Vietnam North to South – Day 8: From Huế to Hội An

February 17, 2024

Today was a day spent in slowly making our way from Huế to Hội An. We made a leisurely start, leaving our hotel at nine o’clock in the morning. After some two hours on the road, we stopped by a small touristy village of pearl fishers, where we took pictures of the quaint stilt houses and ate caulerpa lentillifera (also called sea grapes). We then proceeded to a proper seafood restaurant, where I ate clams with lemongrass and chili. They were very good, and I managed to scrape out an entire coconut with my spoon.

Taking the scenic road, we ascended to Hải Vân Pass on our way to Da Nang. The city was in a bit of a haze, and the fort on top of the pass was not open. Our tour guide said that although the fort was originally built by the Nguyens, it had fallen into disrepair and only began to go through extensive repairs recently. After descending into Da Nang, we made another quick stop to view the Dragon Bridge – a bridge whose arches are designed to look like the body of a dragon, its head sticking out into the sky.

Our final stop of the day was at the Marble Mountains, where we visited a giant marble shop and pondered how many hours of labour humanity wastes on vanities. How different would the world look, I thought, if the thousands of hours locked up in these products were used differently? Receiving no answer from the stone faces, we took the elevator up one of the mountains. At its peak stand two temples, one twenty-five years old and one two hundred. The real highlight, however, are the Buddha statues and temple carved into the rock, which seem to have required painstaking efforts to make.

After we checked into our hotel in Hội An, my dad went to get a massage while I ventured out into the city. Knowing that this was my one chance to buy a meal at a roadside stall and eat on a little plastic chair, I indulged and got a spicy egg bánh mì. On his way back, my dad also bought some durian pieces, which we ate on the balcony for fear of stinking up the room.