Day to and three, Da Nang, Vietnam
My tour of duty in the Nam just started, quite rainy and very hot indeed. Stayed at a place near Pa Nang called Non Nouc.
Da Nang was not quite as expected, almost no turists, very clean and very communist. Red banners down every street and speakers singing out state slogans and politically correct messages to keep the general public in line and productive. Generally people couldn't afford a car even if they could get their hands on one, but with scooters its a totally different story. There are scooters and light motorcycles everywhere and used for all purposes. We saw scooters carrying big blocks of stone, 2x3m steel gates and whole farms worth of chickens. I guess road accidents are a common sight of everyday life, allthough I never witnessed one, and fortunatly the trafic is slow since few vehicles manage more than 50k an hour. Non Nouc where I stayed used to be an US Army installment, the so called China Beach. Just next to this was the marble mountains where, to our great surprise, the Viet Cong had one of their first aid station. The proximity was awsome and the Viet Cong caves beautiful. The view from the marble mountains reached from Da Nang in the north down along the beach almost to Hoi An in the south. I found time to travel to Hoi An as well. This is an old Japanese trading town, but now it was only poor and people there wanted so badly to sell their tailory that they ended up bugging the hell out of me. After taking what I thought was enough, I went back to Non Nuoc to chill on the beach.
