Saturday : overcast

After an overnight storm we had Banana Pan cakes and iced coffee in our hotel for breakfast over looking the river and (old town) yum. Then we booked a My Sun tour for tomorrow, hired a scooter and made our way to Marble Mountains.

Riding along the country roads was great, Kim was enjoying the ride too. Green rice fields and less traffic made it easy. We topped up the bike with some peddo and got the attendant to point us in the right direction.

As we were approaching the mountains (you can not miss them) but we would of missed the turn off for sure. Lucky us a lady on a passing scooter told us to follow her back to her house. Which was where her family carves and sells marble statues and sculptures, and right across from the entry to the mountains so we didn't have to pay for parking... Yet.

You can either take a lift to the top or walk up the stairs, we took the stairs and there were a few, and also steep, I wish I had a slinky. But there were none for sale, there's an idea..

You get up about half way and you come to the first few pagodas and white marble buddas and cave temples, There are a couple look outs too. Then you head up along another, long and steep set of stairs no lift for this one. Which took you past another a smaller cave temple, and through a small village with more pagodas and buddas, some pagodas had really nice stained detailed timber work but most of the pagodas look like they have a big Chinese influence. Also this village had a pathway that took you to an enormous cave temple. It made you feel like Indian Jones, it was really cool.

There was another stairway that took you to the peak of the mountain and as you could imagine it was pretty steep as well. We had a break up there, you can see most of Da Nang and the beach and the 20 or so km back to
Hoi An.

There was nothing else around picture dead flat land and a few green/grey colored mountains growing up from the earth, with small houses between them Much like Ayers Rock but smaller and minus the houses.

We then followed the stairs all the way back down to the bike and was shown around the ladies shop of course she wanted us to by something for her directions and looking after our scooter. I bought a Marble Happy Buddha, apparently theyre good luck.

We then headed for monkey mountain. the road followed Da Nang beach and you could ride to the top, almost had to push the scooter up the last stretch because it was so steep. The mountain was used for radar during the war, and we saw big monkeys swinging in the trees. Again a it had a great view from the top, and still had a group of people how took photos of us.

We then rode the 30kms back, passing these huge resorts really they are big! And we could see more land being prepped for future development. Don't know how they will fill them all

We stopped at a beach front restaurant and bar for a couple of hours for some drinks then I hit the surf. It was sooo good. Apparently Quy Nhon wasn't the last beach we would see.

We got back to the hotel and got cleaned up to go out for dinner. Walking through the town again tonight was special, little candle lanterns were being lit and placed down into the river so they could float around with the lit up floating satues. Lanterns hanging from every shop, restaurant and tree. The roads were closed to scooters for people to walk through the narrow laneways and streets and not get run over. Much quieter too, without all they bikes, made it easier to here the music and dancers around. Hoi An is known for is tailored clothing stores they are everywhere. Should of come here last.

We gave the Pho a miss tonight and ate at Good Morning Vietnam!!
It was an Italiano joint. Pretty tasty we had pizza, pasta and a couple glasses of wine. It was a good change. It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel and watched surrogates.