We took a night train from Hanoi to Da Nang, the third largest city in Vietnam located in the center of the country. We had taken night trains going to and from Sapa, and had gotten soft beds, but the soft beds were sold out because a lot of people were traveling for the Tet holiday (Vietnamese lunar new year) so we had to go for the hard bed, which has 6 beds per cabin rather than 4. The beds were not that much worse than the soft beds, and everything seemed to be going fine until we figured out the really annoying part of the hard bed cabins – Vietnamese people try to fit as many people as possible into their beds to the point of our room being crammed full of people. 

Thom and I had the middle bunks, and the two people on top did not have any visitors (thank goodness). When the train started off in Hanoi, there was a teenager in one of the bottom beds and a ~11 year old in the other, they were brothers. At some point in the night, the boys invited their family in and there were suddenly 6 people in those two beds. Some of those people were obnoxious young children, who were yelling and fighting and kicking and punching our beds and trying to climb into our beds at around 6am. Their awful parents did nothing to stop them, they were too busy yelling into their cell phones on speakerphone and letting them ring a hundred times on full blast before deciding to answer them over and over again. Thankfully the train did actually make it to its destination on time; we were really glad to get off the train when we finally got to Da Nang!

   
 
We had found a host on workaway.info, an international website where hosts who need work done can post their needs online, and potential workers can message hosts to apply to work with them. There is all kinds of potential work to be done, from farm work to childcare to teaching English. This particular host, Tuan, had a posting requesting help teaching English to his students as well as general sharing of knowledge. 

When we got to Tuan’s house, it turned out that his students had gone traveling for the Tet holiday, but he was happy to host us regardless. He was really knowledgable about Da Nang and suggested a noodle place for us to eat lunch that was delicious. 

Upon discovering that Thom and I are both in healthcare, he suggested that we (mostly Thom) could teach him about nursing the next day. In the meantime, he let us borrow his motorbike and suggested we explore the nearby Monkey Mountain, on the Son Tra peninsula just outside of Da Nang. It was a manual motorbike, which is not something either of us practiced on before, but after some research and practice, Thom was ready to drive us to the peninsula. 

   
 
The drive to the Son Tra peninsula took us about 30 minutes and took us along Da Nang’s main beach, which was one of the longest beaches we have seen in Southeast Asia so far! After following the beach for awhile, we started going uphill toward the large statue of Lady Buddha that looks over the beaches of Da Nang. We spent some time exploring the temple area around the Lady Buddha and enjoyed seeing the Vietnamese people practicing their religion and taking lots of selfies. 

   
  
  
  
   
 
After exploring the Lady Buddha complex and having a picnic lunch of leftover Indian food, we headed back toward Da Nang and went to the beach. It was a great beach for swimming, and we had a great time cooling off in the water before heading home for the day. 

The next day, we had a long discussion about nursing with Tuan and talked about the differences in the role of nurses in Vietnam compared with America. It seems that the nurses do not have much responsibility in Vietnam; when someone goes to the hospital, they get in a single line and wait for the doctor to see them. There is no triage system for nurses to organize or prioritize patients, and people commonly have to wait ridiculously long wait times before they can get in to see a doctor regardless of the severity of their condition. For example, our host Tuan, who is paralyzed, was hit by a car and had to wait for 48 hours before a doctor could see him for his spinal cord injury. This is too long for a patient to wait for treatment of a spinal cord injury, as the longer the amount of time that passes after such an injury, the higher chance of paralysis. The conversation seemed to be beneficial for Tuan, despite some of Thom’s explanations being in larger words than Tuan was used to.

We spent several of our evenings exploring the culinary options that Da Nang had to offer, and despite many of the recommendations on TripAdvisor being for (not very good) western food, our favorite was a chicken and fried rice dish we found at a random restaurant on the street that looked very busy and had very little information in English. 

  

We also spent a day driving the motorbike to the Marble Mountains, one of our favorite attractions in Da Nang. There are 5 mountains that seem to pop out of nowhere just south of Da Nang, and have lots of caves scattered throughout the mountains, that are said to have been used by the Viet Cong to spy on the American troops stationed in Da Nang. 

We started at the largest mountain and the first cave we went into was the best one of all – it was filled with all sorts carvings of of hellish creatures.

  

            

    
We spent a lot of time exploring the first cave, and after finishing we realized that there were about 16 other caves in the same mountain! Plus there were 4 other mountains! We had to start moving faster. 

   
    
   
We ended up going through many of the caves and pagodas of the first mountain, and climbed to the top of it to see the viewpoint of the area. Since we spent hours exploring this mountain, we just couldn’t make it to the others and decided to head back to town to try to get some of the “best hamburgers in Vietnam”. The burger place was closed for Tet (STILL?! Things have been closed for over a week by now!), so we went in search for other food.

   
On our last day in Da Nang, we had an amazing dinner with our host Tuan. The previous night we had asked about recommendations for places to eat, and he asked if we had tried Da Nang’s regional dish, banh xeo – you use a rice paper wrapper, some lettuce, herbs, and veggies, and a pancake with egg, tumeric, green onion, bean sprouts and shrimp, then roll it all up like a spring roll and dip it in a peanut and fish sauce. We hadn’t tried it yet so he graciously ordered some in for dinner tonight for us and his students – it was so good!

We sat with some of his students and enjoyed hearing them talk (though not understanding anything). It was interesting watching the cultural differences in how the food was shared, talking and eating, and joking with each other.For desert we had green mango dipped in either spiced dried fish bits or crushed ants mixed with chili pepper. It was actually really good! And our first time eating ants! The ants were kinda spicy which cut the tartness of the green mango. The dried fish was also good, more spicy and salty but had a very strong umami flavor that again complimented the tart.

After this the students retired to their room and some of Tuan’s friends came by for coffee/tea and post dinner conversation. They sat around the table eating what looked like sunflower seeds though were smaller and talked about politics such as populations of the neighboring countries. Again, we did not understand anything, but it was amazing getting to be part of the everyday lives of Vietnamese people, something we would not be a part of if we had stayed in a hotel room in the tourist part of town. 

Next stop, Hue!