too much of a problem getting parts as there were whole warehouses of parts left too.  When he orders something, it usually comes in it's original 1960's wrapping!

We travelled back down Monkey Mountain without seeing a single monkey.  When the Americans arrived, the place was over-run with them.  The Americans would feed and tame them to relieve the boredom.  Once the Marines left, the Vietnamese found it amusing that the monkeys were so tame and used to shoot them for fun!  Then, when they were starving, they would hunt them for food.  So of course, the monkeys are now very afraid of humans, so are not as easily sighted anymore.

Once back in Danang, Jeremy took us for lunch.  We went through a labyrinth of back-streets to a food venue we wouldn't have dreamed of going into ourselves!  There were small tables lined down either side of the room with small stools at each table.  The girls then brought our lunch and Jeremy explained how to eat it.  We took a couple of rice papers and put one of the yellow triangles on it -  they were small pancakes made from eggs and rice flour and fried in a pan.  Each pancake was already filled with some shredded mango, a small piece of pork and a prawn.  We then put in the pork on the stick (looked a bit like a kebab) in the middle of the pancake and pulled the stick out.  We put in more filling of lettuce, cucumber and shredded mango.  You then rolled it up as tight as you could and dipped it into the dish of satay sauce before taking a bite.  It's called Banh Xeo and it is delicious!

 Mrs Duong is renowned for the dish and it is the only thing she ever serves.  A whole community has thrived as a result of her enterprise, with other Banh Xeo eateries opening up next door to take advantage of the 'overflow' from when she is too busy to cater for all her clients.  The neighbours also charge customers a few thousand Dong for them to park their scooters in their yards.

The pancakes are baked continuously over embers on a large stove.  There were girls cutting the cucumber etc. whilst others washed the pots and pans on the floor with the water running into the gutter and the dog licking up any scraps he could find!

This was a view of the restaurant from one end, with a row of basins at the bottom for washing hands.

After our amazing lunch, we carried on along the north coast of DaNang, passing this incredible Dragon Bridge.

We were now heading for Highway One, the main road in Vietnam, but the views were still breath-taking!

Highway One took us to the top of Hai Van Pass where we explored bunkers remaining from the war.  All traffic had no option other than to travel this road, as the mountains were to one side and the sea to the other.  This was the only road connecting the North to the South and all supplies were brought this way.  There were several bunkers for the Americans to try to protect their convoys, but it was tough.  The Vietcong would be hidden on the mountains and impossible to find, but could sit and pick off the American troops at will.

You can easily see the impact holes from shells on the wall of the bunker.  Even after all this time, you could find bullets and shell casings lying around on the ground.  

This is a great shot of a bunker, with Highway One winding around the mountain in the distance - that's where we were heading next!

Many of you will have seen the Top Gear programme, where Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond travelled through Vietnam on scooters.  Clarkson called this stretch one of the best coastal roads in the world - look at the picture below and you can see why!

Luckily, the old jeep wasn't capable of great speeds, so we were quite happy trundling along at a nice sedate pace, although the jeep laboured and back-fired quite a bit!

At the bottom of the mountain, there was a small fishing community in the middle of the peninsula.  The beach looked stunning, but the locals haven't even bothered clearing the shrubs to access it - they're just not interested in that sort of thing!
Because the Hai Van Pass is such a difficult winding road and was having such an adverse effect on the economy, the authorities decided to build a tunnel in recent years, so we went through the 4 mile long tunnel to get back to our side of the mountain.

Once through the tunnel, we turned inland and drove through some craftsman villages and rice paddies.  It was so humbling!  There was quite a large village, off the tourist trail, devoted entirely to cutting slate.
Each family unit had their own workforce of family members.  Massive pieces of slate were brought to the village by truck whereupon they were distributed to each family to be broken down into smaller pieces for different uses.  Much of the slate would become tiles or water features.  The father would sledge-hammer the large boulders, then use an electric saw to cut it up into pieces about the size of an house brick.  Then the women and older children were all sat on the floor, with bare feet, using a hammer and chisel to get the slate to the required size and shape.  They were so precise it was amazing to watch!  Jeremy said they earned about 70p a day for 12 hours work.  

They rarely saw tourists in this area and were fascinated by us, especially the children.  We asked Jeremy if it would be OK to give them some money, but he said 'Why? - Look at them, they are well dressed, well fed and happy.  Would it be right to give a child $1 when it takes her mother a full day to earn that?  They are so excited because for ten minutes, we have brought a glimpse of the life that exists in another part of the world to their village - that is enough for them".  He overpaid them for a small piece of slate  and said that was his way of saying thank you for letting us visit.  It was difficult for us, but we had to respect his advice.

A couple of miles down the road, we saw a farmer ploughing his paddy fields using a water buffalo.  He joked shouting to us to come and help!
I think this was one of my favourite parts of the trip, as in all the villages we passed through, the people would smile and wave and shout at us as though we were the best thing that had happened to them that day - they are a truly amazing nation!

We were soon back into Danang and stuck in the evening rush-hour traffic!

We arrived back at our hotel in time for dinner, covered in dust and grime from head to foot, but having had a day we will remember for a lifetime!

Relaxation Day

There's not much to blog about today.  Although we had a fright this morning.  There is a small wall, no more than 18 inches high, at the front of our patio.  We were sat enjoying the early morning sun when a gardener, wearing her non la (palm leaf hat) popped up from behind it - she frightened the life out of us!

We decided to take it easy today, so after breakfast, we took a taxi up to one of the local golf courses.  This one has been designed and is promoted by Colin Montgomerie and it is gorgeous!

We sat on the patio overlooking the 18th hole watching the golfers finish their rounds.  Each golfer had a buggy driven by their own caddy.  All the caddies seemed to be young Vietnamese girls.  We spoke to one guy who said that it had cost him just a bit less than 3 million Vietnamese Dong (about £85) for a round.

Heaven knows how much the villas would cost!  

The weather has been a bit strange in Danang.  In general, it is very hot, sunny and calm.  But each day in the early afternoon, it seems to get quite windy and clouds over.  Then there is a quick spell of rain and it goes back to wall to wall sunshine!  The early mornings and evenings are always absolutely heavenly.
There will be more to say tomorrow - we are going on a jeep tour!  Should be great fun.

Hoi An

We had a leisurely morning today, with Paul and Louise spending time by the pool, my Paul was on the beach and I was on our patio blogging and reading.  I could see Paul from where our bungalow and he was sun-bathing for a while, then going into the sea for a swim.  He's a very confident swimmer and never seems to tire at all.  I could hear the lifeguard blowing his whistle like crazy.  Apparently, it was for my husband!  He'd swam too far out for the lifeguards liking and he was gesturing at him to come back to shore - you can't take him anywhere without him getting into trouble!!
After lunch, we took the hotel shuttle bus and went to the neighbouring town of Hoi An (means Peaceful Meeting Place).  

Hoi An is an ancient town and has taken advantage of it's location on the South China Sea to be renowned as a main trading port dating from the 15th century.  It is registered as a World Heritage site because of it's history and architecture.  It is certainly one of the more peaceful towns and cars are banned from the town centre.  The scooters were also conspicuous by their absence and must be banned between certain hours, they couldn't be seen or heard until later in the evening.
Hoi An is also renowned for it's silk crafts and tailors.  Apparently, you can show a design of any dress or suit to a tailor and they will produce a made to measure replica ready for you to collect the following day.  This also applies to shoes and handbags.  The tailors had some different designs on display at the front of the shop and then reams of material for you to choose from inside.  We had a look around a couple of the places, but decided that the quality of the finished article would probably be a bit suspect!  We were also concerned as to whether the suits would be sewn by under-age girls.

The shoe shops were really strange.  There were rows upon rows of shoes and sandals, but they were all old and worn.  Apparently, you could pick and design and they would make them in any colour you wanted.  Although we had spoken to a guy at the hotel who had a pair made in Hanoi, only for a buckle fall off and the sole start to peel away!  Needless to say, we didn't bother with shoes either.

I'm not sure if there was something auspicious about the date whilst we were there, but we saw four bride and grooms!  They just seemed to be wandering around the town with their official photographer having their pictures taken.  We managed to get pictures of a couple of them as they were posing.

It suddenly started to rain, so we dodged into a wine bar/restaurant and spent a very pleasant hour with a bottle of a wine and a few beers watching the world go by!  

We found it a bit strange that the street traders were allowed into the restaurant to sell their wares.  Mostly fruit and nuts, but also the "Del Boy" of Hoi An selling umberellas and ponchos!
Hoi An also has a complicated river system of many kilometers, which services the town and the neighbouring villages.  There were rows upon rows of boats trying to tempt the tourists on river trips.  

But we were quite fascinated by what appeared to be an improvised fishing system.  Whilst we were looking at the boats and the bridge, four larges poles appeared out of the water at the corners of a quadrangle.  The base of the poles stayed in the water, and there was a corner of a net attached to the top of each pole.  A large net was then fully raised out of the water.  It probably measured about 20 feet long at each side.  I'm not sure how effective it was though, there were no fish in the net when it was raised!

We then called into a traditional tea/coffee shop, which was run as a charity by speech and hearing impaired staff.  The serving girls were lovely!  The tea and coffee was served in traditional china and the whole experience was quite humbling.

After tea, we carried on sight-seeing, including an impressive Chinese Cantonese temple.

and a Japanese covered bridge, which is quite unique, because it is the only one which is covered and has a pagoda at the side.

  We had our evening meal in the town, it looked like quite a nice place, but was perhaps the Wetherspoons of Hoi An!
The highlight was the cutest little Vietnamese boy selling little aeroplanes.  We just gave him some money for being so cute, but didn't take any planes.  We are so gullible!

Chilling at the beach

We planned to have a lazy day at the resort today and treat ourselves to a lie in.  But when you can hear the waves lapping on the beach and the fishing boats heading out for a day's work, it's difficult to convince yourself that a lie-in is a good idea.  Hence, at 6 am, I left Paul in bed and sneaked out onto our patio.  It was heaven to just bask in the morning sun with only the sound of the sea to keep you company.  There was the usual solitary person on the beach doing  their Tai Chi though!  Paul got up at about 7am and we went for a wander down the beach.
There appear to be two types of local fishing boats, the motorised boat shaped as we would expect in the UK seems to trundle along only maybe 500 yards out parallel to the shoreline.  They seems to travel in groups, with three or four sailing behind one another.

But our favourite has to be the round traditional boats, called Thung Chai, which are made of bamboo and coated with tar or varnish to make them waterproof.  

They are built to carry no more than two people and are remarkably effective!  The fishermen have to be skilled in the sailing technique, else as you can imagine, they would just go round and round!

We watched them bring their boats to shore and had a sneaky look inside as we passed to see their haul of squid - probably to be sold to our hotel for our tea!
We sauntered back down the beach to get ready to meet Paul and Louise for breakfast.  The sea is absolutely beautiful here!

We chilled by the poolside after breakfast, but it was so incredibly hot!!  Of course, the others could cool off in the pool, but that's not my idea of fun.  

I retreated to our bungalow and spent a pleasant few hours on the patio with a cold drink and a good book - not that is my kind of heaven!

It was great to have a lazy day, but batteries are now fully re-charged and tomorrow we are going to the neighbouring town of Hoi-An.

Next stop - the beach!

We had a choice on waking from our night on the junk in Halong Bay.  We could either go on a trip at 7.30am to the Bat Cave, which apparently would mean climbing over 600 steps.  The problem was, there was only one way in and one way out.  Therefore, once you had started, you couldn't turn back, you had to go the full distance.  After us girls hadn't done the full climb the day before, we decided to give it a miss and have a leisurely start to the day instead.  We left the curtains of our panoramic windows in the cabin open all night so that we could watch the sun rise from our bed.  What an amazing sight to wake up to.  The only problem was that by the time we wanted to get up, there were other junks and tender boats passing our window, so it was a case of jump out quick and make it to the bathroom before the next boat passed by!

We had coffee and croissants on the top deck whilst waiting for those who had done the trip to return, then we were served with a delicious full breakfast in the dining room.
The Captain sailed at a very leisurely pace back into Halong Bay harbour and by 11.15am, we were back on our coach having to endure the four hour transfer back to Hanoi airport ready for our flight down to Danang at 7pm.
The highlight of the trip back up north was seeing one of our facilities!  

We were at the airport by 3pm and the thought of hanging around for four hours was too much to bear!  We managed to alter our reservations for the earlier flight and were in the air by 4pm!  Louise managed to twist her knee somehow whilst moving seats and by the time we reached Danang, her knee had swollen considerably!  We may have to take it easy for a couple of days until the pain and swelling subside a bit.  The flight was a little over an hour and after waiting for about 30 minutes, our transfer taxi arrived to take us to our next stop.

The Sandy Beach Resort gave a pretty good first impression!  We were greeted in reception by girls with cool towels for us to freshen up with and a drink of fruit juice.  We've got beach bungalows overlooking the beach and they are pretty fabulous!  We will certainly be quite content here for the week.  Our bungalow is only about 50 yards away from one of the swimming pools, which also overlooks the ocean.  It was dark when we arrived, but pretty impressive all the same!

After a quick freshen up, we wandered over to the main complex for an evening meal.  The menu looks great and we will look forward to working our way through it over the next few nights!