The Journey From Da Nang
Today I awoke to stormy skies above Hanoi, despite this being the dry season for Vietnam apparently they can still get some serious rain dumped on them. It has been raining on and off throughout the day, but that hasn’t dampened our mood or sense for adventure as we headed out for a day of activities in Da Nang and then our short journey to Hoi An.
We started off the day with a trip to the Da Nang University of Economics where we were graciously met be several local students and got to talk about the similarities and differences in our lifestyles and studies. I was able to speek one on one with a freshman accounting major name Thao. It was a truly eye-opening experience. We shared several things in common, she enjoys watching American movies, and likes to watch football (soccer) yet there are many differences between our two cultures. The Vietnamese education system has a standardized test much like the SAT but according to Thao you take a specific test for your area of study and it encompasses multiple subjects within that area. It is apparently quite difficult to do well on, but is required to get accepted into a University. There also didn’t appear to be much room for elective classes in the Vietnamese schedule, so Thao participates in extracurricular clubs relating to her interests.
The main thing about the education system that I found amazing is the fact that while the majority of their classes are taught in Vietnamese. Several classes pertaining to other countries’ forms of economic systems are all taught in different languages. This requires the students to adapt to different lecture languages as well as textbook languages and was really impressive to me. Also I’m not sure if I could survive the Vietnamese college experience, since most of the students days start bright and early at 6 am and they are taking approximately 7 or 8 classes a semester. It seems like an intensive work load, but all of the students seemed very industrious, and you could tell that they wanted to learn and were taking advantage of the great opportunity of a college education.
After departing the university we stopped in at the Cham museum, which is dedicated to the history and artifacts of the Cham ethnic group of Vietnamese. The Cham were the ethnic group that primarily inhabited the central region of Vietnam, and many of them were Hindu followers so we were able to see many ornately carved statues throughout the museum. The sad part however is the fact that many of the artifacts were damaged because the first conquerors of the Cham people took the good artifacts back to their homeland to make a profit, and also would remove the heads of several statues that had jewels placed in them. So throughout the museum there were many headless statues on display, whereas there were very few complete and undamaged statues remaining.
We were able to take a quick side trip out to the port of Da Nang where we had some scenic views of the extremely large bay, as well as the many large crashing waves outside of the bay, I’m assuming the seas were not being particularly nice due to the weather. We were able to get up close and personal (well not too close or personal but close enough) to one of the iconic figures of Da Nang, the Goddess of Mercy statue. This huge statue sits upon Monkey Mountain just outside a buddhist temple and stands almost as a lighthouse (without the light) staring out over the sea. We were almost able to knock our group down to only 10 as we left our photo opportunity with the goddess, as it was a good 5 minutes after we left when someone mentioned “Did we leave Havard?” A quick scan of the bus confirmed this observation, we had actually left Havard on the side of the road halfway up Monkey Mountain. In our defense, he had moved out of sight to get a better photo of the bay, and we did eventually come back and pick him up, so all is well that ends well I guess.
We then traveled to the Marble Mountains, which while they aren’t very tall are impressive for different reasons. They are home to a Buddhist temple, and several caves housing Buddhist monuments. It was amazing to visit these sites where the temple is still standing tall, with a beautiful view out over the sea. Another key fact about the Marble Mountains if you hadn’t guessed from their name is that this is where Vietnam’s marble has been historically gathered. It is no longer gathered here to preserve the historical site, but in the past all of the famous marble statues and carvings have been made with materials from the Marble Mountains.
We finished the day in Hoi An, where we had a slow restful evening. Our days have been so eventful that I find myself taking advantage of every opportunity for rest. Hoi An is a pleasant little town, and I look forward to exploring it more tomorrow as we continue our amazing journey through Vietnam.
**Also I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this entry and most likely tomorrows entry as well. My computer facilities are limited here in Hoi An so I have been unable to get photos up onto the blog, I should hopefully be back with photos in Hue.