We have made a field trip, Kathryn and I, in celebration of her successful completion of the CELTA course. Even before she finished the CELTA, she had lined up a job at the school where I work, so we now have a common employer for the very first time.
Our trip was an hour’s flight south to the coastal city of Da Nang, the fifth-largest city in Vietnam. The sky in Hanoi has been a hazy, smoggy grey since our arrival in mid-January, so the fresh, seaside air down south was a welcome change, even though we never saw the sun.
During the Vietnam War, Da Nang was home to a major American and South Vietnamese air base, and at one point in the war, according to Wikipedia, this base saw an average of nearly 2,600 daily flights—more than at any other airport in the world at that time. So it was a very busy place.
It still is, but today Da Nang is definitely a city on the rise, and is positioning itself as a major tourist destination. It has plenty of scenic beauty to help it out in this ambition. The city is fronted by a fine, sweeping bay with sandy beaches, and the waterfront is being developed to take full advantage of it. Where the city touches the South China Sea there are several large and fairly pricey seafood restaurants, as well as a lot of open space where tourists can relax, and mingle, and soak up the negative ions in fair weather. Kids play soccer on the beach, and bamboo coracles lie in clusters as reminders that the old fishing methods are still practiced here.
Down the beach to the south of the city is a long construction zone where massive and extremely swank-looking developments are going up. They were in various stages of completion when we were there, but it appeared that posh family homes, hotels, condos, and entertainment venues were all included in the mix. The walls screening the construction were covered with large, glossy pictures showing families frolicking on the beach, svelte golfers strolling down impossibly green fairways, and a couple dressing up for a night on the town. Da Nang is clearly setting its sights high. There were also some incongruous signs on lamp posts along the way, one of which informed us that “If everybody plants a tree, there will be 7 billion more trees on earth.” While I can’t fault the math or the use of the first conditional, I admit the relevance of such statements eludes me.
Never mind. We encountered these future playgrounds for people much richer than us during our walk back from the Marble Mountains. These are a series of marble ridges soaring up sheer from the plains near the sea. They afford commanding views of the surrounding countryside, so, of course, they were strategic locations during the war. The mountains (at least the one we climbed) are bristling with pagodas and shrines. Most amazingly, there are caves near the summits. We entered one which had a cathedral-sized chamber within, complete with its own pagoda, several shrines, and a massive carved stone Buddha. Daylight streamed down through fern-fringed holes in the roof of the cavern, and there was a churchlike stillness to the place that compels visitors to speak in whispers. It looked like something from an Indiana Jones movie, but it was the real thing, and it positively took the breath away.
But before the Marble Mountains…ah, before that—
The Sour
Before the Marble Mountains we had the poor judgment to go to Hoi An, which we had heard was a wonderful place. I will say right here that Lonely Planet and similar guide books have a lot to answer for in the way they publicize unspoilt corners of the world, attract hoardes of tourists to these spots, and thereby spoil them. I suppose that if I had blundered into Hoi An 20 years ago I would have found it quaint and magical, but today its narrow streets and alleys are so clogged with tour groups, and westerners on bicycles, and the touts they attract that it's just insufferable. It was to me, anyway; I couldn’t wait to claw my way back out. Our four hours there convinced me that masses of tourists are only part of what I dislike about "must-see" sights; the other part is the touts. Together, they are the spilled sugar and the ants that ruin your picnic.
You'd like to stand back and admire, say, a 300-year-old Chinese ship captain's home but you aren't allowed to, because you have masses of people jostling you, and surging back and forth in your line of sight, and there is a tout plucking at your sleeve, trying to sell you a guided tour of the rest of the city, or a Vietnam T-shirt, or a boat ride down the river, or cooking lessons, or his little sister for half an hour. So you sigh and detach him and move on to the next building—200 years old and French—and you repeat the experience.
We encountered no actual thievery, but there was a fair bit of what could fairly be called price gouging (we were twice overcharged on the public bus—once while pointing in mute outrage at the official fare, which was posted on the window; the conductor merely laughed at our drole attempt to pay the Vietnamese price for our bus trip—the foreign price was five times higher, and that was that), and aggressive panhandling. I gave one fellow my last US dollar, ostensibly for a newspaper, but really it was just to make him go away.
The price was not the issue: a buck isn’t a whole lot of money, and even the three dollars we paid for the bus ride didn’t punch a disastrous hole in the holiday budget. No, what got under the skin was the knowledge that we were being ripped off, and being powerless to do anything about it. The day before our trip to Hoi An we had had our most expensive meal to date in Vietnam. It came to about $40 US, and it was a delicious seafood lunch at one of the big beachside restaurants in Da Nang. I know we were not swindled for this meal, because all the prices were posted out front. But at tables to our left and right as we ate were quartets of Vietnamese businessmen who were clearly intent on making a day of it. One party had purchased a case (36 bottles) of imported beer, and the other group had treated themselves to a 1.75-liter bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old scotch. And the food? There was practically a bucket brigade running from the kitchen out to these two tables, keeping them supplied. These businessmen were dropping some serious dong on these binges.
And we in between meanwhile were goggling at our bill and quietly agreeing that it was our one indulgence for the trip. We earn pretty decent salaries—decent by Vietnamese standards—but these businessmen played in another league altogether. And here’s the thing: I know that if they took the bus and went to Hoi An, they would have paid the Vietnamese price, and the touts would have looked right through them as if they weren’t there. It was merely because we were obviously foreigners who didn’t speak the language very well that we were presumed to be rich tourists and so were fair game for every piratical souvenir monger in Hoi An. And it was pretty irksome after the 26th or 27th encounter, is all I’m saying. So that was Hoi An for me. And that's why I will hereafter stick to the third- or fourth-tier attractions; I have a much better time at these.
There are touts in the capital, to be sure, but they do not have the lamprey-like tenacity that we found in Hoi An. Typically, those of the species in Hanoi troll the banks of Hoan Kiem Lake, since that’s where most of the foreigners are, and usually if you start shaking your head at them in a resolute manner as they approach, it is enough to dissuade them. In a moment of weakness I once bought a packet of postcards from one of them at an extortionate price. But now I carry the packet with me wherever I go and whip it out like a talisman whenever a tout approaches. “I gave at the office,” it proclaims. I call it the Tout-be-Gone, and it works well generally, though we recently brandished our Touts-be-Gone at an elfen entrepreneur who instantly responded, “Buy more!” But we declined.
The Sweet Again
The highlight of our trip was a day out at the ruins of My Son (pronounced, “Me Sun”), a collection of ancient Cham temples some two hours by bus from Da Nang. Champa, as this civilization in Vietnam was known, was one of the “Indianized Kingdoms” that existed for centuries in Southeast Asia. Another such Indianized Kingdom is represented by Angkor Wat in Cambodia. There seems to be a dispute among scholars as to whether these civilizations were colonies founded by Indian merchants throughout SE Asia, or whether they were indiginous civilizations, set up by local kings who then imported Indian religious rituals and architecture.
Well, whatever its origin, My Son was splendid, and well deserving of its status as a UNESCO World-Heritage site. It dates from the 4th to the 14th centuries, and was an important place for religious ceremonies and burial of royalty and national heroes. The architecture and decoration are decidedly Hindu in origin, and are completely unlike anything we’ve seen in the pagodas and temples we’ve visited. Most delightful of all, for us, was that it was remarkably free of crowds during our time there, and we were able to stroll, and pause, and photograph, and consider the relics in peace and quiet. And it was the quiet that Kathryn and I both found so striking. It was not until we were out in the stillness of the countryside that we realized how much noise we daily absorb in Hanoi. Here there was only the gentle rain, a light wind, and birdsong.
My Son was in the hills, too—another treat for us, since Hanoi is totally flat—and these were clothed in a dense forest. We thought how splendid it would be to have a naturalist at our disposal, who could take us on a tour of the forest and identify for us the plants and birds. But on reflection, perhaps not. During the war, the heavy stone buildings of My Son afforded good cover to the Viet Cong, so US B-52s carpet bombed the site in 1969. Those beautiful, verdant hills around My Son evidently still contain a lot of unexploded weaponry and landmines which are apt, even now, to go off when disturbed. During our walk around My Son I noted that the buildings and stelai were pocked by bullet holes, and I counted eight bomb craters, though I’m sure I missed some that had become filled in or overgrown. Of course, the bombing severely damaged many of the temples. Building A1, the jewel of the site, evidently stood up too well to the bombardment, so the US dispatched a sapper team to blow it up for good. In response to this, according to Lonely Planet, Cham-art expert Philippe Sterne wrote a letter of protest to President Nixon, who then issued orders to avoid destroying any more Cham monuments. It was certainly a place that encouraged introspection, and it was very moving to be able to contemplate the layers of history at the site—the creation, uses, and destruction—at our leisure and in relative tranquility, away from the crowds.
And then we had one more indulgence in Da Nang on our last full day there: a sauna and a 90-minute massage for a mere $7.50 apiece. This time I felt guilty about the low price, so I tipped big. Kathryn claimed that she found the experience only moderately enjoyable, but I left in a state of gelified relaxation and half in love with my masseuse. Not only was she very skillful, but she had the most amazing strength in her hands and arms. I have no doubt she could have disassembled me like a plastic action figure right there on the massage table, and it was perhaps partly in gratitude that she didn’t do so that I was generous with the tip. So overall, the trip earned a respectable four stars out of five possible.
The Savory
It doesn’t have anything at all to do with our holiday, but I have been looking for a chance to say something about what we have been eating here since our arrival. “Very odd things,” pretty much covers it. Our apartment has two gas rings as its only means of cooking food: there’s no microwave or conventional oven. So our repertoire has been much reduced, and we have been eating out a lot. We have found a few dishes that we are glad to have tried, because now we know not to try them again. Neither of us has (knowingly) had dog yet, but I am not entirely ruling it out as a possibility. I have grown partial to beef fried rice as prepared by some cheerful street vendors around the corner, who now hail me with “Chao anh!” (“Hi, brother!”) when I walk past. Kathryn and I both love Bun Oc, a deliciously spicy soup with noodles, tofu, tomato broth, and snails. On the comical side, when we go to the supermarket the only canned goods we buy are those with pictures or English on the labels. Some of these latter items have quite bizarre descriptions of the contents, but we buy them because, well, we know what we are getting, at least. So on the shelf in the kitchen now is Thai sundry vegetable soup, pickled shrimp and eggplant, vegetarian big meat slice, tamarind and chilli (yum!), vegan anchovies in tomato sauce, and artichoke juice. This last item is a refreshing beverage that you drink cold on a hot day. It’s better than it sounds, but then, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?
