Vietnam! This is the second country on this trip (technically the third but I don’t count the few hours in Hong Kong). I landed in Da Nang and I’ve heard so much about this city. Well, not really. I only heard people say that they loved it.
Shortly after checking in to my hostel, I met up with some locals I knew from Facebook. Pro tip: if you want the local experience or want tips from locals who live in Vietnam, look for a language exchange Facebook page and tell them you want to meet up. They’ll gladly meet up with you over coffee to practice their English. They may even show you around.
In my case, I met with Justin, Peter, and Tri and we drank coffee almost every afternoon at Long coffee. Vietnam has quite the coffee culture. You’d see locals seated on tiny chairs around tiny tables. The coffee here is very good. At long coffee, a serving of coffee (or any drink really) will get you unlimited refills of tea as well. Peter even suggested I get a water bottle and take some of the tea with me.
Later that night, Peter invited me to have dinner with his students. He’s an English teacher and his students want every opportunity to practice their English. They thought it would be a great idea to feed me a bunch of snails. They ordered snails cooked three different ways along with some quail eggs that were already on their way to hatching. I didn’t flinch. I’ve had balut before and it’s bigger and meaner. After dinner, we did karaoke!
For the next few days, I just went coffee shop hopping and tried to work. While my afternoons were spent at Long coffee with Justin and Peter. I particularly enjoyed hanging out at 43 Factory.
I also spent a day at the My Khe beach! It’s a nice white sand beach with different activities and a great view. There were a lot of people on the long stretch of beach.
On my last day in Da Nang with a trip to Marble mountain. This was leg day. Be prerared to scale lots of stairs up the mountain but be amazed at the pagodas, temples, sculptures, caves and scenery from atop the mountain.
At night, a Saturday, I went to see the Dragon Bridge. Every Satruday night at 9pm the dragon bridge lights up and breathes fire. I was excited to see this. I only knew about this because Justin told me on our way to the beach. However, I forgot that he told where the head was. I was near the tail all this time and had to run to where the head was in time to see it breathe fire.
Here’s some bonus footage of traffic in Da Nang:
See you next week in Hoi an and Hue!
