Hoi An & Hway

My main reason for wanting to go to Hoi An was it was close to China Beach.  I was a huge fan of the show so couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go there.  As it turns out, China Beach is the name the GI’s gave to the beach which stretches all the way from Danang to Hoi An and all the different communities along the way have different names for their own bits of the beach.

Hoi An also has it’s own World Heritage listed “Old Town”.  Apparently, both sides agreed in the war to not destroy Hoi An and it is largely intact of its French townhouses and also the original ancient Chinese architecture.  At night, motorbikes and cars are banned from the Old Town which is a massive relief.  All the streets are lit up with lanterns and you can walk up and down the alleyways relatively unhindered (except for the shopowners who continually yell out to you “Madame! Madame! You buy something!”)

Danang is the 3rd biggest city in Vietnam and is in between HoiAn and Hue (pron. Hway).  We drove there to check out the scenery along the way from HoiAn before we caught the train to Hue.  The section of China Beach at Danang is where GI’s came to take R&R during the war and it must have been great then when it was under developed.  It  is a beautiful section of beach now and is quickly being bought up by the likes of Sheraton etc for massive beach resorts and there is very little public beach left.

Getting on the train to Hue was another of those funny stories which by now are probably not that funny.  Mainly because nobody spoke English – we knew we had to get to platform 2 but couldn’t work out how to get there.  The train guard got so frustrated with me that she grabbed my wrist  and pushed me onto the train, yelling at me the whole time.  It turns out we had to walk through the train on platform 1 and onto the tracks to then climb into our train (platform 2 is not a platform!!)  The train was hot and grotty and we were pretty fired up after trying to find the right train – attitudes were in need of check I can tell you!  After a couple of Riverview podcasts and a shower, we were sort of back on track – but we all agreed that Vietnam was definately taking its toll!

Hue was the original empirical capital of Vietnam and as such was the site of it’s own Forbidden City and Citadel.  Unfortunately, during both the French and American wars, the sites of the Emperor’s palace and complex were largely destroyed (as was most of Hue).  It appears the government has only recently started to renovate the old buildings.  It must have been very impressive in its day and it is very sad to see it in the state it is today.

For those of you who want to revisit your China Beach memories click here!