Sunday, February 15, 2015 -- Hue to Da Nang

Some days, there’s not a lot to write about in the blog.  Days that you have 3 ½ hour car rides – rides that are blissfully free of excitement or the need for plastic bags to puke in – are one of those.  We’re not complaining.

So this morning we met with a new driver – Mr. Hui (pronounced “HI”) in a nice Mercedes van designed to hold 10 passengers but only holding us.  We had our last breakfast at the Renaissance, sent our regrets to Lauren Bacall that she wasn’t able to join us for drinks, and promised to catch her next time around.

Then we waited in the lobby for our guide (Sua – which means “Six”) to begin the next stage of our adventure.

For this one, we are traveling by car – up a winding mountain road (que – LJ begin to turn just a littttllleee bit green here) through three (!) mountain passes (deeper green!) to the City of Danang and then on to Hoi An, where we’re spending the next two nights.

Other than the traffic, the trip was uneventful.  We’ve learned that, like most big cities, those stripes painted on the roadway are just suggestions and aren’t really binding on anyone.  We were not on an interstate, but instead were on what appeared to be the equivalent of a state highway paralleling the railroad.

With the scooters.  This was not a controlled roadway with on and off-ramps.  This was a “local road” where people – and bicycles, skooters, cattle, chickens and pedestrians – freely entered, crossed and wandered.

Driving here seems to involve the gas, brakes and horn.  If someone is in your way, you “politely toot your horn.”  If they don’t move, you “toot” a bit more aggressively, but interestingly enough, neither swearing nor hand gestures seem to be a part of the driver’s requirements.

So we travelled down the road and, having 3 ½ hours to occupy, learned some interesting tidbits.

·      Military service is compulsory between the ages of 18 and 26.  Unless you find a way to get around it, such as a medical exemption.

·      Schools are private unless you are very rich, in which case you go to a state school.  In either case, you have to pay tuition and books.  Kids start at age 6 and go to about age 18.

·      To get into college, you have to take a competency exam to make certain that the parent’s money isn’t being wasted trying to educate someone who is dumber than a box of rocks.

·      The little “spirit houses” that are at everyone’s front gate is to provide a home for an ancestor to keep evil spirits away.  You have to make offerings to them.  There seems to be a significant amount of supervision, in part designed to bleed money off the population.

·      The fact that we own two vehicles seemed to be not just surprising, but shocking.  We didn’t offer more details than that regarding automobiles actually owned.

·      Twins are rare in Vietnam.  Twins that are opposite gender are assumed to have been husband and wife in a prior life.  Tay and Jo, think on that one for a while.

The Cham

Central Vietnam was traditionally the home to the Cham people.  The remainder of this population of about  650,000 are primarily located in Cambodia (350,000), Vietnam (150,000), Malaysia (100,000) and China (50,000).  Their primary religion now is largely dependent on where they are located – most in Cambodia are Muslim.

Their land came from an early marriage proposal and was a gift to the father-in-law for a pretty wife, and covered the majority of central Vietnam.  Then the groom died and they sent the wife home (the details here were a bit sketchy, we were standing on top of the highest pass in Vietnam and it was COLD).  This led to conflict.

Eventually, someone else decided they wanted the land and they created a separate state, dividing Hue into Hoi An and Danang.  The highest pass is the border, and the Chinese leader built a gate to show where the dividing point was.

Interestingly enough, there were originally French bunkers and turrets there, which eventually became American bunkers and turrets.  The remnants of these remain there today.

We had a rest stop at the top of this pass.  While there we had some very strong coffee (served in what we would think of as an iced tea glass, with a spoon – LJ’s had sweetened condensed milk in it, EB’s was straight up; Sua’s was iced with a bit of sugar in a Highball glass) and the opportunity to visit with a local lady who owned the Vietnamese Equivalent of “Pedro’s South of the Border”.  There, just like at Pedro’s, we were encouraged to select from an extensive inventory of things without which we could not live.  Madam proprietor pointed out that her English was very good because she had lived in NYC for 2 years.  Then she launched into her sad tale about her husband dying 20 years ago when she was 34 and leaving her with five children to raise as a single mom. 

She did not anticipate how callous we are when it comes to that, though, and was likely surprised when we left after paying our tab of 140,000d ($6.48US) for the coffee and nothing else.

So we continued down the mountain, plastic bag again at the ready, although not needed for this trip.

The ride felt very much like Hickory to Boone.  Steep drop-offs, roads in need of some repair, roadside stands at somewhat regular intervals.  The only difference was you were looking down at the ocean rather than across the mountains.

Danang is a major city.  800,000 people and kind of spread out.  It lies just along the ocean (“China Beach”, in fact – which China later claimed since US Servicemen dubbed it as such).

We were going to the Cham museum, which showcases the remaining artwork of the Cham people.

Interestingly enough, we learned that there are no panhandlers in Danang.  If you encounter one, you call the police and are given a $10.00 reward.  That’s a lot of incentive to call out people, given the average income around here!

The museum was built in 1915 – 1919 by the French, and then was expanded with a wing on each side in 1935.  This is good, because most of the “temples” that they were able to show pieces of were later blown up and don’t much exist these days.

There’s a strong Indian influence to these, and many of the statues show that. The Indian influence came  about because of the trade with India.  Shiva, one of the Hindu Gods, was worshipped because he took care of those involved with the sea.

You may also remember him because his wife Uma had a son (maybe his?) named Ganesh.  One day Shiva got angry, probably because Ganesh missed curfew, brought the car back without gas in it and mouthed off, and Shiva cut off his head.  As might be imagined, mom was not at all happy and was giving Shiva a royal dressing down.  In order to get her off his case, he said the first creature he came to, he would cut off their head and put it on Ganesh, symbolizing the human body and the divine mind. 

As luck would have it, the first critter that came along was an elephant and Shiva put the two together, probably making it even more difficult for Ganesh to get a date to the prom but as long as it shut up Uma, hey, it worked.  It probably taught Ganesh not to mouth off when he’s told to pick his dirty clothes up out of the living room, too.

There are five mountains around Danang that are rich sources of marble and limestone.  This has led to a thriving local business in statuary.  We stopped at Big Bob’s Marble Showcase (or something along those lines) where our guide suggested we “have a look around” while he and the driver took a break.

There were probably 3 acres of statutes and tchotchke, ranging in size from pendants and key rings to huge statues  of just about anything you could imagine.  We were followed around (much, MUCH too closely) by two salesladies who were determined that we should just have a look at this to take back to our wives.

Talk about barkin’ up the wrong forest.

Haven’t experienced a pressure sales job like that since we got talked into a “free weekend if we’ll just sit through a short 90 minute sales presentation about the property,” which was equally as ineffective.

It’s pretty stuff.  It wasn’t going to fit in carry on, though.  And nobody believes “free shipping” for something that big going that far.

After that, we stopped local for lunch.  Wide noodles this time, kinda like Grandma’s Egg Noodles, with broth and some fish in them.  You mixed in a variety of salad things they brought to the table in a bowl, including mint, cilantro and some other green stuff (we opted out of chili’s – we learned about those in Thailand!) and maybe a squeeze of lime.

We’re getting pretty proficient with chopsticks.

By this time, we were feeling the trek all over from yesterday still and when given the option of “sightseeing” or “go to your hotel” we opted for the latter.

It was going to be difficult to top the last place, but the Palm Garden Resort in Hoi An gives it a try.  It’s very different than the last urban place – this is more like Hilton Head – but it’s extremely calm and relaxing.

For those of you encountering a winter storm back home, take heart – the ocean is too cold to go into.  We were going to dip our feet in the pool but got sidetracked with the offer of padded recliners and something from the bar.

After our drinks, we opted to come back, finish unpacking and then head to an early dinner on the property.  We’ve never been night owls and fortunately feel no guilt whatsoever about dinner at 5:00 and retiring to our room.

Tomorrow promises to be another busy day.