Da Nang - Marble Mountains and Hoi An

From Da Nang, we ventured on a second day trip by taxi to visit the Marble Mountains and the nearby city of Hoi An. Our trip started with a visit to a stone carving business just next to the Marble Mountains where we saw many impressive statues and figurines made from stone as well as how they were made by hand. In their gift shop we were then accompanied by a sales lady who followed us at every turn and then essentially kicked us out with an “OK, bye!” once we said that we don’t want to buy anything. After that, we visited the Marble Mountains, which is a hill that we climbed with a big cave underneath, which we also visited.

Then we headed to Hoi An where we started with a ride in a coconut boat. These are little half spherical boats fitting about 3 people. The ride in these boats brought us through canals between bamboo forests and some preposterous tourist attractions. The first one was a little stage where a guy was blasting Gangnam Style from big speakers and singing Karaoke terribly. The purpose of making a fool of himself was to get tips from all the coconut boats that stopped by during their ride. The second one was a stop where you could pay to hop into a different coconut boat which would then spin around quickly for a bit. At the end of what could have otherwise been an idyllic ride, our “drivers” seemed to push us to give them tips on top of the already expensive fare for the ride, but it was unclear what they wanted as they did not speak a single word in English. It certainly did not sound like a “thank you for riding with us” though.
Subsequently, our driver dropped us off as close to the city center as cars were allowed to go where we were greeted by heavy rain and a swarm of old locals who used this opportunity to sell every tourist an umbrella or a rain coat. Obviously, they wanted to charge ridiculous prices and did not take no for an answer. After a ton of bargaining, we headed into town with some new umbrellas and rain coats. In the city, we enjoyed lunch and dinner and did some sight seeing in between before heading back to Da Nang in the evening.

Fun fact, Matthias’ rain coat would serve him well on many occasions in the months to come, so money well spent.Læs mere