The city of Hoian, is UNESCO world heritage. Nevertheless we decided to stay in Da Nang about 30 km away which is a low key beach destination for Asian tourists but mainly a big, clean, developed non touristy city (when away from the beach front). Upon arriving we found indeed a modern city with relatively organized traffic and wide lanes and many magnificent bridges over the river. We took a hostel, run by an Italian Vietnamese couple on the waterfront, and settled into this calm and nice city to explore the surroundings. The only violent thing about this peaceful city were the remnants of 2 Philippine typhoons hitting the coast which obliged us to take refuge in our hostel the first afternoon.
Llegamos a Danang y a primera vista me encantó. Una ciudad poco turística, moderna, limpia, organizada, las motos andaban más ordenadas o... Quizá ya nos estábamos acostumbrando a ellas, hay un río que divide la ciudad y luego se une a través de varios puentes... Los puentes están decorados con todo tipo de luces de colores que en la noche iluminaban la ciudad, lindo espectáculo nocturno como para disfrutarlo mientras haces un paseo por el malecón... Y así lo hicimos nosotros varias veces. Lo que más me gustó, es que había poca gente, variedad de restaurantes y cafés, la gente muy amable, y teníamos la playa al lado.
The following day we got on a motorcycle direction Hoian, where after a few coffee stops, we strolled through the beautifully preserved, but much more touristy, town of Hoian with its wooden shopfronts, and Sino-Japanese influence from ancient trading history. The city was divided in 2 by a river one side with more Japanese influence while the other side was more Chinese influenced. Being a relatively small town we had soon walked around most of the town and decided against buying tickets to get into more temples and more houses. We took a break from the scorching sun with a meal of the local Hoian specialities and Belen bravely ventured into a glass of the local plastic bottled beer, waiting for sunset. After the beautiful light of the sunset on the waterfront and the old buildings we were treated with the even more beautiful light of the paper lanterns all around town. Not an official date (which we have every 25th of the month) but seduced by the romanticism of the atmosphere and an old man playing his guitar on a small bar boat we had a drink and enjoyed the spectacle. Still warm but with a cool sea breeze we had a nightly slow drive back to Danang and directly to one of the locals' favorites, not a locals' favorite published on the web but a locals' favorite word of mouth. The Ban Xeo or rice pancakes is a sort of omelet with soy sprouts and shrimps which you roll with some greens and peppers in a rice paper and dip the roll in a peanut sauce. Upon entering the place, we were seated and without questions asked, served a tray for 2 of what the server deemed the right choice. I must say I prefer this ten times than browsing again and again through a menu I don't understand to finally make a choice which is rather odd.
Por lo general la gente que llega a Da Nang, solo es de pasada ya que el lugar turístico es otra ciudad pequeñita a 40 km de Da Nang. Sin embargo a nosotros nos gustó mucho Da Nang y decidimos quedarnos ahí 3 días y alquilarnos una moto para ir a visitar el atractivo turístico que se encuentra a 40 km: Hoian. Es un lugar demasiado acogedor, para recorrerlo a pie y no necesitas más de un día ya que es pequeño. Lo interesante es que cada calle está llena de galerías de arte, restaurantes, cafés, bares, casas antiguas chinas, casas antiguas estilo japonés, lámparas colgantes de colores, luces, lo que hace imposible ver todo a la vez y aún pasando dos o tres veces por la misma calle siempre encuentras algo nuevo que no viste antes. Nos recorrimos el pueblo entero, paramos a almorzar en un restaurante poco turístico pero que la dueña con su carisma nos convenció de probar su comida. Esperamos el atardecer para ver cómo cambiaba Hoian cuando todos los locales encendían sus lamparines de colores, el ambiente se tornó especial y romántico... Por lo que decidimos ir a disfrutar de algo de beber en un bar bote sobre el río, con un cantante a capela y su guitarra, que nos enamoró con sus boleros y música romántica.
The next day we ventured inland, to one of the much less visited but not less worth while UNESCO heritage sites, the My Son ruins of the Cham civilization. The Chams, now a minority in Cambodia and Vietnam, once ruled an empire in this corner of the world constantly clashing with Viets, Khmers and Thai, as masses migrated South East due to persecution in China or Mongol raids (yes the Mongols made it to Vietnam under Kublai Khan but were defeated). My Son was believed to be one of the capitals of the Champa kings, housing religious Hindu complexes and burial sites and making it the most important Hindu site in Indochina. The site lay on an axis where salt from the coastal areas was traded with wood, feathers, ivory etc from the mountainous regions and which was then an input for the trade mission to the Malay peninsula and from there to the rest of the world. From the originally 70 red colored buildings, with sanskrite and Cham inscriptions, only roughly 16 were left more or less intact after a one week US carpet bombing campaign in the Vietnam War (or would "the American war" be more accurate then?) leveled or badly damaged the rest. Not bombed by B52 bombers but by a merciless tail of yet another typhoon, we took shelter in these century old ruins and marveled at the carvings, carved in the stones only after they were meticulously fit together. Getting back on our motorbike for another 70 km through rice paddies, along water buffaloes and small villages, we got stuck in small villages with growling stomachs in the unfortunate hour between lunch and dinner, knocking a few doors of closed restaurants until we found a family stall preparing Ban Xeo for the dinner hours. They kindly admitted us in their place and we started eating the dinner preparations as soon as they came of the fire, the poor lady barely keeping up baking the rice pancakes. Finally we departed back to Danang where we enjoyed the spectacle of the dragon bridge, a US architecture firm's design, breathing fire and water. After having diner in another locals favorite, a Vietnam barbecue, we got on the motorbike tired but happy, at nearly midnight and shops and restaurants around us were closing. Feeling the bike handling a bit strange I noticed a flat tyre and 8 km from the hostel at around midnight I was not sure what to do. We got back to the restaurant and while the very helpful and nice young but non English speaking waiters were cleaning and closing, we started pointing to the flat tyre with a helpless expression. One of the boys got on his bike and I followed him to a small street stall for tyre reparation, suddenly noticing I had left my wallet with Belen, I tried to explain him I had to go forth and back. When again a typhoon downpour started, he waited with me and finally negotiated the price for the reparation with the shop owner and refused any tip I wanted to give him. I then picked up Belen in the restaurant and after thanking all the restaurant staff for their helpfulness we dressed in our rain ponchos and under buckets full of water made it back to the restaurant. This is the pleasure of staying away from the tourist areas and the memory we have of the Vietnamese youth and students.
Al día siguiente tomamos la misma moto y salimos con dirección a un complejo de templos de la cultura Cham: My Son. No era nada comparado a las ruinas y templos de Angkor Wat, esto era mucho más pequeño, y menos templos... Pero la similitud era bastante parecida, en cuanto a arquitectura y estilo. La parte triste de este complejo de templos, es que muchos de ellos están en ruinas a causa de las bombas que cayeron cuando los aviones de USA bombardearon la zona... (Una vez más aparece USA en este blog, sin que estemos viajando por ahí) Una lástima que lugares con tanta historia y cultura sean destruidos en guerras, por lo menos a mí me da mucho coraje, ver las terribles consecuencias que trae una guerra, destrucción entera de pueblos, familias civiles, niños. No se dan cuenta que destruyendo y dejando en ruinas lugares llenos de historia como templos o lugares sagrados, construcciones milenarias patrimonio de la humanidad... Se destruye también parte de historia que no volverá jamás? Sin duda, este viaje me ha ayudado a conocer la historia de países como Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos... Historia y conflictos que no te enseñan en el colegio, conflictos en los que intervino USA, y lamentablemente no como Salvador ni apoyo a los débiles.
On our last day in Da Nang we cruised around along the coast, to a few viewpoints and temples and tried crossing as many bridges as we could. While crossing one of the bridges, we came across the fishing harbour, which should not be interpreted as a small hamlet like waterfront with a few rustic wooden boats, but with hundreds of 60 feet industrial fishing vessels. The view was beautiful but also visualized the destruction this fishing can do to our oceans if all these vessels trail their long lines or nets behind them. On the other hand, on the beach a few kilometers away, people were still fishing using artisanal methods, trying to get over the waves in a big bamboo basket pulling a 50 m long net out from the coast, out into the sea and then the other end back to the coast making some sort of U shape. This net was then pulled back to the beach by around 10 people and the catch, consisting of a lot of rubbish, an odd squid, and fishes ranging from 3 cm to 20 cm, sorted. Buyers on motorcycles showed up and the more attractive catch was immediately sold, while the smaller fishes without a doubt would be dried in the sun for fish pastes and sauces of all sorts. The contrast of these different fishing methods and scales in the same area was beautiful and menacing at the same time, with the big gains going to the big multinational fishing companies without paying the price for the overfishing (this is what I imagine based on my knowledge of the sustainability and best practices reputation of the exploitation of the South China Sea). In the evening, we couldn't resist to go back to our Ban Xeo place which was packed to the roof but once having conquered a table, didn't let us down.
El último día en Da Nang salimos a dar un paseo en moto por los alrededores ... Fuimos a un par de templos ubicados en la cima de un cerro, paseamos por la playa, cruzamos varios de los puentes de Danang teniendo vistas magníficas del río y por el otro lado el mar y el puerto pesquero. Disfrutamos realmente de nuestro paso por Da Nang... Fue una de las ciudades que más disfrutamos, y sin duda volvería... A pesar de que tuvimos mucha lluvia y más de una vez tuvimos que refugiarnos bajo algún techo para no terminar empapados. Esta ciudad tenía algo que te atrapaba... Al menos a nosotros. De Da Nang salimos con destino a la estación de trenes donde nos esperaba un corto viaje de 2 horas, pero con vistas espectaculares de la costa de Vietnam, playas escondidas entre palmeras, montaña y túneles. Frente a nosotros estaba sentada una señora muy simpática que nos observaba con curiosidad pero timidez a la vez, nos miraba y estudiaba de arriba abajo y una vez que yo la miraba ella desviaba la mirada hacia otro lado como evitando contacto visual, hasta que en una de esas fui más rápida que ella y la mire y sonreí ...y ella me devolvió la sonrisa, no hablaba inglés, pero no fue necesario el idioma para entendernos, compartió sus dulces vietnamitas y caña de azúcar con nosotros, nosotros compramos fruta y también la compartimos con ella... Y así se nos hizo el viaje más ameno hasta que llegamos a nuestro destino...la ciudad imperial antigua de Hue.
The next day we said goodbye to this friendly city which had treated us extremely well and generous and got back on the south north rail axis in the direction of Hue, the old imperial city. Hue was only a few hours away but the train ride is considered to be one of the most beautiful in Asia and we had a spectacular afternoon ride. On a bendy track where you could see front and back of the train in a curve and along ocean cliffs and deserted palm beaches, gaining height to get over the mountain pass with the roaring of the Diesel engine and the shrieking of the steel. Besides of independent transport, train traveling is without a doubt my favorite and I wonder what its future is; bright on one hand with incredible tracks being made, under Chinese impulse through out Asia, but bleak on other sides suffering from crumbling, maintenance intensive infrastructure and fast low cost air transport. The incredible ride took us to the gates of the ancient empire and to our 3 star hotel....how did we get there?
