04.03 Day 49 Danang
Monday 4th March - Danang (Day 49)
A warm day is forecast and we have plans to ascend Marble Mountain. Anything involving the word mountain - despite when we drove past it on the way into Danang yesterday, Seb exclaiming ‘That’s not a mountain, I could smash it’ - and bright sunshine means I’m pushing for an early departure - the best we can manage is 8am. The Grab taxi takes us the 9 km south, still on the outskirts of the town.
You can tell we’ve arrived, not because of the entrance signs, but because of the abundance of stalls selling marble trinkets, jade and other gemstones - the stall holders imploring you to take a look. There’s 156 stairs to the “base camp” of the mountain and an elevator. We take the stairs, much to Seb’s disappointment. Sienna is OK with it but later their roles switch and Seb is leaping about whilst Sienna bemoans the stairs at the start which made her tired later.
Marble Mountain is one of 5 karsts erupting from the otherwise flat landscape and the spider web of paths over the mountain and stairs lead to various pagodas, caves and lookouts. The pagodas are waltzed past, the lookouts are whinged about because of the stairs up to them, but then the caves save the day.
The first cave contains a small buddha, but by scrambling up some marble polished by years of tourists feet leads to another cave, with scattered rocks on the floor where the ceiling 20 metres above has partially collapsed leaving a hole to the outside world. Other small caves too have narrow gaps through to other caves, but the best and biggest cave causes Seb to shout OMGK (not sure what the K is). It’s cavernous, containing a few shrines in opposite corners and served as a hideout during the war. The resultant dropped bombs expanded the small openings 40 metres above so this morning’s sunlight is working its way down the walls.
Back at the bottom and the pushy stall holders swarm about all the descending tourists. We pause for a drink - it was already hot and getting hotter, exposed as you were to the sun (when not in caves). The other advantage to coming earlier is to have some spots to yourself - by the time we’re leaving, the tour group buses have started arriving en masse, each flock following its shepherd holding up a flag or soft toy on a stick talking through their battery powered microphones.
More trust is placed in google and we taxi to a Banh Mi cafe, which provides one of the tastiest rolls, probably helped in no small part by the strength of their aircon. We pick up more mangoes and bananas - pretty much the only fruit we’re consuming - on the 20 minute walk back along with my new favourite Ca phe Muoi - salted iced coffee. It’s straight in the pool on our return to Lahome Villas and with it any realistic chance of schoolwork today.
After failing to get the kids a beefburger the night before, we hunt out a pizza restaurant, again trusting a 4.9 score on google. The 40 minute walk requires a mango smoothie and sugarcane juice (30k vnd, $2) enroute and thankfully the 3 table set up in the front of a family’s home delivers. There’s silence as we feast on pizza and garlic bread, with just occasional bursts of a dubbed Kung Fu Panda movie being watched by the young son in the lounge. The friendly wife asks how we found this place - I think most of their reviews must be delivered.
Suitably satisfied we walk 10 minutes in the dark, past outdoor Taekwondo classes, badminton matches and football games to Dragon Bridge, so named because the design has converted the above and below supports into a dragon’s body - at night it’s lit up by 1,000’s of lights that also allow the dragon to change colour every minute or so.
In this bustling small city other bridges also vye for your attention each lit up in various manners. So too a large ferris wheel to the south and several buildings too. After the feast for the stomach and now feast for the eyes we’re ready to taxi back for bed.