Back in Vietnam... Da Nang

Da Nang was always just a stop over in my itinerary, as a connection point from Laos to the central cities of Vietnam. It does have one attraction that I always had on my list to see: the dragon bridge.

My flight connection took me through HCMC for a quick 10 hours which meant trying to grab a few hours of sleep at an airport hotel (aptly named the Airport Hotel), then getting up at 4am to go back to the airport for a flight arriving at 8:30 in Da Nang. A quick Grab (like Uber) to my hotel but of course I can't check in until 2pm so I set off to explore.

I've been told that pho is a northern dish, being colder so they like the broth. My favorite vietnamese dish at home is simply called bun (with no broth) but here there are several variations so I've been trying a few to understand the differences. I wrote about bun cha (the Obama dish) so this time I tried bun thit nuong. It's similar to the one I get at home but with a different sauce. Based solely on reviews I set out for the one with five stars. It turned out to be down a residential alley and was run by a lovely mother and daughter. I chatted with them after eating and they said "how did you find us?!". Google reviews of course! I'm wishing I'd gotten a photo of them or their names but I did make sure to give them another five star review. 😀

I have also come to realize that Vietnam has A LOT of Michelin star restaurants. Dinner was at An Thoi, along the riverwalk. The man giving out the seating numbers was really friendly and made sure I had what I needed. I offered to share my table with others and he said, "You don't want to do that! They too loud!". I was concerned about getting spots on my white shirt (rookie move), so he brought me an apron. And the food was amazing too! This is Quang noodle. (The last photo is my view while dining of all the folks waiting to get in and wishing id hurry up! Lol)

For my full day in town, I took a cooking class with 5 lovely strangers. Our instructor took us to the local market to shop for the ingredients, then walked up through each step of prep and cooking. The eating was up to us though!

So back to the dragon bridge...

(Excerpted from Wikipedia) Dragon Bridge is 666m long(2,185 ft; 666 is a lucky number here), 37.5m (123 ft) wide and has six lanes for traffic. The bridge was opened to traffic on March 29, 2013, the 38th anniversary of the capture of Da Nang City by North Vietnamese forces (known as the Liberation of Da Nang in Vietnam) during the Vietnam War (known as the American War in Vietnam).

It cost nearly VND 1.5 trillion dong (US$88m). The bridge was designed by the US-based Ammann & Whitney Consulting Engineers with Louis Berger Group.

Every Friday and Saturday night, there is a 'fire and water show' where the dragon head SHOOTS FIRE out and of it's mouth and then water (for safety??). They close off traffic and set up stands for people who want to be a little further from the action. Now this I've got to see! I arrived about 15 minutes early to a place with a rooftop view, paid for a very expensive drink and waited. By ten past I was a bit curious why traffic was still flowing so I asked the young lady server. Through Google translate she said "my manager thinks this is the anniversary of the funeral for the Lao president so it might not happen tonight... Maybe tomorrow?". Noooooooo! Ugh. And so it goes.

What i did get to see.... It's still pretty impressive!

If you want to see the fire.... https://youtu.be/oT33N-uyEpQ?si=Fs8686HNgmA1Fpbq