Chan May, Vietnam

Our visit to this port in central Vietnam took us past beautiful countryside with fish farms and rice paddies, to the major city of Da Nang and the delightful historic district of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We passed by a lot of rice paddies being farmed, like this one.

We saw masses of these yellow flowers being sold on street corners and shops along the way. Yellow is a lucky color and everyone has to have some for Chinese New Year. Although in Vietnam, our guide told us, it’s referred to as the Lunar New Year. Pink and red flowers, also lucky colors, were sprinkled in as well.

This dragon bridge, named for the giant yellow dragon snaking along it, is a major attraction spanning the Han river in Da Nang. It has the honor of being the world’s largest dragon shaped steel bridge. I don’t know how many other dragon bridges it is competing with.

In Da Nang we visited the Museum of Cham Sculpture, the only museum in the country devoted to the culture of the Champa people. The kingdom of Champa controlled what is not central and south Vietnam from 192 to 1697. It was influenced by early Hindu culture and its brick temples and towers are still scattered through its former empire. This museum houses thousands of its sculptures, most of them at least a thousand years old.

The Marble Mountains in Da Nang have spiritual and scenic meaning. We didn’t climb the mountains and visit their temples and caves, but we did get a view of those majestic hills. They were so named by the French because its geologists found the mountains truly are made of marble. And many local crafts people carve beautiful sculptures from that marble. We got to see some of them, below.

The city of Hoi An is one of the most charming places we have visited in our journey. Its Ancient Town, a Heritage site, is a well-preserved mix of architecture and culture from the city’s five centuries as a former trading port. We loved the mix of Chinese shop houses and temples and French colonial style buildings and it’s iconic Japanese bridge. It’s a lively, colorful tourist center, full of action, but not overburdened with crowds.

The town’s famous, four century old Japanese bridge is a much simpler, barer version of itself since its recent renovation and a series of floods in the town. It is still a lovely reminder of the bridge built by the Japanese in the 16th century to connect their side of town with the Chinese section. It was a symbol of unity.

A series of canals cut through the old town.

At the end of the street is the Chinese temple we visited, which is over 200 years old. While Vietnam is officially an atheistic state, most of its population practice some form of religion, the majority being Buddhist. We saw worshippers at the Hindu temple.

This is the beautiful garden in the temple.

Below is the Phung Hung Ancient House of Hoi An. It’s one of the heritage buildings of Hoi An, built in 1780 as a commercial business and owned by 8 generations of the same family. In the early 1900’s it was a gathering place for intellectuals and progressives to meet and share ideas.