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Published: January 10th 2012
Marble Mountain Pagoda
Near the main lookout.After 5 days in Hoi An I decided to get back on the road. I didn’t fancy the 14 hours overnight bus to Nha Trang so I opted to take another Easy Rider, but this time off the beaten track. The typical tourist trail in Viet Nam hugs the coastline but given I had time on my hands I decided to head into the Central Highlands in search of mountains, rainforest and the ‘real’ Viet Nam. My guide was Mr. Quang, born in Danang to a family from the North, who migrated South when given the option following independence from the French in 1954.
Quang is 46, married with two young children. He spoke very good English and was not only my guide and rider, he was also my tutor, teaching me the basics of Vietnamese that I would need on my week long trip into the mountains. In the Central Highlands nobody speaks English and the majority of the population there consists of ethnic minorities, not Vietnamese, each minority having its own distinct language, culture and customs. After the war the Communist Government ‘redistributed’ resources (i.e. people) from the coastal cities to the Central Highlands to farm the land.
My first stop was a place just outside Danang called Marble Mountain. Here the local craftsman are extremely skilled and carve magnificent marble sculptures from the marble mined from the mountain complex and countryside. The mountain itself is surrounded by a small town of marble workshops, store fronts and homes. It’s a little bit of a tourist trap and everyone there will tell you about the marvels of the marble – lucky, lucky everything – and not cheap either! Mr. Quang settled in for a coffee and a kip after a strenuous 30 minutes on the bike and left me to my devices as I took a walk up the mountain.
My first task was to avoid the street hawkers - these guys are everywhere in Viet Nam, but are only trying to make an honest living (well, for the most part). I dodged the water touts and the 'lucky lucky' charm seller (lucky my ass) and also skipped buying the map of the mountain thanks to my stubbornness (which in hindsight would actually have been quite useful!). A little bit of advice here, after a strenuous climb in 'crack the flags' heat I succumbed to at least
buy a bottle of water on the mountain itself (after exhausting my litre and a half bottle) and paid the price, 20,000 VND for a small bottle of water... ripped off and they sure showed me.
On the mountain itself are a series of active temples, pagodas and Buddhist statues but the main focal point is the lookout tower. There is also an old Cham temple carved into a small natural cave system in the mountainside. Most people do the short hike to the lookout and get the elevator down, but if you take the time to keep on walking up and over there are a number of other small caves (all marked on the map I didn't have) where the Buddhist monks pray as well as another lookout over the small river and valley below, which is a very rewarding vantage point.
I took the time to venture a bit further and walked up the mountain to its summit in the sweltering heat (what a hero). The path actually ends and you have to scramble through the rocks to reach the top. The views though are fantastic and you are rewarded with a 360 degree view of
the area from Da Nang, to Da Nang beach, to the Marble Mountain village and round to Hoi An. It's really quite impressive. Also on the top you can see down into the caves below, thanks to a large hole in the roof of the main mountain cave. Quang informed me that during the war the caves in the mountain were used as a secret hospital for the war wounded, but the Americans discovered this and sent in the B52's to bomb the complex. There are apparently B52 bomb craters in the area, but most are overgrown, but the main one you can see plain as day, as it's the hole in the mountain top itself.
After clambering back down the very steep stairway I checked out a few small caves and a small temple before letting my thirst take over my better judgment and bought that bottle of water. If you keep walking down past a broken rocky path to the right of this small temple (past the small frogs, lizards and snakes) you get to a large tower with thousands of broken pot pieces and pebbles adorning the exterior and surrounded by mythical beast sculptures. It's the
most impressive thing on the mountain, not just for the sculpted tower, but also for the view.
Just opposite is a circular ‘window’ that affords a view of the riverside and the valley where you can see a giant limestone karst jutting out from the flat landscape in the distance, just behind the small town. There is also a sculpture of sorts in the middle of a small lake that makes for a good photo opportunity. Around the area the walls are actually snake bodies, with the entrance gates, giant snake heads.
The only thing about this place is that to get back, you've got to climb back up again to get back to the main path. Quang said see you in an hour, I think I was nearly two...
Moving on from Marble Mountain we skipped through Danang past Highway 1 and headed West into the countryside. The land outside Danang is mainly arable farmland where cattle are reared for meat (not milk as this is imported from Holland, along with cake and waffles). Apparently if you ride a bike for too long you get a case of what is known as ‘numb bum’. Quang, being
a professional at spotting numb bum knew that I needed a break and stopped at the start of a long bridge that crossed the Song Yen River at a place called Duong Son. I hopped off and started to walk, helmet in hand. As I was walking over the bridge other people on bikes would slow down and stare at me then start waving profusely. Apparently a man walking across a bridge holding his helmet in broad daylight is funny in Viet Nam. As it was a lovely sunny day I was treated to a nice view either side of the bridge, on one side cattle rearing fields spreading for miles into the mountains, on the other the mountains themselves, creeping slowly into the cloud cover.
I caught up with Quang a little way down the road and we started off again. Once over the bridge the climb upwards loomed ahead. Our destination was the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was to be our main route South through the mountains for about 850km. The landscape soon changes dramatically as you climb higher into the Central Highlands towards Kham Duc. The forest here is tropical and although the road is
now well paved, you get a real feel of wilderness and isolation as there is nothing but an intense green for miles. The road up was a little like a rollercoaster ride and on a downward path Quang would speed up to 60-70kmh and then hit an upward stretch. It doesn’t sound that fast, but try sitting on the back of a bike like that on a narrow paved road with the mountainside rapidly falling away below you.
En route we passed a number of waterfalls, which served as local picnic spots for intrepid passers-by. Although it was now dry season in the mountains, the waterfalls were quite big and you could see the dark ‘wet’ marks on the rocks where the water had recently flowed in the wet season. I’m not sure how you are supposed to eat your lunch in wet season without getting washed away as the spray in dry season was bad enough. Plus I had shit flip-flops on (thongs for the Aussies and Slip-Slops for the Canadians) and nearly fell flat on my arse several times. I tried practising some slow exposure shit on my camera, but I won’t bore you with specifics, just
look at the pictures and judge for yourselves.
We’d been on the road for a little while so it was time to stop for lunch. Quang wanted to know whether I fancied street food or ‘mountain’ food. Mountain food is apparently ‘white meat’ that the white man eats, because it’s expensive. I opted to be a pikey and had dirty street food. We had stopped for lunch at a main intersection where we picked up the Ho Chi Minh trail. Bombed extensively in the war, the area was marked with a small war memorial where Quang regaled me with the history of the area. It’s really quite astounding that the Ho Chi Minh trail, stretching for over 1,000km was built initially using only manual labour and under cover in secret from prying American and South Vietnamese eyes. I’ll thank wikipedia for this as they write it more precisely than I can be arsed to.
From wikipedia: The Ho Chi Minh trail was a logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of
manpower and materiel, to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (called Vietcong by the opposition) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), or North Vietnamese Army, during the Vietnam War. The name, taken from North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh, is of American origin. Although the trail was mostly in Laos, the communists called it the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route, after a mountain range in central Vietnam. According to the U.S. National Security Agency's official history of the war, the Trail system was "one of the great achievements of military engineering of the 20th century."
So there you have it. Well done the internet.
Back on the road we carried on through winding mountain paths as well as a few rest stops serving beer and pineapple, which is grown extensively in the mountainside. Vietnamese like their pineapple savory and often compliment it with salt, pepper and a spice to dip in. I wasn’t a fan so stuck with the basics, but it was the best pineapple I’ve ever had – straight from the tree too. You don’t get fresher than that! For the rest of the afternoon I just took in the scenery and
let Quang take his time at a leisurely pace.
Before we arrived Quang stopped off at a war memorial not unlike most others in this part of Viet Nam, although this was my first war memorial cherry to pop. It was quite a large memorial – most of them are – and they typically depict (at least in this region) the uprising of the minority people to help the Viet Cong in fighting the South Vietnamese and Americans. They usually have the Ethnic Minority people holding sickles or other farming equipment stood next to men of war.
As we neared Kham Duc the road widened and you could tell we were entering a more built up area, but nothing like other Vietnamese cities I had been too. In fact this place was very sleepy and more like a small town than anything. Kham Duc is essentially a very small gold mining town with not much to do but drink and eat. Early in the morning it’s very busy with the gold miners departing for the long journey into the mountains and the mines. Most of the hotels and guesthouses here are full all the time as the miners
live here during the week to save long journeys in.
Just as we arrived the heavens opened so we dashed inside after securing the luggage and checked in. Once I’d checked into my hotel I took a break and watched a movie on HBO while Quang slept a little. We met up a bit later on and sat downstairs with a beer while we waited for the rain to subside. A kiwi guy travelling alone had arrived and was finding it hard to get a place to stay. I actually had two double beds in my room so offered one up – always good traveler etiquette, plus it’s half the price!
We all nipped out for a bite to eat down the road, nothing fancy as there really was not much there, save for a posh(ish) hotel down the road. We had a traditional local dish of spicy beef with herbs, leaves and egg in thick rice paper dipped in satay sauce. It was actually very nice and cheap at only a dollar each! It had already gone dark and we were all tired from the days travel – almost 200km in a day – so it was
lights out after a final nightcap.
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