It all started with a dragon breathing fire.
I am always surprised at how naive I am to plan some chill time whenever I go anywhere. The moment I set my mind to just chill and relax, I meet some amazing people (or suddenly become the crazy one myself) and then, well, as they say – just hold your horses, eh.
So, the dragon. Right.
Day 2 in Da Nang and I found out about the famous Dragon Bridge, conveniently located just 5 minutes away from my Kon-Tiki hostel. Every Saturday and Sunday at precisely 9:00 pm, the dragon, which spans for the length of the whole bridge, comes alive starts breathing fire. After the fire performance is over, it pisses also spits out a water fountain. I was standing on the bridge, maybe 50 meters below the fire balls exiting the dragon’s mouth, and could feel the heat waves as the flame passed the bridge into the night sky. There were so many people that even if the bridge collapsed, I would have had a soft landing because of the crowd below.
I will take this opportunity to rant, because on Day 3 I booked the tour to Ba Na Hills. On a side note, the park was amazing, and definitely worth even the overpriced amount I paid. I went around the area trying to find some travel agencies willing to organize a tour for me for slightly less than 1,400,000 dong (or 78CAD) offered through my hostel. Surprisingly, it was more or less a monopoly, and even after I said, hey, do less than what my hostel offers me and I would go with you, nobody was too enthusiastic.
As promised in my email, see 360 vids of Bana Hills here, here, here, here… and here 🙂
I ended up booking with my hotel, just to find out on the day of the tour that the buffet part itself cost 380,000 dong and was optional. Even though buffet was set up in a huge ballroom with columns, and had a European-Asian fusion menu with more than probably around 75-80 dishes, it was still not worth it (at least for me).
Ok, well now that my rant is over, I guess I should mention the folks I met and the fun and hectic stuff that followed.
Dju is the French nomad who took the same tour as me (no buffet, however). I guess sniffing out the best deal comes with experience, I dunno.
He introduced me to Luke A., who also got into a bike crash couple of days ago (a Vietnamese guy bumped into him). Our first more or less solid communication happened when he asked me to take a picture of his hospital receipt for travel insurance, since his camera was broken.
…So now we had a Da Nang gang which consisted of:
- Hibi (our Japanese friend, recruited by Mate)
- Mate (Luke A.)
- Dju
- Amy (that’s me, nicknamed after Amy Winehouse because somebody (kahem, Luke!) thought my PERFECT AND ELEGANT eyeliner reminded hers)
Lalit and Yuika joined us later, too.
It reminded me a lot of our Cuban gang, if you read about it here. First you travel for places, then you travel for people. And even though you cannot enter the same river twice, it is very heartwarming to realize this world is a wonderful place. When I was driving back from Havana in a convertible, or singing Bruno Mars in a Vietnamese taxi, tomorrow did not exist, and yesterday did not matter. It was just that moment which mattered, making me feel like a small part of infinity.
The feeling of infinity tends to be disrupted if you are too lazy to walk 20 meters from the boat cruise so you climb over a fence, land on the other side like a world-class gymnast, then 5 minutes you realize your 280,000 dong NEW sandals you bought earlier same day got torn apart completely. I walked barefoot to the Novotel across the street, and Mate approached the reception with the confidence of the owner of the hotel.
-Hey, yeah, we are from the 25th floor, and my wife had her shoe torn, can you fix it somehow please?
I had to keep the straight face, which was kind of difficult given I looked like a barefoot Cinderella who got disappointed in her prince & ready to sell her feet pics online.
We waited for an instant glue for ten minutes, got a staple instead, almost stapled my foot to the sandal, failed, and then I asked for a pair of slippers from “my” room. As one of the hotel staff brought me a pair, I thanked him and he stopped me to double check if I was returning them. Keeping a straight face and looking insulted to the best of my abilities, I said, “Of course.” Suspicious, he asked which room I was staying at, with no hesitation I told him it was 2501, and then we fled the lobby.
The fancy Novotel slippers remain at Kon-Tiki hostel to this day 🙂
We ended the day doing bar hopping and playing pool table, where Mate and Dju almost started another Hundreds Year war disagreeing on the British and French billiard rules.
And, of course, Day 7 – my last day in Da Nang, could not help but take this picture. A year and 3 months later, I finally heard my “welcome back”.
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