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Published: March 4th 2009
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Cave at Marble Mountains
Behind me I have the yapping retard, enriching my visit.. Leaving Hue with regret I arrived in Danang with some hope of getting my second and third vaccination shot, this being a city of over a million people. I wanted to check out China Beach, The Marble Mountains and maybe some other places of war interest aswell.
Maybe it's a good thing I'm writing this a month or so after having been there as I'm very impulsive and moody which has a great influence on my writing. This resulting in posts filled with annoyance and anger over the things that didn't go my way at the time. Having said this I still HATE DANANG! Another one of those cities/towns where everything just goes wrong and you come across shitloads of unfriendly people. This would be the time to mention some wonderful locals operating a pho joint who where an oasis of friendliness in this desert of shit. I'll get back to these folks in a minute.
I won't tire you with all the petty details of crap I encountered in Danang but I need to whine about a couple of things. First of all, the time of my visit was during the Tet-holiday. I had dreaded this time as
I knew the country would come to a standstill, which doesn't benefit my super -selfish agenda... Anyway, I was trying to find some joint where I could eat and I mean a REAL meal, not just some pho which I like but you know, some serious food! Apparently a hard thing to do on this particular night... Naturally this didn't do any wonders to my mood, especially as there was this annoying creep harassing me about taking me on his motorbike to some place for a "small sum". Yeah right dude... Finally, trembling from hunger, I gave up the notion of cheap local food and found myself in an expensive looking place called "Mr Pizza" (I believe the name was). Right I was as the pizzas were even more expensive than back home. Sadly though, hunger had my balls in a vice and without hesitation I ordered a huge friggin pizza. Having finished the bigass pizza I went to the counter to pay and gave the smiling girl a big sum (here I curse my memory as I can't remember the figures...) expecting a big chunk of change coming back to me. Instead I recieved some small pathetic sum. "Uhh..
Outside the lair of the retard
Fleeing from the mongoloid I still managed to snap this picture. where's the rest of my change?" I enquired. "That's it" she replied "there's a Tet service fee aswell". "Say what!?" I told the bitch this was bullshit and that it's not very fair charging such fees without notifing the customer beforehand. Images of my "lockup" in Dien Bien Phu, where I almost had my ass kicked when trying to demand my rights, flashed through my mind and I elected to take the calm approach this time. As the cunt already had recieved my cash and I would have to get physical to get them back, it wasn't worth it to take on the entire staff... AGAIN! So I calmly walked away supressing my urge to hurl a chair through the window or something else equally retarded. For the record, this was the ONLY place where I ever got charged this horseshit fee! I rest my case Your Honor! What I'm trying to say is: boycott this fucking joint! Or maybe, as I've recieved some hate comments lately, you might want to sponsor them for screwing me over. Your choice dudes and dudettes!
More Tet annoyance. As I mentioned, I wanted to get some shots here so I looked up
Some pagodic tower...
I dunno... (Yes, still on Marble Mts) the international clinic which of course was closed, as it was a private one. No shock there. I checked out some other places aswell, which were all closed, before I put my trust in the big city hospital. Now this was a surreal experience. All of a sudden I found myself in some George A. Romero or other apocalyptic movie. Total emptiness! I wandered around the empty corridors for 10 minutes or so before finding a ward with some patients that looked pretty bad, but still no staff. I continued and finally heard some voices from a back room where two nurses on a break were shooting da shit. One of them fetched a doctor that informed me that there was no vaccin in the big hospital and that I had to go to a clinic that "maybe" was located in some street somewhere... Do I need to tell you I never found this place? So no shots for me, with a potentially life threatning condition needed to be taken care of. I eventually had to start all over with my shots after the good people had finished their Tet celebration. I guess the alternative would've been to try to
Common sight on the mountain...
Goddamn vendors every-effin-where! get my ass home. I don't know how easy or hard that would've been during Tet. Probably easier than finding a shot. But I found it worth potentially risking my life to be able to continue my "sunny" reports from SEA! Ain'tcha y'all glad I did? ;-)
"So what about the sights?" you ask. Well Marble Mountains would've been nice had it not been for the damn circus factor. Goddamn vendors everywhere and in the first cave there was this seemingly mentally challenged guy who pestered everybody about showing them around the place. He was a total annoyance. These morons WILL NOT take no far an answer. MInd you, I wasn't the only tourist sighing and rolling my eyes when encountering this weirdo. It was pretty funny though when he got all upset when we entered some part of the cave he had decided was inappropriate to enter. By this time he had lost all our respect and we did this just to fuck with him. Horrible tourists huh?
China Beach was... well, just a beach as you might have reckoned. I never walked all the way to the China Beach where the US soldiers did their frolicking
Funky monk
Monk with badass hat. in the sea. But hey, it's just another strip of sand. Nowadays they call everything China Beach so it's a bit confusing. I had walked all the way from the city out to the beach so I didn't feel like walking any further as I had to walk back aswell. I really just wanted to sit by the ocean and chill for a while but this was hard to do as there was quite a wind going and I kept getting sand in my face. After eating sand for a while and having been approached by some older weirdo in the company of a young giggling girl (I have no idea if this dude maybe wanted to sell me the services of the young lass) I walked back to town.
I didn't have the energy to try checking museums or such as I just wanted to get the hell outta Dodge* and I figured everything would be closed anyway. I decided to take my chances and move onto Quang Ngai, the stop for visiting the My Lai museum. If only the damn train station could open...I must admit I was a bit tired of all the "fuck you mister"
Mr. Woods?
No not James... the lovely kids shouted after me aswell.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot the good people at the pho joint. Yes, let's end this post on a positive note for a change. Now this was a nice break in the misery that was Danang. Such friendly people. The kind of people you read about others meeitng all the time while only encountering assholes yourself. The joint was located next to the rip-off palace Mr Pizza so I had to control my spit reflex everytime I went to eat. Boy did I eat a lot of pho while in Danang! Due to the lack of open restaurants in the area I stayed and due to the friendliness of these people my diet consisted only of pho and chips during my stay here. These folks always had a smile for you and threw in a little extra from time to time, like an orange or something. One time they offered me some brown seeds that I out of politeness tried and then laughed their ass off when I couldn't crack the shell with my teeth. These guys saved the day when I EVERY DAY had it ruined by some other incident.
Look everybody, I'm in "The Birds"!
When approaching Marble M. I noticed tons of birds circling the main top and thought it was odd. Here I got a closer look, but no further hint to why they were doing this.
Gotta love that hairdo btw. Motorbikes have a knack for fluffing up my hair to a nice halfwit look... How did that old Bobby McFerrin tune go? "Don't go to Danang, be happy"... Yeah, that's how it goes!
*This expression is quite fitting in this case as I was shot twice during my stay here (fucking kids with soft air guns...)
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