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Bicycle Rickshaw Driver
The pedicab drivers know where the resort shuttle buses will drop their customers off, and are ready and waiting.
I had a map and a plan.
Turns out, I needn’t have bothered!
We were headed into Đà Nẵng for a February afternoon, and I had done my homework. But, as soon as my husband and I alighted from our resort shuttle bus, we were greeted by a smiling pedicab driver who cheerfully persuaded us we could not possibly walk to the places we wanted to visit. He offered – for a small fee – the services of himself and his friend for a few hours.
And so we set off: two foreign tourists feeling like royalty perched in our individual rickshaws while our drivers cycled madly through the broad, tree-lined streets of Central Vietnam’s largest city. Lonely Planet says Danang “has few conventional sightseeing spots”, but we found plenty of places to keep us occupied and interested.
Join me for a tour of Vietnam’s third largest city.
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Đà Nẵng Street Scenes
Although Danang is the busiest city on Vietnam’s central coast – a major port and the commercial and educational center of the region – the streets still feel quiet and safe as we are cycled through them.
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High-Wire Repairs
Like many other places in Asia, the telephone and electrical wires mass in a tangle overhead. Workers regularly take their lives into their own hands!
Trung Hưng Bửu Tòa
Our first stop was at the Cao Daist Missionary Church. A monotheistic religion built on the fundamental doctrines of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, Cao Đài originated in South Vietnam around 1919.
Inside Danang’s Cao Daist Missionary Church
The religion has between three- and eight-million adherents in Vietnam, with and estimated 30,000 in the Vietnamese diaspora. This temple in Danang serves about 50,000 followers.
Prayer Pad
“Adherents [of Cao Đài] engage in practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence and vegetarianism with the goal of union with God and freedom from saṃsāra [the endless cycle of reincarnation: birth, mundane existence, and dying].“
All-Seeing Cao Daist Eye
The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God. In Danang, this all-seeing eye is painted on a large globe: symbolising the universe and source of all life.
Courtyard: Bảo Tàng Đà Nẵng
The Museum of Danang was built between 2005 and 2011.
Trung Tâm Hành Chính Đà Nẵng
The Danang City Administration Center – across the road from the Museum – seems to symbolise the city’s desire to move away from it’s reputation as a provincial backwater. Finished in 2014, the 34-story building is an eye-catching, if impractical, addition to the waterfront.
Specimens
We were underwhelmed by the exhibits in the Museum of Danang. The first (of three) floors is devoted to Natural and Social History.
Tượng Phật A Di Đà (XVII-XIX)
The museum contains historical relics, like this one of Amitābha, a celestial Buddha important in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Fish Praying
Dioramas in dark corners illustrate traditional central-coastal community practices – like this one depicting the annual Cau Ngu Festival where people pray for a good fish harvest.
Danang Skyline
There are nice views over the city from the Museum of Danang stairwells.
Commemorating the War and the US Presence
The second floor of the museum is devoted to Danang’s long struggle with war. In recent history, France attacked the city in 1858. The Americans landed in 1965, and set up a large military complex nearby. The last American ground combat operations departed in 1972, after which the city was taken by the North Vietnamese in 1975.
Opera Masks
The museum’s third floor houses ethnic and cultural artefacts.
Đà Nẵng Cathedral
Sacred Heart Cathedral in Danang was built in 1923 for the city’s French residents. It is known as the Con Ga Church (Rooster Church) because of the tiny French rooster high on the steeple.
Đà Nẵng Cathedral Grounds
The church now serves a Catholic community of over 4000.
Danang Diocese Bishops House
The Sacred Heart Cathedral is home to the Roman Catholic diocese of Đà Nẵng, under the Province of Hue.
Museum of Cham Sculpture
Danang’s origins date back to the ancient kingdom of Champa, which governed Southern Vietnam from 192 A.D to 1697.
Cham Sculpture
The Cham were an Indic civilisation: some say indigenous to Vietnam; others believe the were originally colonists from the Indonesian islands.
Cham Sculpture
After a thousand years of skirmishes – and trade – with the people of Java, the Khmer of Angkor in Cambodia, and the Đại Việt of northern Vietnam, the Champa civilisation finally lost its independence to the Đại Việt. The museum houses painstakingly recovered sandstone and terracotta artworks dating from the 7th to the 15th centuries.
Golden Buddha
Our next stop, at Phap Lam Pagoda, was a complete contrast.
Lady Buddha, the Bodhisattva of Mercy
Phap Lam Pagoda seemed to be a popular place for Buddhist worship, …
Students Posing
… although the young people there were happy to cluster together to have their pictures made.
Prayers in the Shrine
I lost count of how many different shrines were housed around the Phap Lam Temple.
Another Shrine – Chùa Pháp Lâm
The Con Market
After settling up with our pedicab drivers, we made our way into the colourful Con Market.
Saleswoman in the Con Market
The sales people were all very welcoming, …
“Wake up the Ideas”
… and were especially happy when we actually made purchases.
We bought enough rich Vietnamese coffee to share with our neighbours, and made our way back into the street in time to collect the shuttle back to our resort.
Somehow, our negotiations with our rickshaw bicycle drivers got lost in translation, and we ended up paying more than we thought we had agreed to.
Still, it was well worth it, and our head-driver was right: we would have never have seen as many sights if we’d tried to visit them on foot.
Until next time,
Happy Travels!
Photos: 26February2016
