Da Nang

I've got quite a bit to write about in Hoi An, and we're off on an internetless two days in Ha Long Bay tomorrow, so I'd best catch-up.

Translated: "We're communists until the food runs out"

Da Nang is appreciably less touristy than our previous stops, although signs of development abound. Dunno if that's a good thing, but they certainly seem set on carving off a piece of tourist pie.   We stayed in the Orange hotel - an independent place whose omnipresent staff seemed delighted to encounter us every time we emerged, and enthused about our requirements and tourism plans with a zeal that bordered on religious.

Speaking of which, we visited the Cao Dai temple, whose religion I am wiki-ing as I write. Apparently Cao Dai is a new religion (from the 1920s), started in Vietnam, which tries to pick the best bits from other religions and roll with it. In that vein behind their altar is a giant eye (representing a Creator of some description) and images of  Mohammed (careful there), Laotse, Jesus, a Buddha and Confucius. I'm not religious myself, but they're non-violent and were actively resistant to the French, the South Vietnamese and (post war) the Communists.  I guess they're not fussed about making their own lives easier, then.

Quick note for any burgeoning religion-starters out there: If you're going to borrow iconography from other religions, I'd probably skip the swastikas. I know the symbol predates the German unpleasantness by centuries, but this is why we can't have nice things.

Use a crescent or a wheel or some shit like that

Nearby they have a (rather colourful) cathedral for those boring old Christians too.

Da Nang also has a bridge shaped like a dragon.  They call it the Dragon Bridge. by the way, but what they lack in naming imagination they make up with by having it breathe fire at 9pm on Saturdays and Sundays.  Because, why the fuck else would you build a bridge that looks like a dragon?

(Image stolen from CNN, because I was watching on the other side without a tripod)

So that was different. Brief, too.  It breathes fire twice, pumps out steam for a bit, and then they reopen the road, and everyone goes "Huh" and gets on with their evening.  That said, My home town doesn't have a fire-breathing bridge, so who am I to criticise.  Mind you, my home town is in North Wales, where the dragons are figurative and our burning roadside spectacles are clumsy solvent-abusers.  Chan reckons they should bin the tinny pop music played over the promenade PA system in favour of some synchronised patriotic anthem or other.  They belt that shit out at random hours anyway, so they should at least do something cool with it.  She’d make a sterling dictator.

The Zone 5 Military Museum is a covers-all-bases museum of armed resistance to the various foreign powers who've taken an interest in the country from the Chinese occupation forward.  It has the standard cache of American guns, Soviet guns and Chinese-made copies of Soviet guns, but also has a fair few exhibits showing the weapons and tactics of the native hill-tribes against the various aggressors. Much of it has been half-heartedly translated, but I get the impression that this is their own Imperial War Museum, and is mainly for Vietnamese.  It's big on patriotic statues.

This one is called "Vindictive Hatred".  Okey doke.

"Soviet-made" flamethrower.  The worst possible adjective.

And this below is the map of all the nice places Ho Chi Minh studied before making sure that no-one else could.  Between this guy, Mao, Pol Pot and the various Kims, the CIA should have agents in every tertiary education institute in Paris.  The place churned out communists like it was going out of fashion.

Out of town there are the Marble Mountains. which are mountains made from…I think you know the pattern by now.  Accordingly, the area specialises in sculpting and fashioning ornaments from marble.  Obviously our driver stopped by one of the big marble-things purveyors, because you cannot get driven anywhere in this whole damn continent without stopping by a craft dealers of some description.  I don’t know if it’s kick-backs; the tour firms being keen to support the local economy; or if this is genuinely a reflection of what other tourists want, but here we were again. 

The shop attendants in Vietnam will stand about 4 inches from your elbow the whole time you’re looking, and will follow you in lock-step around the store. I can ignore them without it bothering me (they’re not very big here), but it drives Chantelle spare.  She’s quite fond of buying tat, especially if it’ll go on a Christmas tree, but she cannot abide being hassled.  I do tell them occasionally that it’s in their best interests to leave her alone, but normally to little avail.  Anyway, here was no different: any interest in marble-based esoterica evaporates  with Chan's patience.

Because it is a mountain, there is the obligatory temple complex, as well as several impressive pagodas. There is also a series of caves, which were actually quite treacherous as, like you would imagine, the walls and floor are made of marble, which polishes up quite nicely when you walk a few million tourists over it.  The path through the caves ascends through some very Asian-width cracks and crevices in the rock, up to the summit.  It makes for a bit of a claustrophobic climb for those of us of more Occidental dimensions, who perhaps didn’t take off his backpack like a dickhead.

Also in the area is Hai Van Pass: a mountain roadway which, prior to the completion of a nearby tunnel, was the only way between Da Nang and Hué.  It has concrete military fortifications dating back to French colonial times, but later utilised by the Americans.  You can still see the machine-gun pock marks. 

Which is all quite interesting, but what I was not expecting was the queue of newly-weds, waiting to scale one particular pillbox by way of  rickety stepladder, to have their wedding pictures awkwardly taken.  Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the contrast of brutal concrete and serene nature, maybe it’s a concerted effort to confound my every preconception, but there they were: futilely holding onto the bride’s dress in the wind while me and some Aussies looked on bemused from atop a neighbouring bunker.

Back in town, the big food adventure was barbecue, specifically at Quán Cơm Huế Ngon - hat tip to Hamish for that recommendation.  Here they provide raw meat in strips, which you cook yourself over the provided grill and fire bucket. The strategic decision had to be made as to how ‘done’ the meat should be, trading off food preference against risk of cross-contamination.

Only pussies get botuism

Oh and I’ve just remembered: when you tell the various proprietors, vendors or hawkers that you are English, they invariably say: “Oh, English! Lubbley Jubbley”.  Who is responsible for this I have no idea, but perhaps I’m grossly underestimating the transcontinental cultural influence of Mr Trotter.