Not too many people know about this (actually me too) but apparently there's another mega city besides Hanoi and Saigon in Vietnam called Da Nang. I stumbled upon this place while planning my exit from Hoi An since it has the nearest airport, so I decided to take a flight from there to Saigon to save time.
The hostel I booked in Da Nang had free shuttle services from Hoi An so that's one less problem to think about. Check out Funtastic Da Nang if you're there, very affordable hostel with clean rooms & restrooms. I think I booked mine at around USD 6/night only.
Upon checking in I rested a bit, had lunch and booked a Grab from my place to the Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains, well from its name is a series of marble mountains (lol). This place played an important role during the Vietnam War where the Vietcong setup a camp in the said mountains, hidden in plain sight. Today it hosts multiple Buddhist shrines and grottoes.
After around 2 hours of hiking and asking strangers to take my photos, I went back to the hostel to rest since there's nothing much to do in the city (at least I think).
I met up with my college blockmate, Daryl who now works at the Oishi HQ in Da Nang for dinner and grabbed a few drinks while catching up.
The next day I had a few hours to spare in the city before my flight to Saigon. I decided to visit the Cham Museum which is a little overkill cos I literally just visited the actual site of the Cham people near Hoi An, lol.
Nothing much, just some beautiful pieces excavated from a sacred ed land where Hinduism flourished in the middle of Buddhist lands.
After that I passed by the My Khe beach before heading back to the hotel to get my stuff before my flight to Saigon.
Lol that pic. After checking in my hotel in Saigon I went straight to Bui Vien, the backpacker street for some food and to look for the titas I met back in 2014!
Good to know that they're still there! They didn't recognize me of course (lol sino ba naman ako) until I showed our 2014 (left) photo. Three years later they're still cuties!
I was up early the next day for my Mekong Delta tour, which I skipped the last time I was here cos we didn't have much time. The tour lasted a day since the travel time between Mekong & Saigon took a while cos of the traffic. It was great even though we were only able to see the tip of the iceberg of south Vietnam's floating villages. I heard dedicating 2-3 days in Mekong Delta brings you deeper into the river where you'll see less-touristy places and witness a more authentic lifestyle of the river people. Since I lost my phone with the rest of my Saigon images, here are some photos I was able to get off my Instagram:
The next day was my last day in Vietnam. I didn't have anything planned but to visit multiple coffee shops until my tummy ached, lol. Seriously though, Vietnam's coffee culture is the best. It's where you can get a great cup of iced coffee from the street vendors for only P20, I mean where can you find something like that. Plus there’s third wave coffee everywhere!So yeah, basically I spent the entire day drinking coffee before my flight back to Manila late in the evening.
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