The Road to Hoi An

I didn't purposely plan my trip around taking a bus or the road from Hue to Hoi An or vice versa. I knew that I wanted to visit both places, and it just so happened that they were so close to each other (about 3-4 hours by bus) that it didn't make any sense to fly (not that there are any flights between the two). While I was in Hue, though, I saw advertisements about chartering a motorbike and doing the road that way, since apparently the road from Hue to Hoi An had been profiled on some famous British TV show known as "Top Gear" and is considered to be the most spectacular stretch of road in SE Asia.

Because I don't know how to ride, I would have had to hire a driver as well, which would result in a journey price 10x more expensive than taking the bus, and more expensive than some air tickets I had purchased on the trip. There's also the fact that being the passenger on the back of one of those things is only fun for about 30 minutes--after the first half hour, it starts to get tiresome, and you start to get saddle-sore--so I booked the bus instead, which proved to be a wise choice.

The only other option of getting from Hue to Hoi An is via rail. As the main highway runs parallel to the railroad for almost the entire stretch, it is really a question of timing and convenience--for me, it was simply more convenient to take the bus--it is air conditioned, and the roads are in much better shape in Vietnam than in Laos or Cambodia.

We head out of Hue, crossing over one of the many canals/streams that run throughout the city, and then start to head south. As the city passes by, tree covered ridgelike hills are visible behind the houses lining the railbed, which is on the right side of the bus (if heading south), and further hills/borderline mountains that are faintly lit in the distance become increasingly visible as the bus nears their location. It doesn't take long before you are in a rural area that matches the common image of Vietnam many of us have--clearings and fields surrounded by green forests and irregularly shaped hills and mountains.

As you move farther south, you cross over several rivers, and even higher mountains and hills loom in the distance, making the uplifts near Hue look like bunny slopes. In a perfect world, I would have gotten the bus driver to pull over every time I wanted to take a photo. Unfortunately, that would have meant spending the night somewhere between Hue and Hoi An. Forunate enough to get a seat on the west side of the bus, the morning light worked to my advantage as I dealt with limited glare while taking photos from the window. This means I was forced to shoot on the fly, and hope for the best. Fortunately, my photos came out great.

Following the lead of other people on my bus, I also left my seat several times to take pictures through the windshield of scenes that I couldn't have shot any other way. The road becomes increasingly spectacular as the mountains and hills crowd nearer to the coastline, creating some spectacular contrasts in scenery. Steep mountains with jagged ridgelines tower over flat as pancake kelly green ricefields and farmers houses.

The previously flat road starts to steepen, as we begin a climb in elevation to cross one of the various mountain passes, which provides an amazing vista of the surrounding area. The views are just stunning. Coming down from the first mountain pass, an even more stunning sight awaits--a sheltered, nearly perfectly spherical inlet/cove with aquamarine water presided over by steep and towering mountains that rise almost directly from the shoreline--it's not something you expect to see in Vietnam, which makes it all the more spectacular. There's an edenesque quality to the cove, as there's little in the way of tourism, and is only populated by local fisherman still casting their nets in the traditional means.

Then, you have to climb up the second and final mountain pass--and the most spectacular one as well. You emerge from a tunnel bored directly through a mountain staring directly below at aquamarine water, an almost perfect crescent shaped beach, and Danang--vietnam's third or fourth largest city, and where the US marines landed in 1965. The pass is known as Hai Van, and it is easily the most spectacular mountain pass in Vietnam--nowhere else will you get a vista with a such a unique combination of tall, offshore islands, clear water, a flesh colored beach, and an industrial city all in one frame.

Many Americans around my parents age will likely have a natural interest in seeing Danang, considering it was a major US military center during the Vietnam War, but little remains from that period, and Danang is just a massive, sprawling city, with no apparent character to it. If you are desperate to explore it, better to stay in Hoi An and take a day trip to Danang, which is only 30 kms away. The place kind of had a Miami vibe to it, only without the same cultural/artistic ambience. You could do a full scale model of Danang in the U.S., and it wouldn't be all that dissimilar from any number of communities and towns on the gulf coast.

You get past Danang, and see a cluster of about five or so karst hills in the middle of an otherwise flat coastline--these are the Marble Mountains, and can be seen as the traditional starting point for the legendary R&R spot of China Beach, which is actually just a general location name for the long, crescent-shaped stretch of sand from Danang to Hoi An.

You pass what appear to be relics of a US military presence--half oval concrete airplane hanger like structures that are now used as garages and for various other purposes.
You can also see in various places where the ground was definitely built on and had been previously altered, even though no structures currently exist there on site--these sites could be the former locales of military bases, or merely something less historical. It would be interesting to view old military maps of the area and find out, though.

Then the road passes by a cluster of golf courses and walled off properties bearing the names of Greg Norman, Colin Montgomerie, the Hyatt, and Le Meridien. China Beach--at least the part that's closest to Danang--looks like it is going to explode in the next five to ten years with the amount of development occuring along its coast, as Vietnam attempts to market it as their "golf coast." Big changes are in store, and it would be interesting to come back in several years to see what the place looks like.

You pass more land that looks like it once held a development of some kind, given how depressed some of the sand and the grass is, and the small size of the trees dotting the properties indicate that they were planted rather recently.

Then, its past the Danang International Cable building before crossing over a river, passing more ricefields and finally arriving in the quaint and quiet town of Hoi An, where I will pick up from in my next post.