Blogs from Da Nang , South Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 12

So I have to say, I think this was one of the coolest days I've had since I began this trip. While in Hoi An, I went on a day trip to go repelling at Marble Mountains in Da Nang. We were told that the repelling would involved one cave drop (10m), one cliff drop (25m) and a drop into a temple at the bootom of a cave (55m). It sounded awesome, and turned out to be better than expected because what we were neglected to be told was the temple we would be repelling into was unique. The day started out drizzly and overcast, but fortunately not enough to stop us from repelling. We completed some basic training on how to reppel before trying the 10m drop into a cave, and completed that successfully twice. ... read more

The taxi got us to Da Nang in about 20mins and was a ride down the coast. We seen marble mountain on the way which would of been a good stop if we were driving ourself. We got out at the train station with our pal from Seattle who was leaving on the next train out. We bought our tickets for 2days away and went on our way to the hotel. When you look at Vietnamese maps you can never tell how big the city is and the hotel is always "only 10mins away" in my opinion and my opinion rules the roost... It was about 20mins away so not too wrong but I didnt count on the Sun making it seem like two hours. We checked into our room/dungeon with no windows and got in ... read more

Da Nang was “interesting”. I took the bus from Hue for $5 and then nearly missed my stop – which was some random place on the edge of town. I then found a travel agent who drove me to my hotel – FAR on the other side of town near the beach (about 15 minutes from the centre of town). From the minute I hopped off the bus – it just didn’t feel right. Da Nang was the only place in Vietnam I didn’t feel safe travelling alone. I settled myself into the hotel and was going to walk into town – but again didn’t feel safe so I caught a cab into the local shopping centre. From there I walked to the central market and didn’t see a fellow Caucasian anywhere. The Vietnamese people at ... read more

Surprisingly the previous night’s beer fest was resting OK after the standard fare of bread and jam for breakfast. At 9am the Easy Rider’s arrived. I was with one Easy Rider and a Swiss guy, Matthias, who we had met the previous day, was on another. Mike and Zoe were braving it on a scooter. We loaded our gear onto our bikes and set off. Not 10 minutes down the road and the heavens opened. It was still rainy season in Viet Nam so we expected the odd downpour, but the rain didn’t subside for a while. Even so, the road out of Hue was fine and we were soon I the countryside, cruising alongside rice paddies and lakes. Our first stop was a place called Loc Hoa Lagoon where we pulled over for a short ... read more

Hue was the first capital of Vietnam. The Hue Citadel is massive, and like in Beijing, there's a Citadel inside the Citadel. Many buildings in the Forbidden Purple City were destroyed or badly damaged by US bombs after the North captured Hue and held it for over 3 weeks during the Tet offensive of '68. There are numerous palaces inside the inner Citadel, including the main palace for the King and Queen, and side palaces for the mother, the mother-in-law, and various other sub-palaces too. Work is on-going to restore as many buildings as possible, but besides filling in the bomb craters, what do you do when everything is gone? Come to think of it, even the US Embassy in Saigon was attacked during the Tet offensive. umm ... why didn't the US bomb there too? ... read more