The next morning we were on our way to Danang. We had booked the tickets at the station the previous morning, where I’d been delighted to discover buying them in person rather than online will save you a significant amount of money, and so we just had to find out which platform and wait patiently for the train to arrive. A whole array of people were waiting with us, tourists and locals alike, though it did not escape our notice that most locals were in a different area of the train, having chosen the cheaper, hard seats over our luxury soft ones.
Much of the landscape passed by without drawing my attention, but a point came where the flat became hills and then the land became sea. Then cameras were in hand, all three of us accepting the challenge of capturing that great landscape photo while in a fast moving vehicle (bonus points if you manage to somehow get one without highlighting the dirt on the window).
Danang is a huge sprawling city. The width of each street could only suggest how far you had to walk to any destination you planned to go. Our accommodation was a short walk from the beach, a very popular holiday destination for many Vietnamese. From the sand we could view the hills we’d rounded on our train journey. A brilliant white, grand, statue of buddha confirming that was indeed the direction we’d come from.
We’d chosen to stay a night in the city to witness the famous fireworks which are displayed every weekend on the dragon bridge (info on dragon bridge). This was to happen at around 9pm. Putting dinner on hold until after the event (the unfortunate part of being a vegan is stopping to have a quick street food treat along the way is not really a possibility – investigation to find options needs to be done at every meal time), we walked the half hour journey from our accommodation to the edge of the expansive river. Brightly lit boats and buildings gave an almost funfair feel to the place, the flashing illuminations displaying many variations of the rainbow. We found some deck chairs with a perfect vantage point and a seller willing to drive to get us beers from a shop (as they sold coconuts alone), for which we would pay slightly higher than shop price but would get them delivered to our chairs, and would be allowed to sit in said chairs. Then we waited.
As 9:30pm rolled around our confusion increased. We’d been here a good 15 minutes before the stated time so we couldn’t have missed them. Did we have our information wrong? It turned out that no, we’d been very correct on our day and our timing, but that this happened to be the one occasion they would not have a firework display due to 2 days of national mourning following the death of Le Duc Anh, a former president of Vietnam who had died the previous week at the age of 99. So there you go. We didn’t get the see the famed event, but we did actually get to witness that much rarer moment of no fireworks on a Saturday night!
The following morning we were waiting at a bus stop on a main road heading south. The sun was already beating down and mum began to fully embrace the Vietnamese way of life as she donned umbrella, sunhat and a bandana face mask to protect her from the intense heat and the constant pollution our stop offered. Within twenty minutes our ride came into sight, we gathered belongings in haste and got ready to race onto the bus before the driver decided he was done being stationary.
We hastened to sit down as the bus took off once more. Ian up front behind the driver in a seat that offered him great opportunity to learn how to touch his nose with his knees. Mum and I were positioned in seats just behind the second door, taking great care to hold onto our belongings for fear they’d fall down, off and out the bus, and out of grasp forever!
