Day 38- Da Nang

Another weekend in the books, and time is slipping away on this Vietnam adventure. I officially end my volunteering stint in two days and leave this great country as per my visa. But to avoid focusing on the end of the journey, lets talk about the past few days. I was fortunate enough to meet four great Australian girls during this trip who were all friends with one another and decided to come out to Vietnam and volunteer together. Matt and I could always count on them doing something fun and out of the ordinary. They took many many trips during their stay here (which ended a week earlier than mine) and as their farewell excursion they visited a town in Central Vietnam called Da Nang. Da Nang, which is farther North than my last trip to Mui Ne, is similar to Mui Ne only in the way that it was new to me.

What convinced Matt and I to go to Da Nang was the great deal that we got on our hotel accommodation because of the girls. They all work for an international hotel chain back in Newcastle, Australia and get ridiculous rates on their sister hotels. So needless to say, Matt and I were able to stay pretty lavishly for dirt cheap. I didn’t really like the luxuriousness of the hotel if we are being completely honest. I came to Vietnam to live like the Vietnamese and really immerse myself in as much culture as I could, and our stay in Da Nang could not have been more different. We were isolated from a lot there in our resort and it really forced our hand to eat, travel, and live out of character. But I should accept the break and the generosity from the girls… lets just say I’m glad to be back. I really have stayed in the best and worst conditions here on this trip.

There were of course many highlights from the excursion, and one of the most noteworthy was the town of Hoi An. Just to the south of Da Nang, Hoi An is one of the most culturally rich areas I’ve visited here. We spent two entire days going to Hoi An’s “old district” where the buildings are visibly worn and the streets are quiet (quiet meaning you don’t have vendors following or tugging or yelling at you and motorbikes and cars honking for you to get out of their way) and really allow you to get into an element. There were several areas that are blocked off to all motor vehicles and the best way to describe them is just peaceful. One of the biggest attractions in Hoi An are the tailors and designers, every other store is a tailoring shop. I got a jacket made and it fits like a glove... It really was a pretty cool experience, I walked in to one of the tailors with the rest of the group and next thing I knew I was being fitted for a jacket. The store was huge and full of every fabric you could imagine, and when I settled on a dark brow corduroy 1’x1’ swath of display fabric I thought to myself there was no way that Rebecca (all of the staff adopted mainstream western names which was both funny and sad that something like that clearly made a difference in their sales) would be able to churn out a recognizable quality product. But low and behold, 24 hours later she had. To celebrate the success of the endeavor we all got dressed up that night in our new duds and went to dinner.

And of course, I couldn’t possibly leave out the beach time that we got in over the course of the weekend… Second weekend in a row that I’ve had sand between my toes and an ocean breeze through my wet hair, and I consider myself lucky to have escaped both encounters without a sunburn… 

Da Nang from David Daly on Vimeo.