Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Da Nang, Vietnam

Our second port in Vietnam, DeNang was reportedly once a quiet provincial town, but is now a bustling city teeming with thousands of motorbikes, busses accompanied by lots of horn honking. Hot and humid, we ventured out to a gigantic market packed with everything from packaged food, meat, local delicacies, to crowded stalls of shoes including Crocs and athletic kicks of all brands, and athletic clothes which are manufactured here. Nike, Adidas, Northface, Izod and mixed in with local tropical Asian designs and T-shirts galore. It was stifling and claustrophobic, but the lure of bargains made us endure the mash-up. There’s a real challenge computing the prices with the local currency. One dollar = 24,969.202 Vietnamese Dongs — you do the math!

A Dragon bridge is a prominent colorful feature. There are temples and shrines everywhere in Vietnam for Confucism, Buddhism, Taoism and some Catholicism. The Vietnam communist government is tolerant of the people’s religious practices unlike in some other totalitarian regimes that shut down temples and churches or actively persecute religious sects, as we see today around the world causing terrorism, suffering and wars. At least the Asian temples and deities and practices are colorful and make good photo subjects.

Colorful Dragon bridge