- -Danang - -
The train tickets said the train would be arriving at 6am. It didn’t come until 7:30, but being the good travelers we are we arrived at 5:30. Settled in for the wait, we got some snacks and watched the morning news. At 7:30 everyone filed out to the platform and jumped on the train. We had a fairly pleasant six hour ride to Danang. The route the train takes is right on the edge of the ocean so there are great views the entire way down. But like a lot of places in the world, the view is slightly tainted as alongside the outside the train, the tracks are littered with Styrofoam containers and coke bottles. What can you do?
Once we arrived in Danang we walked out of the station to avoid the gouging and scamming taxi’s that prey on our type. About two blocks down the road as we were walking towards our hotel a scooter taxi guy asked if we wanted a ride. We asked how much, and knowing how far we had to go thus having all the cards, he quoted us a price that was too high in our minds. So we continued walking. Five minutes down the road, guess who rolled up alongside us? Scooter dude; but this time shouting a price a little lower. We said no thanks again and kept going. Well the third time is the charm because after another block or so he came back with an even lower price. This time, from a combination of his persistence and Emma’s weariness, we agreed to his terms and she hopped on the back. Ahron continued walking, this time not getting lost, and they were reunited 20 minutes later at the hotel.
You can probably guess what happened next. A quick rest and a shower, then we went out to find food. Being next to the sea we settled on clams at a street side eatery. There we devoured our clams and took in the sights of the night – families out and about walking along the waters edge and the Dragon bridge shooting fire out of its mouth.
June 23rd will most likely be a day that lives in our minds and the minds of the people vacationing in Danang for the rest of our lives. After a pretty normal start to our day, getting food in our bellies and snagging some fruit from the market across the street, we rented a scotter from the hotel and took off on an adventure. The mission was to find a beach. After an hour of cruising by fishing boats that looked like bathtubs we found one. It wasn’t the cleanest beach but it was unoccupied and allowed for some nice laying out and book reading with a little dip in-between. There happened to be a little restaurant on the premises where we had a small snack. Tired of the limited options here we road back to town taking care not to stick to the same path as we did earlier. This turned out to pay off majorly. It seemed as though we had stumbled onto the most popular stretch of beach in all of Vietnam. There were so many people on the beach that they were shoulder to shoulder out in the water. There were people para-sailing right off the shore, floating back in when their ride was over. The banana was getting ripped around in the break. Soccer was being played and a little further down the way there seemed to be people congregated around a stage. Being big fans of a performance, we moved in closer to investigate, not before having a swim mind you. It turned out there was no singing, or dancing or acting, but eating. They were having a sandwich eating competition sponsored by the local grocery store, and the winners were walking away with 400-500 dong all for eating four sandwiches. Well we watched a few round of this and we were convinced that Ahron could win. However, approaching the stage and trying to sign up was a bit intimidating so we just stood by and observed. After three rounds, including one for only children and one for only moms, he finally got the prod he needed. A man standing next to them motioned if we were going to participate. We gestured and asked if we could and he seemed convinced that yes it would be alright. So convinced in fact that he dragged Ahron up to the sign in desk and there he signed him up; for both an eating comp and a beer drinking comp. He found Emma after this and told her the news. She was pumped. Then the announcer girl said out loud that the competition wasn't only open to Vietnamese and if any foreigners wanted to participate that they could (kind because we were the only ones). We looked at each other, smiled and went to sign Emma up. It was at this point that we learned that they had run out of time for the eating completion, and only had the beer chugging left to complete. This was probably better for us, for even though we would have to forfeit the potential winnings, it would be way easier to chug beers without four sandwiches in your gut. After the last of the children finished with their sandwiches, we were called up to the stage. Other than each other, our competition consisted of a couple of ladies who looked like they had kids and one college age dude. Introductions were made, none of which we understood and the beers were brought out: one big glass and one can. We had both done more that before so it was looking good for us. The countdown started and at the whistle we took off. It was neck and neck between Ahron and the college age kid, and Emma was keeping up with the old ladies. With two gulps on the kid Ahron transitioned to the can; popped it open and put it to the lips. There was a moment when the shotgun method came to mind, but he thought that would take too much time, but with those thoughts he failed to notice the temperature of the beer he was about to consume. By the time he realized it was almost to late. The can had been room temp, or in this case, beach temp; hot. The first chug foamed up, but he powered through. It must have affected the kid worse, for he was soon on the side of the stage throwing everything up. That or he had tried his hand at the sandwich comp too. Emma was at that moment third behind one of the ladies. Ahron finished, slamming the can on his head to cheers from the crowd. Then he turned to check on Emma’s race for second. At that moment the lady in between them opened up and beer spewed all over her hands as she was trying to keep it down. This left Emma and the other lady, all she had to do was finish her beer. Which she did. We took 1st and 2nd place! The crowed loved it. We loved it. We loved the free beer. For our prizes we were briefly disappointed when we were not handed checks, but when we got bags full of more beer, our frowns turned to smiles. We would be set for the next week! We just had to carry the brews around with us. After our win, we treated ourselves to a fish dinner. We ate at a place that has a pyramid of fish tanks and you get to walk around picking which ones you want to eat. A very neat concept and it ensures you get really fresh fish. After dinner we scooted over to find some music at a bar we had seen earlier, but there turned out to be no music this night, except the songs of champions that was playing over and over in our heads. We went to sleep to these sweet tunes.
The following day we wanted a good beach day but it just didn’t happen. We searched and searched then got burned out on the hunt and by the sun. It started raining cats and dogs and so we booked it back to town and back to our room. We went on a scooter search later in the night for dinner and stumbled upon a killer night market with some wicked street food. That was a bonus for the poor day that we had.