Hello everyone in the weekend community,
How was your last week? I hope everything went well. In the blink of an eye, the weekend has come, what do you plan to do on the weekend? Today's weather in Da Nang is sunny and cool, our family invited a few friends together to have a picnic and hunt clouds at the top of Hai Van.
We decided to go early to avoid the crowded time there, since it's the weekend, we thought there would be many groups camping here overnight. After preparing the necessary food and equipment, we began the journey.
Journeys
The road to the top of Hai Van has 2 journeys. In the first journey, we rode a motorbike to Hai Van Quan - This is the intersection between Da Nang and Hue, also the highest place where motorbikes can go.
On the way, we stopped and cut some bamboo by the roadside to cook rice in bamboo tubes - Rice cooked in the bamboo is a specialty rice dish of Gia Lai, DakLak. To be honest, I live in DakLak but have never tasted the original bamboo rice in my hometown. haha. It was also our first time making this rice, so I was really excited and curious as to what it would taste like.
After 45 minutes of riding a motorbike, we arrived at Hai Van Quan. We parked our motorbikes at the cafe at the top of the pass to prepare for the second journey - Hiking from Hai Van Quan to Hai Van Peak. Since we didn't camp overnight, the things we carried were pretty light. I was tasked with carrying the bamboo tubes. I love these bamboo tubes even though they are quite heavy for me. 😃
After many times of experience going on a picnic in the sun, this time I wore a traditional Vietnamese conical hat during the climbing trip. Admittedly, Vietnamese conical hats are a very useful accessory to avoid sun, rain and be compact.
As always, the two four-legged members of our family - Meow and Badu led the way. Sometimes I wonder if Meow and Badu are stronger than us because they run on 4 legs? kaka. I don't know the answer, but I saw they were out of breath as they ran after us. Maybe they are not used to hiking. So we told ourselves that we should take Meow and Badu out more often to exercise.
I really like the atmosphere in the mountains. The winds bring fresh and cool air in the late autumn days, I fully enjoyed that comfortable feeling. The road to the top of Hai Van is quite steep but I find it quite easy to go. If you're tired, you can try going backwards, it worked for me. Along the way, we encountered many beautiful forest flowers, some of which looked very strange and I did not know their names.
Activities
After 30 minutes of hiking and sightseeing, we reached our destination, where there is a green lawn surrounded by pine forests. Especially no one was there when we arrived. Yeah! We made the wise decision to depart early.
From there, I can see far behind the pine forest is Lang Co Bay. Because the epidemic situation is quite complicated in our area, although Hue and Da Nang are two provinces next to each other, we are not allowed to pass through Hue but can only watch it from afar here.
After spreading the carpet on the lawn to store our things, we started a fire to cook food. Each of us was assigned a task, one person made a fire, some people split the bamboo tube to prepare the bamboo rice, and I was responsible for picking wild lemon leaves to marinate the barbecue.
There are many lemon trees that grow naturally around here. The lemon leaves there are smaller than those bought from the market but they are much more fragrant. Lemon leaves are indispensable for making grilled chicken. Lemon leaves can be chopped into the dipping sauce is also very delicious.
The bamboo tube has been filled with glutinous rice and coconut milk, they are ready to be cooked. I also brought along a clay pot to cook sticky rice with in case the bamboo rice fails. Worrying is also good sometimes, because the bamboo we cut is quite old, so the baking time will be longer than usual. We divide the rice into two parts, one to cook in a clay pot, and the other to cook in bamboo tubes.
After 45 minutes, grilled chicken and sticky rice were cooked. The feeling of having lunch in such a cool and natural place was really nice, the food was so much better than usual (or maybe we were too hungry,😂).
After finishing our wonderful meal, we went around to explore that interesting area. We picked some wild berries and took a lot of good pictures. Then we also caught some groups coming here to camp. In the fall, it gets dark pretty quickly so we decided to clear up to make room for the newcomers to camp and get down the mountain before dark. We discussed that, next time we will camp here, and we will go in the middle of the week so there are less people.
It was already getting dark when we were on our way down the mountain. Meow and Badu were quite tired and asked my husband to carry them on his shoulder. They look so adorable.
We had such an enjoyable picnic, hope that you also have a relaxing weekend with your loved ones. Thank you for following my post and wish you a new week full of energy.😍😍