The Highlights of the city and Cham Towers tour that we took was supposedly to visit a thousand year old Cham shrine and a recently built pagoda with a 30 foot high Buddha. Our tour spent about 20 to 30 minutes at each and then took us to a market, an embroidery factory followed by a stop at a brew pub cum souvenir stand for several hours of shopping opportunities.
The beach was beautiful. High rise hotels are going up everywhere, the highest being a half completed Sheraton. A lot of Western money is being put into resort development here.
The Po Nagar Cham Towers are unique relics. Four of eight original towers remain. They were built between the 7th and the 12th centuries. Each is a temple to a Cham god. They resemble Hindu temples. After climbing 70 steps to the temple plaza, we were rewarded with a wonderful view of the surrounding city and bay. A dance troupe was conveniently at hand and souvenir sellers had stalls about the edges of the plaza. The lunar new year, Tet, was the following weekend and lots and lots of pots of yellow chrysanthemums were for sale at the base of the tower property.
The drive to the long Son Pagoda took us through the back side of Nha Trang. Not as beautiful as the road along the beach, not as prosperous looking as downtown Saigon, it was nevertheless buzzing with activity. We even saw an operating passenger train. The tour guide warned us all against trying to climb up to the statue of the sitting Buddha in the near hundred degree heat, so of course, Michael took that as a challenge to make the climb. I followed more slowly. We encountered beggars and postcard sellers asking for "one dolla" all along the way. Halfway up the hill we found a reclining Buddha statue that was made of plaster covered concrete. The Buddha at the top had a steel supporting structure. The whole complex, including the pagoda was beautiful but new. I'm not sure if it is a functioning religious site or if it is, instead, a calculated tourist attraction.
The market was hot and noisy. The inevitable motor bikes were everywhere. There was a covered market building where the shops and stalls sold clothing, shoes, jewelry and watches for the tourist trade. The tented stalls around the outside were more interesting. I saw local produce I have never seen before as well as household furnishings and other items aimed at the locals.
The embroidery workshop was actually fascinating. It specializes in paintings stitched in silk. I had no idea that such skilled work was done in Vietnam. Upstairs we saw young girls learning the art. They were supervised by older women who were apparently teachers. Our tour group did not purchase much. Beautiful as the work was, it was expensive.
We were driven to a brew pub for refreshments. Our tour included a complimentary coconut with a straw and spoon. We were encouraged to have beer and food at our own expense and browse the souvenirs available. The most interesting aspect of all these shopping opportunities is that everything was priced in dollars. The Nha Trang residents seem to regard all tourists as piggy banks from whom they can get "dolla"'s. Other customers at the brew pub appeared to be speaking German. The resort city is attracting an international crowd.
The next day, Wednesday, February 10 we called at the port of Chan May. This is a new shipping port about halfway between the cities of Da Nang and Hue. The cruise line offered full day tours to both. Michael and I chose the "Streets of Hoi An" tour which included a stop in Da Nang to visit the Cham Museum there, a stop at a stone carver's village at Marble Mountain, a tour of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lunch at an up scale Vietnamese restaurant and a stop at China Beach.
Docking at Chan May we were met with the spectacle of fisherman in coracles tending their nets much as they must have done for centuries. Our large modern cruise ship navigated between them to dock at a cargo port still under construction. After passing the gantlet of the usual dozen or so immigration/security soldiers we all boarded our buses for our respective tours. The road to the port was still under construction. The going was bumpy and we had to avoid cows sitting in the road. This was our first view of rural Vietnam. Lots of rice paddies and fish farms. Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice after Thailand. There were also tree farms. Our guide told us that the government pays farmers to grow trees as a renewable source of lumber and pulp for paper. After a few miles we came to the main road, two lanes in this area, that runs from Saigon to Hanoi and on to China. We turned south toward Da Nang.
The Chinese recently lent Vietnam funds to build a tunnel under the mountain between Chan May and Da Nang. They hired a US firm to design it and a Japanese firm to build it. They built two tubes but only one is in use. The guide said the other was used for storage. It is a beautiful, modern tunnel through which the authorities do not allow motor bikes; traffic is limited to automobiles, trucks and buses. At either end the bikers ride in minivans and their motor bikes are trucked through. There is one lane in each direction. The traffic is not yet enough for a bigger road.
The Cham museum in Da Nang is larger than the history museum in Saigon. There are more artifacts but mostly in smaller pieces. The collections concentrate on relics from the Cham Civilization that flourished in central Vietnam from the 4th to the 14th centuries. The museum was founded by the French who funded the early excavations in the 1920's. Leaving Da Nang, we drove along historic China Beach. It was here that the French invaded in 1865 and a century later US troops landed in 1965. Ten years later in 1975 the fall of Da Nang was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. A number of our group were Vietnam Veterans who had fought here. For them the drive along the beach, and later our stop on the way back, was a very emotional experience. Today, the area is undergoing extensive resort development. Our guide said that many of the developments were for wealthy retired Japanese. The former US base is mostly just a large empty space with the shells of a few helicopter hangars still standing. I would not be surprised if it is also on the developer's agenda. A great deal has changed in forty plus years.
We detoured to a stone carver's village at Marble Mountain. Our guide didn't mention the caves, the religious sanctuaries or the war history of the place. Instead we were taken to a large yard and showroom for marble statues of all kinds. At one time there were 600 families living here involved in stone or marble carving. We passed streets of marble statues filling every yard, shed and shopfront. The government has forbidden marble quarrying in recent years and our guide said the stone now comes from the west of Vietnam. My reactions to this stop were mixed. Vietnam is obviously downplaying the war. Most of our guides were too young to remember it as anything more than history learned in school. They seem more interested in bragging about their industries, crafts and arts. The quality of the work was stunning. Good taste was another matter. For all the guide's expressed pride in the local craftsmen, the place had more of the feel of a museum than of a working enterprise. We saw no one actually carving anything. I suspect that the real carvers have left. We had heard repeatedly during our visit to the south of Vietnam that the Communist government confiscated all personal property when it conquered the south. There would have been no incentive for the carvers to stay during the ten or so years of economic chaos that followed. Private businesses have only been allowed since the 1990's. Today there are nice young ladies manning the showrooms. No one actually made a sales pitch. Some young men were hanging out in a tea room in the back. The didn't have the look of craftsmen. In fact, they didn't look as if they have done any work at all recently except, possibly, to wash and polish their motor bikes.
All this was a prelude to our visit to Hoi An, a beautifully restored, highly commercialized for tourists, historic Vietnamese community. Our tour featured a four hundred year old Japanese covered bridge, a visit to an historic home, a visit to a Chinese temple to the sea goddess, a silk factory tour and demonstration and lots and lots of time for shopping. Most of the old homes had front rooms that had been converted to stores selling clothing, art work, ceramics, restaurants, you name it. Most of the shops were very expensive. There were also many of street peddlers. Silk scarves were hawked at three for five "dolla."
We had a marvelous Vietnamese lunch at an expensive restaurant set on a river and planted with beautiful gardens. I think the staff and our tour guide were amazed when Michael asked for chopsticks for the two of us. He seemed to get a lot of respect after that.
Our bus drove along China Beach for miles and miles on our return to Da Nang. We stopped for a photo opportunity near some fishing boats. We crossed to the mainland over some very modern bridges and went back through the tunnel and on back the the Silver Whisper as the sun was setting. As the ship moved away from the dock, we saw the immigration officials wheel their security shack across the parking lot to a shed. It was probably the most work they had done that day. I much doubt that Chan May will be a sleepy port much longer. With the new roads and access to Da Nang and Hue as well as Hanoi and China it is an area ripe for development.
A note about restroom facilities. Fortunately I have read about travel in third world countries and came prepared. Many of our fellow female tourists did not expect to use holes in the floor, nor were prepared for lack of toilet paper and soap, let alone water for washing hands. Increasingly, in areas frequented by tourists there is at least one western style commode available in ladies toilets. It is a good idea to carry paper and hand sanitizer regardless. Our guide on this tour told us at each stop, "This is a two star restroom" or "This is a four star restroom " so we were forewarned. Most guides never mentioned it so each rest stop had the potential of being a surprise.
The Na Trang tour was something of a disappointment. The Chan May stop had so many interesting sights that I didn't much mind all the emphasis on shopping.
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