Da Nang in Vietnam

A four hour trip from Auckland to Melbourne.  Then 8 hours Melbourne to Ho Chih Minh City.
After that 1 and 1/2 hours to Da Nang.

Looks easy written out, just your butt turns to concrete in the process.

The 2 hours in Ho Chih Minh City airport were obviously not sufficient, because you have to factor in the customs and visa checks.

This is a city of 10 million people, and so the airport is a busy one.  The trick is to have an electronic visa done before you go, so all you supposedly have to do is walk up to a Visa window before going to the passport control and have them stamp this.

After queueing for half an hour, the man said no need, just go to passport control.

An hour in the queue for them only to be told no good, and then to be taken back to the visa window to get the back of the visa stamped and initialled.

By which time we start assuming we have missed our connecting flight, so down to get our bags.  Oops, one of them is missing!  It's only a bag, it's only a missed flight, so why stress, but you still do.  Note to self: sometimes travelling is a stressful business, so travelling is to be avoided.

If ever anyone from Vietnam Customs Department ever reads this, please consider:

1. Why not make the customs man stamp the Visa?

2. Your government spends money advertising Vietnam as a destination for tourists, so why make them wait an hour in a queue?

3. If you are trying to create a good impression, might it be an idea to have the customs man give a smile? Even a smirk would do.

So off to the domestic terminal where they say: 6pm flight, its only 10 to 6, sure you can get on that.  Seems they were running a bit late anyway.

This is Da Nang from a distance, to give an idea of size:

We had heard the traffic in Vietnam is a bit different to ours.  

You can say that again, as the trip from the airport to the hotel had the flavour of a race track or dodgems or something like that.  Most terrifying are the intersections where it is a bit like the formations of marching girls where every one is going at right angles to each other and just missing each other.

To go with all this is much tooting of horns.  It takes a while to realize this is not a hostile thing, more of a communication device. 

After being there a while you realize there are rules that they seem to use but from the outside it appears there are none. Never did figure out what they were.

A walk around the block near to the hotel was quite interesting:

Then there was an ultra modern coffee bar, complete with fishpond out the front:

Hue

Our first trip was to Hue, with a driver and a guide. We were with friends who had been there before and they said this was the best way to go. 


So we were introduced to Huyen Trang, and I can recommend her as an excellent guide.  
She lives in Hoi An, which is close to Da Nang, about 20 minutes away.
Her mobile is +84 387 117 888

Here she is, the smile says it all and she is wonderful company.  Not only that, but she went the extra mile on a couple of occasions:

1. I went back to the airport to get my lost bag, but it seems you cannot go from the outside world into the arrival hall for obvious reasons.  But that is where the lost bag office is.....
She was able to talk to the airline concerned and someone came out with the bag.

2. The husband of the friends we with had his wallet stolen while under the dragon bridge.
Yes, everyone but the silly tourists know that the dragon spouts water after the fire!
In the ensuing melee, he had his wallet taken from a pants pocket.
Huyen made several visits to the police station with him to allow him to receive the form that says it was a theft, so insurance claims can be settled. You could almost bet this is a very common occurence when the dragon show is on.

Apart from that incident, it feels like a safe place.

Hue is where generations of kings had their palaces. Each one seemed to have the need to build a palace for themselves, so everywhere seems to be a palace.

Some of them were quite ornate:

The French invaded around 1858 and took over most of Vietnam calling it Indochina. They kept the idea of kings but these men had no real power.

Vietnam seems to have suffered a lot from invading forces. The Chinese ruled Vietnam for at least nine centuries. Then they had the French. Then they had the Americans.  

Then off to the Perfume River to check out a pagoda:

This is a typical restaurant:

My Son

The next day we went to area called My Son.

It was a drab, overcast day, so not shown in it's best light:

This is an area just to the west of Da Nang that was discovered by the French somewhere around 1950s. It is a complex of several Hindu temples.

Built in the 4th and the 14th century by the kings of Cham. 

All built in carved sandstone.

Bomb craters from the Americans are still there.