DA NANG, VIETNAM

2016-10-11, 14:11, JASON

BUDGET , STAY: DA NANG BACKPACKER'S

‍

A lot of people write off Da Nang since it's another big city in the developing world and there's not as much culture. Culture, of course, being concentrated in formally colonial towns such as Hoi An. As we made the trip out to Da Nang, we would inevitably have a day in Hoi An, but we also wanted to be sure we spent some time in the city. So, this trip details Da Nang the night we arrived, then the second day we spent on our trip to Vietnam, after having visited Hoi An. There's some spillover if I do this just by city, as we met some friends in Hoi An and, upon returning to Da Nang that night, we hung out with them, but I'll consider them as part of the "Hoi An" suite of events, not Da Nang. So, let's tick back a bit and talk about the night we landed.

We get in and it's pouring. That Southeast Asian kind of rain, drenching everything within a matter of seconds. People riding the scooters do not care, they just put on their ponchos and keep going. So many different colored ponchos. The taxi driver turns on the meter and the Dong meter begins ticking. I've always wondered how meters ran for currencies that operated at much higher denominations. Because the conversion amount was so high, they had to have essentially two separate meters. One displayed the final price, carried out only to the ten-thousand and thousands place -- this indicated the final price in Dong. So, 65 would just mean 65,000. Meanwhile, while driving, the smaller numbers in the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands place ticked upward at an alarming pace. The kind that makes you feel like per digit tick up of the meter, it was one less Dong in your pocket. But, it was just that, one less Dong. That's 1/10,000th of a Singapore cent. Needless to say we arrived after having only driven a few km for a cheap price. That's Southeast Asia for you.

When we get in, it smells a bit of wet dog. They show us to our private room (we shelled out for a two person room this time) and give us a recommendation for some yummy noodles. That broth taste at the end of a long trip and a trek through the rain is always a godsend. Da Nang is going to be good.

If you're reading this now, and care at all about chronology, read up on our Hoi An trip to get an idea of what we did prior. The night we got in, we just walked around the area and then along the beach for some street food. 

So the night we got back from Hoi An, someone told us to do the Hai Van Pass. I know some British show (motorocycle one?) documented how much of an interesting ride it was through the mountain pass and upward towards Hue, another big city near Da Nang, but since we were a bit short on time to do that we decided to at least go through the pass and reach the peak, there which had a fort for insert-colonial-reason-here. We would have enough time to complete this, and then head to the airport afterward.

We rent the scooters from the hostel, and they are nice enough to pass them along to us after waiting for a bit. No registration, no driver's license. The rule is if you look old enough to drive, you can probably handle it. Luckily we had some experience of this in Langkawi so we were good to go.

Traffic in Da Nang is a whole other city. For those that have been to Ho Chi Minh city, the place is littered with scooters. There's a life that revolves around them. People park them and sit on their bikes while they chill out and have an iced coffee. People have families of people hoard onto one and transport from place to place. Occasionally, you'll see dogs on them too. It's really, in my opinion, a great definition of Vietnam transport in a nutshell. Da Nang is no exception. There are scooters everywhere. Perhaps not comparible with the density in Ho Chi Minh City, but there still is a noticeable amount. So, when we first get on our scooters, it's a bit intimidating. It's not the friendly, small mountain roads anymore in Malaysia, but the city bustle of Da Nang. The hardest part isn't necessarily navigating the bikes in the traffic, as there is some very real tacit understanding among drivers as to when to speed up or slow down. You'll find that, although the driving is chaotic, there is a flow to it that makes it almost easier to drive in than, say, stop-and-go traffic in the United States. Humans are naturally good at finding the spaces and merging into the 'flow' of things, provided that the transitions are not so sharp or sudden, and so I think driving a scooter in Vietnam is an experience in just that. Finding the spaces, and going with the flow. A bit of confidence and assertiveness helps too, but at a smaller dose. So, what the hard part is is actually navigating the one-way streets, and having to turn on the correct roads. It's hard to 'go with the flow' and try to watch for street signs while you go, if you're lucky enough to spot it among the millions of other signs hung on the street. What instead you try to go for is a general understanding and direction of place you need to go. You'll find your destination eventually.

Of course, the first thing that happens is we run out of gas, in a city we are not familiar with. We don't even know where the gas station is, so we have to pull over and I go to a store to ask a random man -- poor guy, he was just buying a water -- where the nearest gas station is. A gesture or 5 later, he tells me to wait where I am while he disappears for 2 minutes into the shop. I wait and he finally comes out and tells me to jump on the back of his bike. Uhh, ok, sure. He drives me, get this, first to pick up gas at a gas station for his scooter. I don't take it badly - he has a place to go anyway. I take it as an opportunity to see how a Vietnamese driver would navigate the scooter traffic. Noted. What I thought would then happen next is he would fill up a bottle or two of gas at the station, and then take me back and fill the bike up. Nope, we just drive off back the street we came down. Now I'm thinking what's going on, is he just taking me back, did he just want to show me where the gas station was? I have all these questions but not the right language skills to ask. It turns then into an exercise of trust. OK. He eventually takes me to a street vendor with nothing but a styrofoam box. She opens it and inside she dispenses me a bottle of oil in - get this - an olive oil jar and has a small discussion with this kind man who has offered to help. He takes me, with the bottle -- just one bottle, mind you -- back to the bike and fills it up. I'm thinking that maybe one won't be enough, but he seems to think that the lady can offer only one at a time and not two. Trust. So I go back, look at Thorin who is just standing there, and I fill up his tank halfway, and the man tells me to get on his bike again back to the lady. OK, so we're going to go back and fill it up and then do another round. I think I'm getting the hang of this. We get back to the lady, I return the bottle, and she says thanks. The man then says get on again, not having filled up the bottle agian, and I'm now just confused. Trust. He drops me off back with Thorin.

In Vietnamese, "Remember that gas station I went to? Go there to fill it up."

Practical, sound advice.

Since the station is in the center of the city, and we weren't too confident on our bikes, we decided first to head to the Hoi Van pass and then fill up at the base before the mountain climb. We're not sure if we would make it but as the Da Nang overseers would have it, we do and fill up, ready to go. The ride there is vast and expansive, as if you're riding on an American highway. You feel so free on that bike. The beach is on your right and you follow along the sea, looking out at the small tugboats and that quintessentially Vietnmaese mountain, dense and thick with green vegetation, hiding behind a small layer of what is either "humidity fog", or pollution. But, the sight of clouds is still visible. It's just like out of those old paintings, the ones of the Orient and pastoral, parochial life along the ocean. A living history book of the way people have lived for centuries. And, me, the modern bitch polluting it on my low-end scooter while appreciating it from afar. 

No longer than fifteen minutes into the ride, I begin noticing that my engine stops revving while going uphill. It's not accelerating and then, as I turn one more time the handle, and finally it gives in. The engine shuts off. Fuck, I'm stuck on this damn mountain pass, but at least the view is stunning. No, it really is stunning. The way the inlet has formed and perfectly curves gives you a panoramic view of the ocean, the city, and the mountain. So, I went from viewing the mountain from below, while at the beach road, to within, from the pass. There's nothing I can do not but wait for Thorin to find that I've not caught up with him, and figure out what to do. It's a discouraging feeling, but I take a look around and remind myself where I am. Before I know it, Thorin's shown up. 

This happened one other time. Iceland. We were stuck in the middle of a storm and we knew what to do this time. Flag someone down and hopefully they're kind enough to lend us their phone so we can make a phone call to the hostel and have a repairman come fix it for us. These lovely Korean guys who work for the Korean-Vietnamese tourist board stop, and give us their phone. It's a weird mix of people, on that mountain, in that moment. These Korean guys are all dressed in typical biker outfits. They're pretty hard looking, but gentle in spirit. Their scooters are souped up with a full blown stereo and decked out casing and wheels, overshadowing our 12-dollar-a-day rentals. Thorin makes a conversation with them while I am frantically making a call to the hostel. I explain the situation over the phone, they say they'll send a repairman, and I give the hostel people one warning: I won't be able to call you back since this isn't my phone. Is there anything else that you need to tell me? And, they say no, they'll send a repairman right away. So I hang up. I thank the Koreans profusely for their help, but they've got places to go, and they're off. The trailing music from the boombox echoes from the mountains until it's a distant sound.

About 5 minutes later, a man shows up with a small wooden box on a scooter. He looks at me and then says what's wrong the with the bike, and then proceeds to put it up on the repairment kickstand and take a look. "Wow, that was fast" we say. Normally, Triple A would have taken a lot longer, but as luck would have it repair came in the form of an old man with a wooden box. He does some diagnostic testing and looks at it, and then proceeds to take apart some of the bike and attempt to fix it. We drive down the hill to a nearby house shop that he leads me to, and we stop in for some noodles at the local shop. It's at that point that we get a bit suspicious. Or, I do at least.

There's always a vibe you can get of people when they are out to get you. And, by that, I mean scam you. Although you don't speak a certain language, what is incredibly intuitive on our parts is our ability to detect intention. You get that gut feeling that something is awry and not right. The man is fixing the bike, and he seems to be related somehow to the people at this house nearby. We go in and ask for some thing to eat, and they offer us some cup noodles and sausage, so we just agree. Everyone's kind of staring at Thorin and me as if we've lost our minds. They clear out the table for us, wipe it down. There are chickens just walking around the place, as well as a few dogs that they own. They're pecking at the scraps below our feet and the dogs are running around. The meal seems fine.

When the man finishes the bike he joins in with the other people, sitting around and grabbing some water. He seems to have fixed the bike. So, we finish up and here comes the bill. The woman who has served us looks over at these other guys who we were sharing the table with and exchange something in Vietnamese. The man says something, and all the guys at the table laugh, and so does the woman. We think they are deciding what to charge us. OK, fair enough. I'm not going to bring in the concept of fairness in money charging between Vietnmaese and foreigners as it makes sense in this situation for them to charge us more. She kind of does what seems to be a mental calculation in her head as to the price, but in reality what it seems like is more a consideration of how much to charge. The final bill comes out to about 7 USD. OK, not that much, but definitely not what we paid at the base of the mountain for food yesterday, where we could each eat for just 1.5 USD. But, fine, maybe it's a location thing and a monopoly market. The whole experience eating there was weird. It felt almost as if we had intruded on someone's house. Whoops, might have done.

The next bit added to our suspicion. The guy who finished repairing our bike showed me and it seemed to rev fine. He then takes out his phone to make a call (presumably), and what he types instead is 500000 on the phone, and passes it to me. I say "No, that's not the number of the hostel" and proceed to just type in the number after the 500,000. I try to make a call. Doesn't work. So I pass it off back to him and he shakes his hand and head. He types in 500000 again, this time coupling it with rubbing his thumb across his ring, middle, and pointer finger twice, a soft brush. Oh, this guy wants money. But wait, wasn't this guy sent by the hostel? Fine, 500,000 is not so much. We pay up. And then, we're on our way again up the mountain.

No later than three minutes up the climb this time, my bike refracts with the same problem and I'm at a standstill. At this point, we realize that we were probably being tricked and that he wasn't the repairman, but we still weren't quite sure what was going on. I'm stuck again. The view is still good. I try to focus on that. Then, the same repairman comes again. I look at him and said it's still broken, and he says he'll try to fix it again. So, with nothing to do and no other option, we agree. But I'm adamant this time about not paying again. He fixes it, and I drive up, and same thing happens. This time, we stop at another shop further up, as the lady tries to pull us into her shop and have us buy something. No thank you, we just want to fix the bikes is all. She's compliant and doesn't force it. He fixes it. I drive off. Breaks down again.

Now, during this back and forth of repair and breakdown, we get a suspicion that he wasn't the repairman sent by the hostel. But, we thought it could be that the repairman could just charge us and we would be reimbursed by the hostel. While on that last breakdown of the bike, something happens that confirms our suspicions. Thorin and I are standing there at the edge of the road when another man drives by on a scooter. That same, small wooden box filled with repair tools. He stops by and then asks us if we need help repairing our bike. In that paradigm shift of a moment, it all sets in. These guys aren't the repairmen sent by the hostel at all. They're independent fixers that wait for peoples' bikes to break down and then help them fix it on their own accord. Almost like tiny barefoot repairmen that trek the mountain looking for people to help. We quickly shoo him off, but as we do our original repairmen comes up and just attempts to fix it one last time. He does this time, after having it break down 3 to 4 times, and this time we're finally off. We were put off a bit but there was still a Hai Van Pass to climb, so we trekked on, putting the experience behind us. We do make it to the top. People solicit us to buy things but at that point I'm sick of dealing with solicitors that I just ignore them appreciate the view from above. It's actually a cool fort. The ruins haven't been in repair and so there is an old-age quality to it that is still deeply historic. Looking at whether or not to head down, I'm a bit hesitant since my bike couldn't really make it up the first leg. But, that YOLO feeling kicked in and rang loudly. "If I'm here, I'm gonna do it, fuck it." So we fucked off and did it. 

Bad choice. Near the other side of the mountain, as we were nearing the bottom, the weather system began to ease in and we saw dark clouds begin to swirl. Then, a few rain drops. This is never a good thing. That windy feeling picks up and you know you're doomed to be in a Southeast Asian rainstorm. Accepting our fate and, perhaps our bad decision, we decide to head now, back up the mountain the fort, then head back to Da Nang and ditch the pass.

All the while, we are racing the clouds. It's still windy but luckily it hasn't completely rained on us yet. But, a bit too late for wishful thinking. The heavens open and the sky begins to rain on us. We move on ahead, being probably 3 km from the top of the mountain. The roads have slicked wet now, and the rain was picking up. I'm having trouble navigating through the rain hitting my face on my eyes and keeping a clear view of the road, but it's manageable. I pick up a bit of speed to get to the top quicker. Big mistake. While taking a turn, I hit a pothole, and lose control of my bike and fall down to the left, the bike on top of me, dragging me with it for a few yards before I finally come to a stop, using my left shoulder to brake the speed. Then, stillness. I do a quick assessment, and then stand up. Thorin is a few paces behind me taking pictures and he sees me on the ground. I stand up, and attempt to lift my bike into place but am to weak to. He helps me up, as I am in a bit of a state of not shock, but just surprise. I check out any scars on my body: luckily only a few. We had decided to wear jeans on the right day. A small scratch here or there on my elbow. Otherwise, it's all fine, but I'm spent. My vision starts getting blurry. The rain is still going strong. 

Three ladies stop by and see that I have fallen and so then stop also to help. As luck would have it, one of them is a nurse and she takes out a first aid kit and helps bandage the wound. No freaking way, what are the odds of that. She tries to clean it the best she can and then also helps me gather my things together. Now my vision is getting really blurry, so I sit down on a concrete edgeguard and just lie down for a bit and close my eyes, trying to relax. When I regain my strength, I hop over to the bike and decide that it's been a rough day, from the bike repair to the fall, so we go back down the mountain slowly and head back to the hostel. The bike, surprisingly, is still in good condition, so it's rideable. I just tie my shoe on the back and drive barefoot. The rain begins to clear. Things begin to look up.

When we get to the bottom of the hill, we take the same route back but forget to turn down of the roads. We find ourselves back into the hustle of the main city, with cars and scooters all around us. People still in their multicolored ponchos following the rain since they didn't know if another storm was coming. Although I thought being back down with more congestion would be hard to navigate, I found it was more familiar this time, and there was an ease to driving in Da Nang traffic. And so easily, within the span of the day, it went from being nervous to driving, a fall, and then being at peace while going through the main town. The revving of the engines and the horns, it was loud, but it was exciting, and we were right in the middle of it all. We still had the issue of trying to get back to the hostel, which involved a series of pulling-over and re-evaluating at each step, but we made it eventually. Clothes beginning to dry, wound on my ankle and arms, a scratched bike that we hoped wasn't noticeable, and 500,000 Dong lighter.

We explained our situation about the 500,000 and asked for the money to be reimbursed, since when asked if there was "anything else they wanted to tell us" they neglected to highlight that there would be independent repairmen along the road. The guy agreed, called the guy who gave us the motorbikes for rent, and he said he would reimburse us. But, he proceeded to say that it was because the "guy who lends us the motorbikes" is very generous and a good, honest man. He then subtly suggested that we don't make him pay up for all of it, which in itself is a slightly fuckerish thing to do but, again, we understand that people here have to make money and that money isn't as easy to come by. So, we agree to give half of the fee, 250,000 Dong, to the repairment to keep to not totally put him out, and he provided us with another scooter that we could use for the rest of the day. We were hoping to get some sort of favor out of this as we had done something good for them (such as, paying for our way via their shuttle to Da Nang Airport), and built their 'guanxi' with this scooter guy, but this guy wasn't picking up on it. He said we would still have to pay. Urgh. So, I took a look at the new bike. Thorin and I had a small pep talk wondering if I wanted to go on the bike again, and I was feeling a bit out of it but also realized that we would only be in the city for 4 or 5 more hours, and so had some time to kill. Situations like these call for more fuckit attitudes that just force you to go through things you don't necessarily want to do. There's always a silver lining somewhere.

So, we agreed. Let's get back on these bikes and do the Marble Mountain temples just outside of Da Nang. We were only going to be here for a bit longer and really wanted to soak in what Da Nang had left to offer us.

Along the way, a lady looks at us and gestures to us, and tells us to follow her. At this point we know how to handle it, we just ignore her. She keeps following us and is persistent, but so are we. We are driving down this expansive road when we see, on our left, the beach. A more commercial one, but one that just stretches on for miles given the beautiful Da Nang coastline. After that, what we see is development after development of private beach resorts from all your big western brands, occupying and claiming these beautiful coastlines. Instead of getting a clear view of the beach, what we ended up getting in the stretch between Da Nang and Marble Mountain was just tall skyscrapers with walls blocking off the view from the main road. These places looked like out-of-place resorts with luxurious drive-in pathways similar to that you see in Cabo San Lucas and the kind. So, without a proper view of the coastline on the left we had nothing to do but just focus on the road to Monkey Mountain. The lady was still gesturing at us trying to get us to follow her, but I think she slowly gave up.

We finally get to Monkey Mountain, and the lady is pulled up at the center of the road, no joke, waiting to flag us down and get us to park at her lot for a few dong. No thanks. We pull up directly into the mountain and attempt to park, but, another man has gestured to us to pay for the parking. At this point I'm just so frustrated at how they've managed to charge for every little thing here. I think it was on top of the struggle to get my bike fixed, falling off, and just a general day of bad luck. We pull over to another house that's further along the way and then ask if we can park there, and they let us at a cheaper rate. We then walk into the temple. I take some time to just think about tourism in Southeast Asia, how the place has been recently opened to tourism and so it makes sense for them to charge where they can. And I realize how I'm part of the problem, too, with going to all the major tourist places -- as a tourist, mind you -- with money to spend. There's no solution to this problem here, it's just the way development has gone. I learn to let it go.

The temple is wonderful. I think after the day we've had it's nice to be in a space tucked into a mountain, in a shrine in a cave, and climbing some stairs to just look out into the city. There's a 'summarizing' feeling to it, just looking out at the expansive city and reflecting on our time here. You're away from everyone, have made it past all the tolls, and you finally get a chance to appreciate this great city. There are a lot of pictures we took at the mountain since the views were just too good, so here's the photo feed:

We climb a few more hills and look at some other vantage points. The Marble Mountains are paired and so looking out, you're able to see another mountain now to far away, but the valley below is fully occupied with developments, from housing to hotels. As we continue to walk around and climb, we notice that a storm cloud system seems to be moving in. The last time this happened we rushed to the top of the hill and I fell, so this time, I didn't want to rush and so told Thorin that we should get on our horse. We were at the top of this wonderful mountain and it was about to shit more rain on us. And, right when we get to the base of the mountain, for the second time in the same day, the skies open. First, at a drizzle.

I'm not sure when everyone puts on their ponchos. It seems to go from a period where no one is wearing them to a point where not one person is without one, especially on scooters. Because we parked further out from the entrance, we had to walk in the drizzle for a bit, but by the time we're about 100 meters away it starts pouring heavier than before - that Southeast Asian rain. The auntie holding our parking tickets look at us and tells us to put on our ponchos. I told her we don't have any, and I'm far too cheap to buy one now. That trepidation sets in again, I just had a fall and hope it doesn't happen again. But, the flight is in 1 hour, and we got to get back to the hostel, then to the airport. So, we ride on. Luckily it's mostly straight roads that are well paved, but there's still the rain and traffic in the city.

Now, two things. One, many people are afraid to get wet. They'll go at lengths to avoid any contact with liquid when in civilian clothes. The problem is not so much the wetness during the rain but the coldness and aftermath of being soaked. There is a saturation point, however. That point when you're so wet that it's impossible to get wet anymore. When all your clothes and shoes and every part of your existence is soaked as if you jumped into a lake. The saturation point is one of the most profound experiences you can have. That feeling, again, when zero cares are given because you are just so wet. You have no more fucks left to give and just submit to the rain gods, to the Vietnamese gods, to the Da Nang gods that we were probably never meant to come back out on the motorbikes. You have no more energy to spend it distraught, so you accept your fate. In this submission and acceptance, a strange sense of humility sets over me. All the bad stuff that had happened, the bike breaking, falling, the extortion, and now the rain, just washed away. There was a moment of absolute hatred for the trip, but taking a step back, appreciation. All this was out of my control. What a wonderfully, liberating experience. And, what a privilege to be able to travel to a place like this. All of these events would make great memories. On the way back, the last straw. Thorin's bike ran out of gas, and I just looked at him in disbelief. Our hearts sunk. Drenched and without gas. But then we kind of started laughing. That kind where you're a bit crazy and just stunned, but also where you just release the stresses, release that anger, and release your control. What a moment of humility.

I had to pull over to an auntie down the side of a street and do the whole bottle fill up again. Then, we were off. The fancy resorts now on our right, the rain slowly lifting, and driving one last time through the city of Da Nang. When we got back, we just hopped on the car going there and then bounced. My ankle, which had now turned to some big gash from the rain, was dripping nonstop. Naturally, I got some napkins at the airport and just taped it on. Ready for my budget flight!