Da Nang - Day 1

This morning I woke up about 15 minutes before our wake up call at 7am and headed down to the breakfast at the hotel. It was not a usual Australian breakfast, I started with the Phò, a noodle and beef soup. There were also baguettes amongst the wide range of interesting foods due to the French influence.

 

Following breakfast, the group headed off for a walk around the streets noticing how different everything is. The biggest shocks include the amount of times you can't keep walking on the footpath because of lack of space, and the mess that is the powerlines overhead.

 

We stopped in at a silk making shop which was fascinating. They made fantastic pictures out of silk that obviously required serious skill.

 

We arrived at a 'Wet Market' where we had some time to look around. I bought some very good Ray Ban intimitations. The market was an interesting experience but at least the animals were not slaughteref there, only hung up for display.

 

Outside the market we had a look at the Hahn river and the development along the banks. There was a fantastic dragon bridge which apparently sometimes even breaths fire.

 

Dragon Bridge in Da Nang

We then headed to a cafe to just watch a busy intetsection and try to determine how we would navigate across it. I have determined that you should never expect to actually be able to order what is on the menu. 2/2 times so far this has happened. After about half an hour we cautiously but at the same time wrecklessly (because you have to) made our way across the intersection.

 

From here we headed back to the hotel wherr everyone split up into smaller groups to find some lunch, look at shops and/or chill out in the hotel.



Tom, Scott and I walked up the street for a bit before heading back to our rooms as it was only 11:30 and too early for lunch. We headed back out at 12:15 to a nice looking place we had seen just up the street from the hotel.

 

Unfortunately they didn't have an English menu but we orded the beef anyway just to see what happened.

 

For the first time what I actually ordered came on a plate to me! It was also really good. I am learning to use chopsticks pretty quickly, although I will probably forget again by the next meal.

 

Reasonably priced beef

The only weird part about this dining experience was that the waiter decoded to wait around for too long and actually watch us eat (also laughing at my failed chopsticks attempts). At about $8 each (and probably overcharged) I shouldn't really complain.

 

Following lunch we all had to meet up in our formal/business attire and catch a bus to our first University visit at Da Nang University. 

 

The meeting/lecture was in a conference room where we all sat on one side with the Vietnamese students and professors on the other side and around the room. We learnt a fair bit about the history of Da Nang and how it has influenced the built form of the city.

 

Da Hang University

The students were all architecture students and so were not as interested in the planning side of things as we were. It was a very formal and sometimes uncomfortable situation, but immediately following the meeting all of the students came to be friendly, many asking some of our group to be Facebook friends and in some cases even asking for their phone number.

 

This was all lovely up until we realised that one of the guys had followed the bus back to our hotel...

At the hotel we had a short time to refresh before a debreif meeting with the group. It was good to be able to get everyone's perspectives on the first day in Vietnam.

 

The meeting finished at about 8pm which we decided was too early to just be sitting in our rooms so Tom, Scott and I went on a walk. We ran into some others along the way and ended up at a restaurant next to the hotel.

 

-Nick