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April 29, 2025

Italics = Narda What's left = Terrell

We have reached the end of our stay in lovely Nha Trang. Four days, five nights. Today we had our hair washed by a couple of friendly ladies in a salon, complete with hair massage, and, this is a first, a face massage.

Yesterday we walked a lot. I had a difficult time with my left knee injury which is now 5 months old. It was caused by a miss-step from the caravan in August causing a knee hyper-extension and upon subsequent investigation some meniscus tears. I have completed an exercise regimen prescribed by Pru, an excellent physio.

Anyway it still bloody hurts so we bought a groovy little walking stick on advice from AI. 🥹 Helps a bit.

Leaving the apartment. Now I'm sitting in the VIP lounge ($0.82 each) watching trains go by. We have another hour or so for ours to turn up and take us to Da Nang. It's a 12 hour night train, both of us have top bunks so we'll see how that goes. Got plenty of snacks.

I hate to say it but this train ride was pretty bad. We came into our cabin finding a family had occupied it wall to wall. Large plastic garbage bags full of stuff covering most of the floor space. 2 adults and one child (who thankfully slept on the bottom bunks. The mother was on her phone for way too long and kept receiving calls around midnight. Not much chance of sleeping. I had great difficulty getting on to the top bunk trying to avoid using the corner of their bunk as a lever up. And there were the loud screeching announcements of approaching stations to wake you from the small naps we managed. This was not the gentle rocking of Indian trains. It was a shaking back and forth, nonstop. NEVER AGAIN….at least for the next few days 😔

Ok, we're here. 6am at the railway. We enjoyed some good Vietnamese coffee after fending off thousands of taxi drivers promising the world. Thank goodness for Grab, a great app where you can load your credit card and rest is so easy. Terrell found a really cool restaurant called “Sound” not too far away that opened at 7.30. It was so good. The owner had an impressive array of old style music recording and equipment.

Food was great and Nora Jones was crooning with Ray Charles. All is forgiven and forgotten from our horrible night. We were comforted by the patient and professional host at our hotel. We asked if he had any rooms immediately available and he was able to upgrade us to a good room. We slept like the dead for several hours. Amazing.

We met two friendly Canadian couples waiting for the tour bus. We talked about home exchange and gave them our card. Who knows.

This hotel is the best we've ever stayed in. Ponte Boutique. Full of plants and great atmosphere. The front desk people are very helpful despite the language barrier. Very few folks speak English. The main tourist group here is South Korea, followed by Russia I think. Very few Aussies here.

We took a Grab taxi to the city to see if we could mail Arhan’s crocs. No luck. “We do not ship to Pakistan”.

Next day we took bus #5 to find Marble Mountain. After several hours we were told to take bus #16 which went back the opposite way. We were convinced it was all wrong. 2 ½ hours on those buses. We did see quite a bit of Da Nang.

We did actually make it to Marble Mountain, a strange steep mountain rising out of the suburbs quite unexpectedly and quite impressive. Terrell went on without me as my knee was bothering me.

Marble Mountain is great. Worth the visit. I did not get to all the caves as the climb to some of them were a bit strenuous, and did I mention earlier I am a bit old?

Marble Mountains is a group of five limestone peaks situated seven kilometres from downtown Da Nang. The five karsts (called Ngu Hanh Son in Vietnamese) are named after the five elements: Kim (metal), Thuỷ (water), Mộc (wood), Hoả (fire) and Thổ (earth). Over centuries, Marble Mountains has held special significance for the people of Central Vietnam. The ancient Cham revered the karsts as a spiritual site, and Vietnamese emperors from Hue and legendary generals passing through paid visits to the peaks, adding to their store of legends.

See our little clip at

I remember the Vietnam war - I was in the draft-able category at some point but never got to Vietnam. (I tell my story on why I was not drafted, after receiving a 4F card - 'never to be drafted even in the time of war' at the time) in our blog later on when we are in India - something to look forward to reading, huh? Anyway, during the Vietnam war this was a super Vietcong stronghold. I am currently reading the Paul Theroux: 'The Great Railway Bazaar' book and halfway thru he is telling his stories of riding the trains through Vietnam in 1973. At that time the train system was a bit awful. Like most of the tracks had been ripped up, or blown up; some by the Yanks to prevent the Vietcong from getting to places and some by the Vietcong to prevent the Yanks from their sightseeing tours. It was all quite terrible. Theroux did get to Da Nang to what was left of an American military base and he told of the Vietcong still hiding in Marble Mountains.

Paul Theroux initially travelled to Vietnam in 1973 during the war, describing it in 'The Great Railway Bazaar'. Thirty years later, he returned to experience the country in peacetime, writing about it in 'Ghost Train to the Eastern Star'.

52 years late Narda and Terrell went again to Vietnam (we were previously in Vietnam: 2002 Lao Chai and Ta Van Village, Sa Pa; 2021, Hanoi, Christmas Hanoi – YouTubeVideo 2021, Cat Cat, Sapa Trekking, 2012 Hoi An, Vietnam, 2011 HaLong Bay and Hanoi and 40 years ago, 2015 YouTube Hanoi Rain)

and here we are again - in the Vietcong stronghold of Da Nang.

We don't have a clue where we are about its history often times. This is the way of the tourist. Just hang out and forget the past. Trains all over Vietnam, when decades ago it was impossible to do what we are doing, and we complain that the beds are too hard. Perhaps fifty-years from now Ukraine will be a tourist haven, or not; perhaps, everyone in the United States will be speaking Russian by then, thanks to trump and his worship of putin. Maybe Gaza will be Disneyland and no one will remember the ravages of displacement for the current owners of the area.

There is a good website/blog, Hallowed Ground: Marble Mountain, Vietnam by Wayne Karlin 10/29/2018 https://www.historynet.com/hallowed-ground-marble-mountain-vietnam/ that goes into the depths of what we don't know - or at least until I read this and other articles on Marble Mountain. Holy Cow.

Da Nang's 2025 population is now estimated at 1,286,000. In 1975 there were 249,000 people milling around the place, and during the height of the war late 1960s early 1970s there were about 140,000 give or take a person or two, according to the internet. Obviously, war is not good for population growth. BTW, the American War (what it is called in Vietnam) ended with Vietnam kicking ass and telling the Yanks to piss off March 1975.

We wandered around Da Nang - quite a nice city - now that we have gotten past the past. Here are some images from town:

January 23, 2025

Tour day complete with bus and tour group! This was our real tourist day. We were picked up at 7.45am from our hotel. The tour guide gave us all lots of instructions on what we could do with our tickets, when and how to meet, what to do with our free beer vouchers etc

It turned out to be a great day despite our concerns about going with a tour group. We started off with a cable car ride up a pretty high mountain.

Just a side note here. This is really all just a big amusement park; think Disneyland without the mouse and in Vietnam. It is quite groovy, but at the end of the day, just an amusement park with huge hype. Here is their take on it;

As part of Sun World Amusement Park Group and over 20 km away from Danang downtown, Sun World Ba Na Hills is the most significant resort and recreational complex of Vietnam. At the height of 1,487 m from the sea level, Sun World Ba Na Hills is coined the “heaven on earth” owing to its spectacular climate and otherworldly natural landscape. Just travel to Sun World Ba Na Hills and revel yourselves in the typical rotation of four seasons in a single day and numerous festivities, recreations and relaxation and cuisine.

https://banahills.sunworld.vn/en

The main event was the famous Golden Hands bridge.

We took a zillion photos from every angle imaginable, except via a drone (which Narda refuses to let me get - 'but I want to see their military bases')

We found the beer hall where everyone seemed to end up at. This is a huge plaza with large beer barrels and they even have a beer tour for all interested guests, which we did not participate in.

The beer place where we spent 2 vouchers for free beer. We hooked up with an Indian guy working in the crypto industry. He said when we come his way near Calcutta, he would show us around. Nice bloke. Amit.

A sample of what we had to listen to whilst in the beer hall trying to relax after a full day of stuff

Listen to Narda's conversation with our guide about Vietnam/communism/wars, in the clip below.

There was a rather strange, for us, maybe it is common to all the young ones (anyone below 70) but we did one of those four or was it five-D theatres. There were two of them. One was ‘experience four seasons in five-minutes’ and the ad mentioned possibly getting wet. We gave that one a miss. We did one about touring the world in five-minutes. We got into roller-coaster like seats, with a bar across us (not the one you drink at – an iron bar, obviously), and suddenly it swooped down and turned and made unexpected movements with a huge IMAX-type screen in front of us so we felt like we were flying through cities. I have a short clip of it that I took (wasn’t supposed to so don’t tell) which is below unless it is blocked.

We did one of the Airship Theater - The Flying Eyes Theater views. A 4 or was it five-D cinema thing which was good. Strapped in like in a roller coaster we dipped and rose as the screen made it look as if we traversing the planet. Below is the start of the film & the second clip is one section - this flying over NYC. The whole thing last about seven-minutes. There was another film but we gave it a miss as the sign warned people with heart disease (pacemakers) not to attend which kept me out. Apparently, it also experienced four seasons with cold and rain and heat.

I had seen this hand-bridge before. I thought it was really old or had some metaphysically induced surrealism caper to it but no, it was all created about a decade ago, opened in 2017. The whole place is a fake reality. The French Village looks so old and so real. Some Europeans we had met earlier said, “why would we go to that, we live in Europe?” I liked it though. I live in Australia and being American, have no culture, so it was quite OK.

For those who think this place is the real deal, whatever that could mean...it opened seven years ago - 2018. The French Village looks very real and very old. It isn't. Narda asked someone in Da Nang if they had gone there and they answered why would we go there, we are from Europe? Here is the resort's take on it...

Da Nang French village is located at the Bana Hills. The village is a remnant from the 19th century and was built in purely European architectural style. The inspiration for the design is taken from the French architecture and then was built in the pure Gothic style which was very much common in the 19th century.

the internet

The Church of Saint Dennis at Ba Na Hills, is in fact, a fake church - but nevertheless, we can still adore its beautiful architecture. The beautiful "church" was made as a tourist attraction, but the gorgeous Gothic arches and colorful stained glass made us feel like we were traveling in France. By the way! The organ is fake, but we bet you can't tell!

trip.com reviewer

Some other random images from around the amusement park they call Sun World...

On the beach where US troops landed 60 years ago, a new Vietnam flourishes

This article is more than 10 years old

It was on this unremarkable stretch of Nam O Beach where, at 9.03am on 8 March 1965, 3,500 US marines disembarked from their landing crafts and waded on to Vietnam’s shores, becoming the first American ground troops to arrive in the country.

At the time, the US-backed government in South Vietnam was suffering from power struggles among its leadership and troops were deserting its army. Communist forces from North Vietnam were taking advantage, advancing down the Ho Chi Minh trail and gaining control in the countryside. Viet Cong guerrillas had attacked a US compound in the Central Highlands in February. Now, they were approaching Da Nang. General William Westmoreland requested two battalions of US marines to provide support, and at this crucial turning point, President Lyndon B Johnson agreed.

The landing was carefully stage managed. The troops were given a warm welcome by a delegation of smiling children and traditionally dressed Vietnamese women brandishing garlands of flowers. A sign held aloft read: “Welcome, Gallant Marines.” It was an incongruous beginning for the marines, and their mission – to defend the city’s air base during the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against targets in the North – seemed straightforward. Nobody on the beach that day had any idea of the long and tortuous conflict that was to follow. By the end of the year, nearly 185,000 troops had been deployed as the war escalated. A decade later when Saigon fell and US soldiers made their final exit, 2.7m Americans had served in Vietnam – more than 58,000 were killed

Vietnam was left in ruins.

In the last two decades, Vietnam has transformed from one of Asia’s poorest countries to one of its fastest developing. The decision of the Communist government to implement wide-ranging economic reforms, known as “Doi Moi” (renovation) in 1986 opened up its new “socialist-oriented market economy” to the world.. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/28/vietnam-war-da-nang-50-year-anniversary-flourishing

One other item Narda didn’t mention was our eating life. We are not foodies, those people glued to silly TV-reality(?) shows of annoyingly and obnoxious facial-contorted people with some steaming crap in front of them as they make orgasmic squeals and assure us we can cook like them. Or those equally annoying touring foodie people showing us street food in some far-flung country like Vietnam. We are not very adventurous. I live in a constant paranoia of food. Trying to control diabetes with a low-carb diet (totally failure when we travel) or being sure they are not slipping some mystery road-kill into my allegedly vegan-blessed meal. I don’t trust anyone. Not drinking alcohol since 2005 (have cirrhosis of the liver) I must be sure they don’t slip alcohol into my drinks too. Why can’t everyone just be normal like me? I am like a paranoid royalty, having Narda test whatever I am about to eat to see if it has something forbidden in it. Meat, sugar and carbs are poison in my brain. Of course, coffee in Vietnam has that sweet, condensed cream in it. I will say coffee with milk and no sugar. Still get the sweetened cream they just don’t add sugar on top. My morning readings are two-three points higher than when I can control my diet in Australia. Which is not good. Looks like I will be on insulin when we get back to Australia. Really pisses me off. Hopefully, AI will find a cure for diabetes soon. Oh, and no ice too. Now going into India, we won’t even eat salads at restaurants as they may be washed by contaminated water. Anyway, all I wanted to mention was that we found a great restaurant across from our hotel. A seafood place that is so packed we can barely find a table. The waiters run from customer to customer. See the little clip below. The food was good and cheap. Of course, I am stuck with eating a lot of noodles with vegetables and so far in a month of eating we haven’t gotten sick though my sugars are through the roof. We haven’t really done street food. So, if you were excitingly anticipating a blog about the wonders of street food in Vietnam, I am happy to disappoint. Cheers!

We got our usual hair wash and head massage.

Bye from Danang

Overnight Train from Danang to Nhim Binh

6.05pm Saturday 25th to 9.15 am Sunday 26th January 2025

Narda at http://narda.us/

Terrell at https://neuage.org/