The road to Hoi An

Dear all

Today we had a little splurge and hired ourselves a private driver to take us down the very picturesque coast to Hoi An (yes I know all these places do sound similar!) The first stop was Lang Co Beach which is just North of the demilitarised zone the Truong Son Mountains, which stretch all the way to the coast between the two former countries. This fabulous beach was absolutely deserted and we spent a good hour walking along it just enjoying the moment. We then climbed over the Hai Van Pass, whihc predictably was ocvered in low cloud, but we were relaibly informed that on a good day you have fantastic views of the South over Danang right down to Hoi An ,but it wasn't to be.........

We stopped in Danang for lunch at a great little place called Bread for Life which is a bakery and cafe entirely staffed by deaf people (who get treated very badly in Vietnam). We had a bit of culture at the Cham Museum before we left for our penultime stop the marble mountains,  a cluster of five marble and limestone hills. The five 'mountains' are named after the five elements; Kim (metal), Thuy (water), Moc (wood), Hoa (fire) and Tho (earth).

All of the mountains have cave entrances and numerous tunnels, and it is possible to climb to the summit of one of the peaks, which is exactly what we did  to enable us to see some of the buddhist temples and pagodas on the summit. The first signs of rains started as we approached the ticket kiosk, but we assumed that it would just be a quick shower and all would be well. How wrong we were....

By the time we were halfway up, the stairs were more like a waterfall than marble steps. The top was no better and we had the ability to see that there were rain clouds all around us in every direction. We had a quick look around but just had to cut the visit short as the rain was so relentlous... The steps down were even more water laden so we were glad to ge back to the safety of the car and finish our journey to Hoi An albeit the roads were now about 4-5 inches of muddy water! It carried on raining for the rest of the night...... Little did wee we know but this was going to be our 'wet' part of the tour.

Thanks for looking

Hugs

Sara xx