Da Nang and The Struggle within - 8/3/2016

And like that, it hit me.
not exactly what you think of when you hear the term "exhaustion", but I think that's the only word I can use to fit the description. I just had nothing left in the tank.

On the first day I walked from the hotel I was staying at to the Vincom Shopping centre,  a walk of about 50 minutes and there I grabbed a coffee, updated the blog and visited a couple of shops in the complex before heading back the same route along the streets, trying to get used to the flow of the traffic again and coaxing myself to actually cross the road when your senses are telling you not to, putting your faith that the traffic will avoid you rather than the other way around. At one point I stood at the side of a 6 lane carriageway of one of the main routes of the city for about 10 minutes as bikes, cars and trucks thundered through and I tried to find a gap that would give me just the slightest chance of survival. It was just like a real life game of "Frogger", but with just the one life, no extra credits and the potential for plenty of dead pixels.

It wasn't just the walk that tired me so much, but I just felt a bit flat from having to deal with the discomfort in my foot and the almost continual need to either find painkillers, rest or perform minor surgery. In the one. The first 5 days were mainly spent away from the main part of Da Nang, dipping in to visit the museums and some coffee shops interspersed with trips by car to places a little further a field, various points of interests that my friend Lan thought that I might be interested in seeing.

The Marble Mountains and temples which represent the 5 elements of earth, water, metal, wood and fire are worth a visit, not just for the temple on the one hill you can visit, but also for the sheer amount of carved statues that adorn the buildings in the surrounding areas, either on a personal, residential level or shops crammed with carvings for sale.

North along the stunning, white sands of My Khe beach that stretches about 20 miles along the coast, Son Tra boasts more temples, more spectacular views, a monkey mountain, a 1000 year old banyan tree, bamboo reservation area and a peak which you can usually view the vistas below. Unfortunately when we got there in the afternoon, the peak had been consumed by mist, visibility was reduced to barely more than 20 or 30 meters and the climb to reach it a little slippery.

The man at the top stared at me stoney faced contemplating his next move as he has done for many years, but I had worked out mine. I had been in correspondence with the NhiNhi hotel in Hoi An just a short distance south of Da Nang and they had informed me that the following week the town was hosting an International food festival. The opportunity of revisiting a Hoi An, a place with a charm that I freely admit that I fell for on my previous trip combined with a festival dedicated to the thing on which I thrive just seemed like something to good to miss.