It’ll be a short one today because I’m tired (reasons to become clear) and I have a relatively early start tomorrow.

Marble Mountains

What you should know about the Marble Mountains is that they a cluster of five marble and limestone hills, named after the five elements: Kim (metal), Thủy (water), Mộc (wood), Hỏa (fire) and Thổ (earth).

What Google reviews will tell you is 1) that the ticket sellers are rude, 2) that you have to buy separate tickets for entrance and (entirely optional) use of the elevator, and 3) that there are a lot of steps, very slippery when wet.

In my experience, the ticket seller was as aloof as any other I’ve interacted with thus far, but not actively rude. The ticket policy might be strange but you could have worked it out from earlier reviews, and in any case you might end up paying a total of 85,000VND – 3.30€ – so stop complaining. The only truly relevant part is about the steps.

Taking the elevator avoids only a small number of steps, there are many, many more, hacked out of the rock and polished to a glassy finish by the flip-flops of thousands of tourists. For sure, they would be deadly when wet, so I was glad to visit on a cloudy but dry morning.

What’s to see? Various shrines, pagodas, caves and (if you look closely) some bats. There’s a hint of a suggested route to follow, but to be fair the map doesn’t quite reflect reality, and it would have been helpful if the numbers depicting each waypoint were actually written on the physical signs. No matter, it’s not hard to follow the crowd.

There are lots, and lots, and lots of steps. I’d hit my daily exercise total about 1/6th of the way around, and significantly overshot my “average flights of stairs” daily value. It was exhausting but interesting; I’m just so glad it wasn’t a hot and sunny day.

Laos tomorrow

It’s my last day in Vietnam. Tomorrow morning I’ll fly to Luang Prabang in Laos, a country I hadn’t intended to visit, but has been highly recommended. That’s the great thing about no-plans travel, I can switch it up whenever I fancy.

Photo Dump

I took a lot of photos on my Canon camera and that’s charging right now so I’ll create a separate gallery when I download them. For now, here’s some from my phone.

The airline pricing gods have decreed that I must stay in Đà Nẵng for one more day, so I will overnight in the cheapest place by the airport I found, because I will take an early flight on Tuesday to Laos. Yes: bye-bye Vietnam.

Museum of Cham Culture

Meantime, I spent much longer than I expected to in this museum today. The Champa people still live across Cambodia, Vietnam and to a much lesser extent Thailand, China and Laos.

But their history goes back as far as the second century. Ruins and artefacts from the 6-7th and 10-11th centuries are displayed in this museum, having been discovered around Đã Nẵng by accident and excavation in the early 19th century. Notably, the site at Mỹ Sơn is considered to be comparable to Angkor Wat complex; however, whatever was left of Mỹ Sơn was almost completely destroyed by American bombing during the American-Vietnam war.

I cannot do justice to descriptions of the artefacts, so I will just present here a few, alongside the guiding text that was offered.

Perhaps my favourite, though, were these lions. Terrifying(ly camp).

Đà Đà Đà Nẵ(ng) 😝

OK, whisper it, but: I rather like Đã Nẵng, from the tiny part of it I’ve seen today. As Vietnam’s third city, it’s waaaaay third. A port city, divided almost in two by a channel from the bay to the north, it’s rapidly growing and – by some accounts – Vietnam’s most liveable city.

And I can see why. The traffic is… manageable, and the drivers mostly obey the signals. The pavements are clearly marked for pedestrians and scooter parking, and the drivers mostly obey the markings. It’s on the up, but still cheap (especially compared to Hội An), it’s got (at least) four cool bridges, and a small-but-growing taproom culture.

Bridge Over Troubled Cry Me A River Water

The first bridge is the Thuận Phước Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in Vietnam. Then comes the Hàn River Bridge, a cable-stayed swing bridge that rotates about its centre to allow ships to pass. Naturally it is illuminated by masses of LEDs.

Perhaps most famous is the Dragon Bridge, exactly 666 metres long and models the shape of a dragon from head to tail along its length. And as if the usual LEDs weren’t enough, at 9pm it breathes fire and “smoke” (water).

Now, I don’t mean to detract from its fire-breathing abilities but the Arcadia spider does it better 🙂

The fourth bridge is the Trần Thị Lý Bridge, and again is lit up brightly at night.

Come to think of it, a lot of Đã Nẵng is lit up at night.

Not much to add here today, to be honest. I’m still here in Hội An, and today took another walk round the central streets (in the daytime, this time).

Bought a very genuine Nike wide-brimmed hat for 4.60€ which was a relief to my ears and neck. Saw a couple of cute young puppies and played with them for a bit. I think they were Rottweilers or some kind of Ridgeback. Adorable anyway.

In other news I got my visa for Laos so that’s a possibility now. Booked a couple of nights in Đà Nẵng because flying anywhere right now is pretty expensive.

And that’s about it. Yes, Hội An is cute in places, but I won’t hurry back.

I’m trying very hard to like Hội An. It’s not making it that easy.

Of course, it’s new year holiday time. There are a lot of people here. The streets of the old quarter are packed with tourists, hawkers, food carts and roadside restaurants and coffee bars. The river at night is undeniably charming, with its continual parade of boats lit with paper lamps, and tiny paper boats with candles bobbing about.

It feels a bit like if you took Ibiza Town and transplanted it to SE Asia. Somewhere that has a history, architecture, and myriad winding streets, is overlaid with commerce at every level.

I get it. People have to make a living, and I imagine living costs here are inflated. There’s a noticeable difference in the price of things compared to Huế or Hà Nội. Obviously nothing that’s going to break the bank of a western tourist, but a can of beer costs twice what it does in Huế. The pleasures of a captive market.

Step away from the hustle of the town and a different landscape opens up. Between the town and the coast is an expanse of rice fields with meandering irrigation channels and – whisper it – wildlife.

Let’s talk about rice, baby

Being a rice farmer must be hard (well, duh). In some idle time on my train from Hà Nội I tried to find out how much rice you get from one rice plant. Estimates vary but in short: one plant might produce enough for one person for one day, maybe 150–300 grams.

You can do the maths. Planting and harvesting rice can be done mechanically, but mostly it’s a manual job. So of the roughly 92% of rice grown annually that is for domestic consumption, a lot of that is produced in the most basic fashion.

Anyhoo, that’s what I was thinking about as I passed cows and (maybe) buffalo in the fields: “that looks like a lot of rice but probably isn’t, and I couldn’t bend my back that much.”

Poetry time

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; I left my shoes and socks there – I wonder if they’re dry?

Spike Milligan

I got to the beach. I watched the waves crash against the sand. It was peaceful. I enjoyed it.

I got an unnecessary sunburn.

But I enjoyed it.

Gallery

More pictures here.

Chúc mừng năm mới

Yes indeed the day has finally arrived. Happy lunar new year. And what a wet start it was. Me and the two Aussies huddled under a bridge along with a few tens of locals to watch a firework display happening on the other bank, from around the Imperial City.

It was a good fifteen minutes long, but despite the stiff wind and rain, the smoke really obscured about two-thirds of the effects from our viewpoint. And then it was 00:15 and everyone went home.

SE1: Huế to Đà Nẵng

Up at some ungodly hour (09:00) to get breakfast and to the station to catch the 10:39 SE1 service. To my slight astonishment it arrived bang on time.

The journey to Đà Nẵng is mostly uneventful until the track navigates a pinch point where Huế province becomes Đã Nâng province. The track grips onto a mountainside to the west, falling away to the sea in the east. There are tight bends, some tunnels and quite amazing views as headlands come and go.

Sadly my seat was on the “wrong” side of the carriage so I had to take photos and videos through the half-open window in the vestibule. For sure, one unexpected lurch and that would be the end of my phone.

Built by the French Colonial Administration, it’s a remarkable piece of engineering. Usually only a handful of trains per day make the journey from Hà Nội to Ho Chi Minh City, but during Tết there’s something like eighty services per day.

Each one must lumber up one side and slide back down the other. The linkages between carriages squeak and groan, the wheels squeal on the rails as they are hauled slowly, painfully slowly to the apex before the relief of gravity takes over and the brakes take on the squeaking role.

As a minor train nerd, I loved it.

I’ll add some videos when I get a chance to upload them. Best turn the volume down before watching…

Hội An: it’s sunny

You’ll have spotted from the photos that the clouds dissipated on the journey. Here in Hội An, it’s pretty sunny. I’ll have to buy sun cream, which makes a nice change from, well, the entire journey up to now.

7: Hà Nội to Huế

Sunday was a travel day. Nothing much to report except a 14-hour train ride from Hà Nội to Huế, arriving at nearly 11pm. If nothing else, it highlights just how slow transport – other than flying – is in Vietnam. This is on top of the 8-9 hours back from Ha Giáng the day before so I’m kinda transported-out.

8: The Citadel in Huế

It’s a grey, breezy, drizzly day in Huế and I walked from my hotel towards the only game in town, the Imperial City, former home of the Royal Families of Vietnam.

I stopped for breakfast and talked to another British guy who was cycling north to south. He lives in Hà Nội but is moving to Paris and spending some time cycling the country beforehand.

I crossed the Perfume River, where there were zero tourist boats in operation. It’s so close to new year that a lot of businesses are already closed.

Into the Imperial City

I’ll admit that I didn’t get the audio guide, which may have been a mistake because there’s not a whole lot of explanation at each site within the city of what was there or what’s been restored.

Much of what was there was destroyed in various wars, notably the American War as it’s known here, but also the French had a good go at it too.

Far better that you go look things up on Wikipedia than I try to explain what I saw, but in short, the dynasty ran for a couple of centuries until 1975 when I was born. I assume that’s a coincidence. During that time, various kings and queens and concubines lived here and developed their own houses and palaces.

Most of what remains has or is being restored, with, I have to say, mixed results. The grand entrance gates and palaces look like new:

But other areas, while dotted with boards celebrating their restoration, have already been left to deteriorate again:

It’s rather sad that so much effort has gone into these areas and then they’re left. Especially given that the hard tennis court of the last king has been entirely refurbished for reasons that are unclear.

Still. It was an interesting half day of wandering around what is a huge site. If you go: make it a drier day, and get the audio guide…

By the way: I took a lot of photos on my big boy camera, the ones here are iPhone images. Maybe the others look a little better but in the dreary circumstances, this is what’s available right now to post.