20th March 2014
I shared a car from Hue to Hoi An with a nice young Cameroon French couple. I first met them on my Halong bay cruise. After that, I bumped into them three more times at Hue and Hoi An as we seemed to be doing the same route.
We booked a car for this route through the hotel reception(80 USD 3 passengers). Remember to ask for a English speaking driver. It is a north south highway (good condition) that goes through the Hai Van pass. The car hire comes with a ten minute stop at the Lang Co beach on the south China/East Vietnam sea (depending on whose map it is), about 20 minutes on top of the Hai Van pass and maybe an hour or so at the marble mountains. A cheaper option is to take the bus from the easily accessible bus station next to the Perfume river at Hue but it goes through the tunnel on Hai Van pass so you don't get the scenic drive.
Lang Co beach is avoidable only because there are the similarly beautiful Cua Dai and An Bang beaches at Hoi An on the same coast. It is beautiful but ten minutes?
The Hai Van pass goes over the Annamite mountains that project into the sea at that point. It is a scenic ride with forest and ocean views. The roads cutting through the mountains reminded me of driving through the western ghats in India (no ocean views there though:) The road seemed fairly wide and climbs only upto about 1600 feet. It is in good shape and certainly not a challenge to anyone who has driven through the western ghats. We could see more adventurous tourists on rented motor bikes!
We stopped for a while at the top of Hai Van pass and climbed up a little path for the view. There are some shops here selling touristy stuff and the women were friendly and posed for pictures for us even though we didn't show much interest in shopping.
The shops and a little settlement on top of Hai Van pass .As I noticed everywhere else in Vietnam the shops here too were 'manned' by women
Young woman shopkeeper with long hair. Did not see long hair in urban Vietnam. Same difference in India :) In a book I read about Vietnam during the Vietnam war the author says 'my mother had long hair, a sign of beauty'
The friendly shopkeeper showed off her gold jewelry earrings, rings and bracelet. I noticed many jewelry stores in the cities but was not sure that they were gold. She told me her jewelry is gold. So they hedge with gold too like us! Most people, actually I should say all, who interface with tourists speak English with varying levels of proficiency.
From the top of Hai Van pass, there is a nice view of the Danang Bay, but since this was March, it lived up to its (translation) name of ocean cloud pass! The little blue covered with mist at the bottom of the hill is the bay!
The Hai Van pass is said to divide north and south Vietnam climatically and it did feel warmer on the Danang side than on the Hue side. Historically it also separated the Hindu Cham Kingdom in middle Vietnam from the northern kingdom)
Marble mountains was our next stop. We just passed by Danang as it was not on our tour itinerary.
But before going up the mountains we had to visit the mandatory tourist shopping place. Loads of carved marble work, figurines, bowls, beads and even furniture. A dining table set something like the one here was priced approximately around USD 2000 to 3000.
And the statuettes. Popular ones like the 3 gods of longevity, happiness and prosperity in the middle of the second row (didn't I see them in China too?) and ofcourse, the laughing Buddha Maitreya statues for health, wealth and prosperity on the top row.
With its interesting name, I was quite looking forward to the marble mountains next
The mountains (actually they are hillocks) are near Danang. And certainly not the white cliffs rising on the horizon as I had imagined them to be :)It was only when I started climbing up the hills that I could see what looked like unpolished browny beige marble between the green shrubbery. High and uneven steps are cut into the mountain side for access. An elevator (when it is working..it was not when I went) can go up to the first level. The uneven and at times high steps reminded me a bit of climbing up the steps on the great wall of China.
The first level had a pagoda. I could ssee a bunch of school children, many Vietnamese and some foreign, sketching the mountain and the pagoda and chattering in fluent English. They were students from an international school in one of the big cities on a school trip.
Going up this interesting path from the first level, I came across the first cave with a Buddha.
Looked like it was a live temple with worship being offered.There were two more caves at higher levels but I didn't do them as it was already time to go back.
We climbed down to find a coconut water seller. The tourist price is 20,000 dong (1 USD) for an enormous one. I suspect the local price is one quarter of that :) There were big, tempting circles of chikki (peanut, sesame, etc brittle). As the vendor was packing them with the help of her licked fingers and I still had to travel through Vietnam for the next ten days, I didn't feel brave enough to try them!
