It had been more than 55 years since I last visited Da Nang, Vietnam. Back then it was simply a stopover as I traveled from Phu Cat, where I was stationed, to an air base in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, where I would be working for the next 30 days. They called it TDY to NKP. At that time, Da Nang was a major air base in Vietnam where troops, ammunition, supplies, and medical evacuations occurred routinely.
I had never really been to any downtown Vietnamese city, with the exception of Saigon. From what I had heard, Da Nang was a beautiful city.
Our tour, which Debby arranged through Viator, actually took us inland to the city of Hue. It, too, was a beautiful place. The barrios were much the same as the other stops we had made during the past three days. The little shops and storefronts looked very similar. The main difference I noticed was the absence of the thick white smog. I could actually see several blocks away instead of just two!
Like other places we had visited, Hue was preparing for the Chinese New Year. There were flowers everywhere along the streets, with markets open for business supplying flowers for customers. We visited more monuments, pagodas, and temples. Our guide was a young Vietnamese woman who taught school as her primary job. Her name was Loi. She was very knowledgeable and fed us more information than we could possibly retain.
We visited the tomb of someone very important and also the temple connected with Vietnam’s last king before the country was taken over in 1945. After that, several wars followed as the North Vietnamese Communists attempted to take control of South Vietnam. Eventually, they succeeded.
The French had been involved in Vietnam since the 1800s. In fact, the French fought in Vietnam for more than 20 years before the Americans came in to show the French how to do it. After about 20 years, we too pulled out. That’s when the Communist forces swept into South Vietnam like locusts.
We were told firsthand how, during those times, soldiers would break into homes, take everything of value, imprison or kill families, or simply throw people into the streets. It was a terrible time. Now, 50 years later, here we are again—friends and visitors as if nothing ever happened. Many of them want to be like us, learn our language, watch our movies, listen to our music, and experience our culture. Times certainly do change.
We also visited the Forbidden City, the residential palace of the last king. During our one-day visit we walked a lot of steps. One stop took us up a hillside to the memorial where the king was buried. There were nearly 125 steps up the mountainside to reach the memorial. Some of us managed to walk all of them! There were no roads or elevators to help. There never were, and probably never will be.
The ladies wanted to do some shopping, so our guide stopped at a middle-end shopping center. We went inside and looked around for a while, though not much was purchased. The flowers outside were gorgeous.
Lunch was served at a busy restaurant. Apparently several other tours had the same idea. We were served a variety of local Cantonese dishes that we couldn’t pronounce. Everything was very good, and the hot jasmine tea was excellent as well.
Later we visited another market where we could buy Vietnamese trinkets and inexpensive souvenirs.
At another stop, Loi took us into a store where we bought a few items. I purchased a wooden turtle that is actually a three-dimensional puzzle. I’ll have to learn how to put it together. It was carved from wood taken from a jackfruit tree. While we were there, we watched a young woman making incense by hand. That was interesting to see.
All in all, after all the places we visited and the walking we did, it felt good to get back to our rooms aboard the cruise ship, have dinner in the International Restaurant, and turn in early.
The next day would be a day at sea as we headed toward Taiwan.
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