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Published: January 2nd 2006
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An uncrowded bus
I can stretch out my legs. Yeah!
A luxury bus!
The saga of our weekend "getaway" to Da Nang continues. Saturday morning after breakfast and after repacking "lighter" the three of headed out to catch the bus along with Bridget and Hannah who were heading north to Hoi An for the weekend. A minivan came not too long after we arrived at the corner which was probably a good thing since as per usual the lot of us were generating stares left, right and centre. Surprisingly the minivan wasn't too crowded. Sarah and Hannah managed to score the front seat with the driver and Claire, Brit and I scored seats in the middle section. My seat was facing backwards so I could see the rest of the passengers in the minivan. I felt like I was to put on a puppet show or something. Then I remembered that I was the show. lol
This ride up to Da Nang was much better than Friday afternoon because the guy on the bus was not yelling out the window as much and I was actually able to "stretch out" my legs and didn't have to be sitting RIGHT
next to the person beside me.
We landed at the Da Nang bus station with the usual motorbike taxi drivers hounding us. We at least knew more or less what price to be paying and asked to be dropped off at the Post Office so that Sarah could make a couple of phone calls.
We had planned on staying at the Ami Hotel (the one we had checked out the night before) but they were all booked up. Oh well. The search for a place to stay was a short one. It was okay but the bathroom could have been nicer...guess you can't be all that picky when you're paying about $3/person. I think we were just so relieved to be able to check in somewhere we didn't really negotiate a price. LOL
We spent most of Saturday roaming the streets of Da Nang and checked out the Cham Museum. It is supposedly the largest collection of Cham statues in the World. Some were pretty cool and some of the photos I have taken turned out well if I do say so myself. We encountered "Louis" who is a Vietnamese guy that has been mentioned in the
Lonely Planet and other Guide books. He tried out his English and dodgy French on us but he didn't bother us too much more.
We checked out the Market as well. It was huge and you could easily get lost in there. We ventured through a lot of the food area at first just trying to find the dry goods. There were a lot of clothes vendors and we have discovered that Claire has the perfect head to wear hats. Me on the other hand has a head larger than a coconut so didn't even bother trying to find a hat that would fit my noggin. There was this one row where all they were selling was the wicker hats. You know the ones that they where out in the fields and whatnot to keep the sun off of their heads. I'm tempted to get one but than am thinking what the heck am I gonna do with one back home?? We did pick up a few knick knacks and souvenirs but were definitely not the big spenders that the vendors were hoping for.
We then wandered the streets a bit more to seek out a place to
eat dinner. Earlier on our walk to the Market along Dinh Doung (with my poor eyesight I first read the street name as Ding Dong) we came across a restaurant that was serving Pizza and Pasta…now talk about having cravings after eating Vietnamese (although very yummy) everyday since coming here. Anyway, for dinner we headed out to the water where we went to a nicer restaurant. I cannot remember the name of the place but apparently it was opened as a joint venture with a Japanese Businessman. They had a huge selection of Vietnamese, Chinese, Western and Japanese food. Claire and I had noodle dishes which were more along the lines of Chinese food while Sarah ordered Spaghetti and a side order of fries. Man, those fries were just awesome…better than McD's if you can believe that!
It was nice sitting in the sparse (okay, almost empty!) restaurant right by the water. We sat there for a bit before heading back to the hotel. Sarah called her colleague's friend who lives in Da Nang and they went out for a motorbike ride. (Sarah tells us that Da Nang is way prettier than what we had seen earlier in the
Sarah and Claire.
Taking a peek at a second Buddha that is laying down..not seen in the photo! day.) Meanwhile Claire and I wandered the street looking for the night market but didn't really find it. We did happen across a block full of yellow flowers being sold. We later found out they are for the first day of the lunar calendar or something like that??
Sunday morning we awoke to the sound of rain. Yucks! We're supposed to go to the Marble Mountains. Sarah's "friend" Trung took us out for breakfast…yummy Pho of course. Then it was a taxi ride to the Marble Mountains which are about 10km outside of Da Nang.
The Marble Mountains
Pretty even in the rain
Slippery marble.
The weather was miserable and wet. We donned our rain ponchos and started up the steps to the caves. It was really beautiful up there. My pictures do no justice! It would have been even better if it had been sunny but even in the rain it was quite spectacular. I was afraid of slipping on the "slippery when wet" marble stairs but managed okay and there are no incidences to report. I'm really grateful that Trung was our tour guide up at the Marble Mountains because I surely would have gotten lost up there! On the road to and from the Mountains there were just store fronts after store fronts with huge marble carvings. I would say the most popular carving was of lions. Some of which were pretty scary!
On the way back from the Mountains we stopped off at a CD/DVD shop to pick up some cheap "copied" DVD's before stopping off at our hotel. Since it was raining really hard outside we decided to pick up and head on over to catch a bus. We opted for a taxi as opposed to motorcycle taxis because it was so wet. Part way to the bus depot the taxi driver spots the bus we needed to catch so of course he speeds up and made some dodgy moves to finally catch the buses attention. We board the bus and as per usual everyone looks at us.
For some reason the ride back seems to take forever even though the bus driver seems to be speeding along at uneasy speeds. There was one woman who got sick on the bus. Then there was a moment where the bus came to a huge "lake" of water. I swear we were gonna get stuck in it trying to cross and I tried to banish thoughts of us tipping over from my head. Somehow we managed to make it through. At one point we stopped to pick up passengers that had a huge load of stuff with them. Some of it was too heavy to heave onto the roof of the bus so in it came to sit in the aisles. There were some other interesting characters that passed through that bus but I can't seem to remember at the moment. So here I sit at my usual internet cafe writing this entry...
I have a numb bum
Crazy bus ride to Tam Ky
Make it home safely.
That pretty much describes my afternoon! I don't have much else planned for today but relax I guess. I think I will make tomorrow afternoon laundry day since I don't really feel like doing it now. I have to leave some fun for tomorrow. haha
Wow, I just realized that Ihave gone overboard with the haiku today...three!
Hope all is well with everyone back home.
Bonnie
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We played in a hockey tournament in Tri-City, WA and we won the tournament. Each player gets to keep the 3-feet high trophy for two weeks. I'll take a pix so U can see. All the players on my hockey team love SpongeBob thanks to me. I showed them all my SB DVD's. Catchya later. - Nix "the stix"