Blogs from Da Nang , South Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 2

Today I woke up in a beautiful hotel. I was only able to enjoy it for a few sleeping hours, but I felt classy staying there! Made me feel better after the plane ride - let's just say that a-holes exist in every part of the planet. I think that's an understated hard part of travel - you are constantly putting yourself out there for public inspection. Rising above can be difficult. Ah well, I'm on an adventure! Today we went to My Son Sanctuary, a UNESCO site outside of Da Nong. The site was created by the Champa people over a thousand years ago. The French looted the place, Americans bombed it, and yet much if it still exists in its original form. In fact, in places where rehab is present are crumbling much more ... read more

Arrived here 28 March for a few days R'n'R for Lyn after10 straight days of meetings, fairs and agent visits including weekends and night events. She was ready for a break. We hadn't been to Da Nang so didn't know what to expect except that we knew there was a long coastline of sandy beaches and we had booked a hotel on the beach, or across the road from the beach. Sure enough, there was the beach stretching for kilometres and our hotel was right there. All the hotel staff have name tags with an English name on it - Martin, Lucy, Annette, Jonathon and so on. Our young guy at reception was Elvis but when I burst into the opening lines of "Heartbreak Hotel" on arrival he had no idea! I think he thought he ... read more

My hostel was on the far northern end of China Beach (yes, that China Beach but My Khe in Vietnamese), near the Lady Buddha statue, where the fishermen still matter. I shared my run on the beach with a fair amount of garbage and defunct nets in the dark sand and a ubiquitous rotting fish smell. A half mile toward the scores of lounge chairs on the better, lighter swath of sand, and I've never seen so many pickup soccer games in the early evening when the sand cools. I turned around at the skyscraper hotels and resorts and lounge chairs that you can only use if you buy a drink, saving that stretch for the next morning. This was a day after getting mild food poisoning (the fish bowl photo in my last entry) in ... read more

Woolly says – It hadn’t taken us long to reach Da Nang and as our taxi from the airport drove us through the streets it seemed an awful lot quieter than we had expected. Da Nang is on the coast of the South China Sea at the mouth of the Han River and is one of Vietnam's most important port cities. I think we had all imagined it to be a seaside town similar to Aberystwyth but without the Victorian buildings, it was very modern with absolutely nothing to look at and more importantly very few places to eat. Our first two outings for food had resulted in us asking for the food we wanted, pointing at pictures, shaking our heads a lot to the question of beef and then keeping paws crossed we got something. ... read more

Nous avons pris le bus de Cat Ba à Hanoi, puis après avoir déjeuné avec Bertrand (qui était dans notre bus) dans un petit resto local à menu unique, nous sommes allés à l'aéroport où nous avons attendu l'avion pendant plus de 5 heures (l'avion avait beaucoup de retard). Quatorze heures après avoir quitté l'hôtel sur Cat Ba, nous sommes arrivés à notre auberge de jeunesse à Da Nang. Nous avons mangé dans un petit restaurant de rue où le menu était uniquement en Vietnamien. Nous avons accidentellement commandé des feuilles de calamar séché au lieu de frites (qui étaient encore dans leur paquet donc nous les avons gentiment rendues). Nous avons fini par manger quelque chose de frit (de la viande, ou du tofu, ou bien quelque chose d'autre... on n'a pas su !) avec ... read more