Thursday, October 6th 2011

On Wednesday night we hired a driver to drive us from Hue to Danang on Thursday morning. After a quick breakfast we met our driver and were off on the two-and-a-half hour journey south to Danang. The woman who booked the trip for us promised we could stop ’anywere we wanted’ on the way there so we thought it was a good deal (trip cost us $55 total).

The first place we asked to stop was Loc Dien, a collection of Hamlets that had its fifteen minutes of fame when Life ran a 10,000-word feature about eight men from the village who’d been ‘marked for death’ by the Viet Cong.

Being able to ‘stop anywhere we wanted’ wasn’t quite so simple…the driver blew right by the site a la our boat operator the day before that ‘let us see the fishing villages.’

I don’t think the driver did it on purpose, its just that we weren’t explicit enough when communicating with him. Saying, ‘oh that looks interesting – we’d like to check that out’ is a different command than ‘stop the car we would like to get out.’ Anyways we blew by it but Stephen and I weren’t terribly interested in the town anyways so it wasn’t a big deal.

Next we tried to see a portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail, down which men and material traveled throughout the Vietnam war, but our driver said the trail was 200 kilometers away (even though our guide book said there was a portion right next to the Mandarin Road we were traveling on). Hmm…okay!

We pulled over on the side of the road at one point where we could see both the inlet and the South China Sea. No sooner had we stopped the car (in the middle of a highway) when I saw a man bounding down towards us carrying a bag of goods.

When the man got closer I realized he was severely deformed. His eyes were clouded over like the eyes of a fish that’s been dead too long. His teeth were rotted, his face sunken. His hands were like gnarled roots. Immediately I assumed he was a leper (there is a leper colony nearby…all lepers in the area are quarantined there). I walked around taking pictures but Stephen engaged him in conversation. Apparently the guy had fought with the American troops during the war…he pointed out a few battle sights and whatnot. Stephen, being every vendors dream customer naturally purchased a few things from the man J

Next the driver took us to a resort, where he seemed to be quite friendly with the locals. It was fine with Stephen and I because we wanted to dip our feet in the South China see anyways. We walked through the depreciated (it must have been the off season or something, there were Christmas lights and garlands hanging in the rafters) and down to the beach.

So get this ‘scam’ – I thought this was really funny. As we’re descending from the resort to the beach a guy walked up and said, ‘hey where are you two from?’

‘America.’

He shook his head. Normally there would be the follow up, ‘whats your name’ or ‘how do you like Vietnam’ or ‘where in America?’ But he said nothing…he let us walk down to the beach.

Odd. Hmm, okay cool.

So we get to the beach and we’re swarmed by five or six different vendors selling standard stuff. But then the man who had asked us where we were from walked into the circle with another woman. Both of them had books displaying different currencies from around the world. He pointed out a particularly cryptic bill with Arabic writing.

‘Do you know where that’s from?’ He asked.

I shook my head.

‘Oh’ he said dejectedly, ‘ I collect bills from other countries and cannot figure out which country its from.’ Then he cheered up, ‘The only country I don’t have is the United States.’

Hmm…so this guy, who knew what country I was from, wanted me to believe he’s a currency collector and the only country he still needs happens to be the country I am from. Oh, and the woman he walked towards me with, oddly enough, found herself in the same quandary…unable to complete her revered collection without a good ol’ greenback.

I smiled at him. ‘Sorry my friend.’

Next we took the Hai Van pass over the mountains separating Hue and Danang. We passed old French imperial forts with the words, ‘gate of the clouds by the sea’ and ‘most grandiose gates in the world.’

I don’t know about the gates, per se, but the trip on the Hai Van pass was breath taking. Our car snaked along a sinewy road that hugged the side of the mountain. Just on the other side of the guard rail the road gave away to cliffs that rolled all the way to the South China Sea hundreds of feet below.

At the midpoint of the Hai Van Pass we stopped to take pictures at an old military base. It was interesting because most US military vestiges were destroyed before America withdrew from Vietnam (the US didn’t want to give the VC any pictures they could use as propaganda to bash America). So it was a rare sight – I imagine they didn’t tear it down because it was fairly well-developed concrete (pill boxes and the such) that would have been difficult to dismantle.

As I was waiting for spiderman aka Stephen to finish crawling over every inch of the old base I saw a truck filled with pigs drive by. I had to be 200 yards away from the truck but the smell was bad enough to make me a vegetarian.

As I walked towards our car I was harassed by a woman that wanted me to buy things from her shop.’

‘Where are you from?’ She asked.

‘America.’

‘Oh yes, I like America very much. Do you like Alabama?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose I like it enough. Its kind of far away.’

‘What do you mean Obama is kind of far away?’

‘Oh, you said Obama?’ I chuckled, ‘Yes, I like him alright.’

‘He is very young, but he already look much older.’

‘Presidencies are known to do that. Very high stress.’

She nodded. ‘I hope he can make America great again.’

Make America great again, I thought. Funny how a woman proferring goods on the side of the road in Vietnam is aware of the travails America is undergoing. Globalization.

I decided not to purchase tiger blood and the other goods she offered. Stephen bought cookies (I think he’s batting 1,000 purchasing things from every vendor from Hanoi to Danang).

Our hotel was the nicest aesthetically, but the worst in terms of location. Its in a commercial section of Danang (someone that knows Danang might say, ‘what area of Danang isn’t commercial?).

Stephen and I took a taxi to Danang Train station, purchased our train tickets and walked around. There is not a lot (read:nothing) to do in Danang, so we thought we’d just ‘absord’ another city. We got street food (see picture below). It was one of the only times in my life where I literally didn’t have any clue as to what I was eating. When I bit into things it could have been raw fish or rice-gellatin…very exciting. The food was delicious and I will say Danang had far and away the best and most varied street food of any place we visited.

After eating we tried to walk to Xuan Thieu-Nam O Beach – where the first contingent of US combat troops came ashore in 1965. The marine bas sprawled across the whole of the beach (apparently the only vestige is a restaurant that sits on the concrete the soldiers poured as the foundation for an officers lodge during the war).

Unfortunately the entire beach was walled off for renovations so we headed back to our hotel.

Talk about globalism – we ate dinner at an Australian restaurant, ate pizza cooked by an Italian, were served by a Vietnamese woman and we listened to American music (Jay Z).

Stephen and I had a great night celebrating my birthday. Our waitress was really sweet and told us a lot about Vietnamese culture (her father fought in the VC).

I celebrated my birthday at midnight, one of the other waitresses we’d become friendly with walked down the stairs at midnight with a cupcake that had a candle in it. They played happy birthday on the speakers and a bar full of strangers sang me happy birthday in Danang, Vietnam. Very special indeed.

Afterwards Stephen went to the hotel and I walked along China Beach by myself, reflecting on turning the big 3-0.

What else can I say…I’m blessed and forever thankful.

Okay, got to go – getting kicked out of Wifi bar and time to get on my next midnight train – next stop Nha Trang!