Marble Mountain - Hai Van Pass - Hue
Leaving Hoi An was sad but necessary. This town really ruins your bookkeeping - there is too much shopping to do and too much nice things to eat. Calories or galleries both were needed to be left behind: We have one big piece of luggage more after I found the same artist of Hanoi who I fell in love with in HCMC and I have my souvenir to bring home! You have to visit me to see this piece of art in our dining room.
This trip today earns the name rip-off a little but it was well worth it. A private car took us the 12 km to the marble mountains. The mountains consist of 5 ball shaped hills about 500m high each named for the natural element: water, wood, fire, metal and earth. We climbed about 350 stairs with some hands-on climbing through caves and were thanked with a spectacular view overlooking the 30km white sand China Beach. Quite a few pagodas and temples consumed some time, the water bottle was soon empty and the T-shirts soaked by at least 40 degrees.
At the bottom of the mountain is a village specializing in marble sculpture. There he was Mr happy Buddha, but I left him in Vietnam thinking that he only might have gotten homesick in my garden.
But now to the rip-off: the driver who was supposed to wait for us at the bottom of the mountain with all our luggage in the trunk left us waiting for an hour because he got another customer. Ok he showed up right on time for us to get to the train in Da NAng. There the train was 2 hours late - our train got moved to 5 o'clock considering the 3 hour ride to Hue and sunset at around 6 I changed the already overcharged tickets (ticket price 56000 Dongs=2.5 bucks - we had paid at the hotel 7 $) for the earlier train (which also was 2 hours late) paying an additional 4 $. Oh well, the views were great. We saw hidden beaches (reachable only by boat) and rice fields over the pass which is the climate divide between North and South Vietnam. All in all awesome!
Arriving at Hue's train station the next scam are the taxi drivers who want to bring you without the meter to the Hotel for 5 bucks - pls keep in mind that about 50$ is an average month earning. But the Amigo hotel (info also for Susi and Ingrid!) is nice only the room in 5th floor requires another shower right away.
Picture load up problem -- the new card reader doesn't work ! damn..
This trip today earns the name rip-off a little but it was well worth it. A private car took us the 12 km to the marble mountains. The mountains consist of 5 ball shaped hills about 500m high each named for the natural element: water, wood, fire, metal and earth. We climbed about 350 stairs with some hands-on climbing through caves and were thanked with a spectacular view overlooking the 30km white sand China Beach. Quite a few pagodas and temples consumed some time, the water bottle was soon empty and the T-shirts soaked by at least 40 degrees.
At the bottom of the mountain is a village specializing in marble sculpture. There he was Mr happy Buddha, but I left him in Vietnam thinking that he only might have gotten homesick in my garden.
But now to the rip-off: the driver who was supposed to wait for us at the bottom of the mountain with all our luggage in the trunk left us waiting for an hour because he got another customer. Ok he showed up right on time for us to get to the train in Da NAng. There the train was 2 hours late - our train got moved to 5 o'clock considering the 3 hour ride to Hue and sunset at around 6 I changed the already overcharged tickets (ticket price 56000 Dongs=2.5 bucks - we had paid at the hotel 7 $) for the earlier train (which also was 2 hours late) paying an additional 4 $. Oh well, the views were great. We saw hidden beaches (reachable only by boat) and rice fields over the pass which is the climate divide between North and South Vietnam. All in all awesome!
Arriving at Hue's train station the next scam are the taxi drivers who want to bring you without the meter to the Hotel for 5 bucks - pls keep in mind that about 50$ is an average month earning. But the Amigo hotel (info also for Susi and Ingrid!) is nice only the room in 5th floor requires another shower right away.
Picture load up problem -- the new card reader doesn't work ! damn..
beritfamily - 6. Aug, 16:19
