Viet Road Trip Day 9 - Part 2
Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my scooter trip through Vietnam. This is part 2 of Day 9, part 1 can be found here.
The ride to Da Nang, from Hoi An, is a short one. For this post I'm going to give a motorbike tour of my favorite city on the planet. Da Nang, Vietnam.
Da Nang is a city bisected by the Han River. The "city" side is on the west side of the river. The "beach" side of Da Nang is on the east side of the river. There are 5 bridges that cross the Han River in Da Nang, and each one of them has its own unique style. The greatest bridge (in the world, if you ask me) is The Dragon Bridge which actually breaths fire and water on weekend nights.
The Dragon Bridge of Da Nang.
Da Nang is the third most populated city in Vietnam. It is located in the middle of the country, between the two largest cities, Hanoi in the north and Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Da Nang is an industrious city with many jobs available, compared to everywhere else nearby.
Da Nang is also a college town. Several universities are located in Da Nang, and young people from all over come to the city for their education. One problem that central Vietnam is facing is a major brain/labor drain. All of the kids are leaving their farms to get educated in Da Nang. When they graduate, they go to Hanoi and Saigon to look for work. Many of them are not going back to their farms.
There are a few discos in Da Nang, but they are mostly used by tourists. It doesn't seem like the American university "Animal House" party mentality is very strong here. The students that I've met are generally serious about their education, and fairly naive about city life, partying, and making terrible life decisions while inebriated.
The nightlife in Da Nang mostly takes place in cafes and karaoke shops. I hate karaoke, but karaoke in Vietnam is definitely worth checking out. Business owners have converted hotels into karaoke shops with private rooms for singing with your friends. The staff will bring up a case of beer, ice, soft drinks, and snacks. After the group is done, the staff takes note of the time and what was consumed, then present the group with the bill.
Other popular activities for young people in Da Nang include bowling, drinking beer at sidewalk restaurants, going to the mall, cruising, and hanging out at the beach.
One difference that I noticed about the Vietnamese beaches is that the vast majority of locals won't go to the beach until the sun goes down. Beaches will look almost abandoned during the day, except for tourists (foreign and Vietnamese). Once the sun begins to set, everyone comes out for swimming and socializing. The beach at sunset is where I encountered the most traffic jams.
The Vietnamese (and most native South East Asians that I've met) really value pale skin. Value isn't the right word... Let's say that pale skin is very much "in style" in much of South East Asia. Almost all of the women, and most of the men, cover themselves from head to foot before spending any time in the sun. The most ironic thing about this is that they rarely have sunblock available in the stores. They have a ton of creams and products for bleaching your skin, but they don't offer much in the way of preventing your skin from getting darker in the first place.
Speaking of beaches, the tour begins along the southern coast of Da Nang.
This is the route that I take in the following three videos. The stop in Hai Chau District is where I got the featured image for this post.
A beautiful ride along the beach, followed by a bridge crossing with the Dragon Bridge almost visible in the distance. The video ends when I stop to look for a hotel on my phone, and take a picture.
The tour continues through an unremarkable part of the city.
The tour concludes with a dash across the Dragon Bridge of Da Nang.
And that concludes my motorbike tour of Da Nang. At this point in my trip I hadn't fallen in love with Da Nang yet. It just seemed like a regular old Vietnamese city to me. And a regular old city was exactly what I wanted after Hoi An. Later I would spend over three months in Da Nang.
Back to the trip!
I still hadn't filed my taxes, so got a room for two nights in Da Nang. The hotel that I found was brand new, and they were charging half price because business was slow ($15 per night). After I checked-in and freshened up a little, I went for a short ride and a meal.
Da Nang under construction.
Vietnam is a country under construction. Compared to Laos, Vietnam is like a scene out of The Jetsons. They are building skyscrapers and giant hotels everywhere. Da Nang is like the rest of Vietnam, times two.
I was in Da Nang on March 31 and April 1. I returned in early May of the same year. Three huge hotels that had been under construction in March, were open and accepting guests in May. I probably wouldn't recognize Da Nang if I saw it today. It's changing so much.
After riding over the Dragon Bridge again, I went to a beach-side restaurant and got a seat on the patio.
The view from the restaurant.
Homemade boiled beef wraps.
The restaurant was amazing. From the looks of it, I'd guess that they could fit 200 people inside, and another 50 people outside. It was part of a kind of Vietnamese strip-mall on the beach. There were other restaurants and some tourist looking places. Everything in the restaurant looked to be of high quality. I took a seat on the patio and ordered something they called beef fondue.
When the food arrived, they filled my table with plates and pots and vegetables and meat. Inside the pot was an amazing soup with mushrooms, vegetables, tofu, and tons of other great unidentifiable edibles. On the beef plate was... beef. Raw beef. I must have had a confused look on my face, because the waitress spent the next 5 minutes demonstrating how to properly eat the meal.
To eat the meal, you put some beef in the soup to cook it. Then you get a piece of rice paper and top it with lettuce, cucumber, and cilantro. Next you get some of the meat from the soup and put it on the lettuce and roll it all up in the rice paper. There was a dipping sauce that I added some chili flakes to. After you eat all the meat wraps, there's a hearty beefy soup to eat. It was delicious. And fun.
Months later I returned to the restaurant, twice. Both times I tried to order this same meal. Both times I ended up with regular old hotpot beef soup, and nothing to wrap. I stopped going to that restaurant.
After I finished my meal, I bought some beer and went back to my hotel room.
In the next post I'll be talking about my first journey over the famous Hai Van pass. Until then, ride safe!
Viet Road Trip is a blog series about my solo scooter trip through Vietnam. Read about days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7.1, 8, 8.1, and 9 here.