Crossing the Climate Boundary: from Huế to Đà Nãng

                                    by Jim Goodman

looking north from the Hải Vân Pass

       South of Nghệ An Province, the land of Vietnam narrows to a thin coastal plain with mountains rising immediately to the west.  A little north of Đà Nẵng the Bạch Mã Range of these mountains swerves across the valley to the sea, ending in a shoreline hill.  On top of this hill is the Hải Vân Pass and until recently all north-south traffic, on foot or in vehicles, had to pass this way, so from posts on the pass all approaches were easily visible in advance.  Governments in the past, from ancient times down to the 20^th century, established fortresses here.

An Cư Lagoon

        Besides physically separating the country’s north and south, the intersection of the Bạch Mã Range with the East Sea also affects Vietnam’s climate.  The range blocks the cold winds and rainclouds coming down from the north.  Even in typhoon season the storms pummel the provinces north of the pass—Thừa Thiên Hué to Hà Tĩnh—more than Đà Nẵng or Quảng Nam.  Leaving Huế on a cloudy, misty day, after crossing the pass it may be only partly cloudy in Đà Nẵng, with plenty of sunshine in between.  

       In ancient times the Hải Vân Pass was also a political and cultural boundary between the Vietnamese in the north and the Chăm to the south.  Even while the north was under Chinese administration the two sides battled for control of the area north of the pass.  After Vietnam won back its independence in 938 the struggle continued.  By the end of the 15^th century the Vietnamese had vanquished the nearest Chăm kingdoms and extended its borders to just north of Nha Tang.

fishing huts and nets on the An Cư Lagoon

       Vietnamese immigration south of the Hài Vân Pass, however, did not begin in earnest until the 16^th century, when a protracted civil war ravaged so much of the Red River Delta that in many places life was no longer tenable.  With Vietnamese settled on both sides, the pass lost its symbolic and military significance until the colonial period.  The French built a railway line that skirted around the base of the hill and a road that ran over it.  Once the Vietnamese insurrection began, the French installed lookout posts and machine gun nests on the pass.  These were later used again during the American War, though they failed to stop the North Vietnamese Army from swarming over Hài Vân in the spring offensive in 1975 that would soon capture Saigon and conclude the war.

boats on the beach at Lăng Cô

       Years later, when tourists began traveling around Vietnam, the Hải Vân Pass was on the route between the popular destinations of Huế and Đà Nẵng.  From Huế the road ran southeast across the plain and then alongside the large Cầu Hai Lagoon on its left, with the Bạch Mã Mountain Range suddenly rising on its right.  A portion of this area, 22.000 hectares of evergreen rain forest, has been reserved as a national park.  Over 1150 species of plants have been discovered so far, 330 of birds and over 90 different mammals, including a few previously unknown species discovered in the 1990s.

bringing in a boat at Lăng Cô

       After passing Cầu Hai Lagoon, the road ascends slightly over low hills and then runs back down to the plain to the picturesque An Cư Lagoon on the western side of the road opposite seaside Lăng Cô village.  The mountains rise steeply on the other side and the railway line runs along the base of these mountains, on the opposite side of the lagoon from the road.  As this was roughly halfway between Huế and Hội An, tour buses always make a half-hour stop here for refreshments or a simple meal, which allows for a quick look at the lagoon scenery.

eyes on the prow of a Lăng Cô boat

       On my first journey on this route in the winter of 2005, after the Lăng Cô stopover, the bus climbed up the hill over the pass and immediately descended towards Đà Nẵng without even a momentary pause for passengers to take in the view.  Several months later, making the trip again and noticing at the Lăng Cô stop nearly all the travelers had cameras, I decided to enlist the support of some of them when we started climbing the hill to join me in demanding the bus make a ten-minute stop at Hải Vân Pass.  But my plan was foiled when we didn’t go up over the pass after all, but instead through a new tunnel at the base of the hill that had just opened since my last trip.

       The only way for me to get another, and more leisurely, look at the pass was to return to Lăng Cô and hire a motorbike.  The village certainly looked inviting, so it would be a pleasant excursion anyway.  Weather spoiled my first attempt, though, for low, dark clouds hung over the area, obscuring the pass and most of the mountains behind the lagoon.  It was a day to remind me of the meaning of Hải Vân—Sea of Clouds.  But it didn’t rain, giving me the opportunity to explore Lăng Cô on foot.

Lăng Cô village and beach

       The village lies on a long finger of land next to An Cư Lagoon, with sandy beaches just on the other side of the road.  The most densely settled part is at the south end, where the lagoon enters the sea.  The beach resorts and other hotels and restaurants are further up.  The ocean water is relatively clean, the waves usually moderate and, closer to the main village residential area, the beach is lined with small fishing boats.  Like other boats in Central Vietnam, the prows feature a pair of painted eyes.

lagoon waters as they enter the sea

       Few people stayed in the beach resorts, a couple of which included tennis courts and a swimming pool, not even when I returned a few months later and enjoyed excellent weather.  Perhaps it’s because people from Đà Nẵng, the nearest potential visitors, have plenty of beaches around their own city.  And while Lăng Cô restaurants do offer tasty fresh seafood dishes, that’s true in Đà Nẵng and all along the entire coast of Vietnam.

       The lagoon makes Lăng Cô a different kind of beach resort.  Only a short walk from the main road, the near shoreline has a paved road running beside it, while the railway line on the other side runs right along the base of the mountains’ steep cliffs.  The water is shallow, not more than waist-deep far out from the shoreline.  Small pirogues and basket boats, when not out on the lagoon, sit parked next to the land.  Stilted fishing huts stand out in the water not far from the shore, as well as some large fishing nets attached to poles and hanging just above the water surface. 

catching oysters in An Cư Lagoon

       Besides the lagoon and the Hải Vân Pass, the other attraction in the vicinity is Elephant Spring, in the lap of the Bạch Mã Mountains about ten km north of Lăng Cô and three km off the highway to the west.  A hot spring next to what used to be a thick forest, by the time I visited it, and that was over a decade ago, it was a failed and abandoned resort.  A disused, dilapidated guesthouse, its cottages in serious need of roof repair, stood on a clearing near the spring.  Boulders that roughly resembled elephants had been painted to accentuate those features.  Statues of deer and tiger peeped through the bushes around the spring, as well as one of, oddly enough, a giraffe.

the abandoned park at Elephant Spring

       As for the pass, sunny skies prevailed throughout my second stay in Lăng Cô and I could hire a motorbike to make the excursion.  The pass is not very high up, less than 500 meters above the sea, and the road winds along the slope facing the sea.  No roadside trees block the good views of Lăng Cô and its beaches to the north and the coastline south towards Đà Nẵng.  About halfway up, a waterfall spills through a forested slope and when its creek comes near the road, it flows over a stretch of wide, smooth, nearly flat boulders.

machine gun nest at Hải Vân Pass

       Besides the magnificent view, the Hải Vân Pass also features relics of its past military significance.  A couple of red brick watchtowers stand on the slope just above the road.  An empty machine gun nest sits on a spot overlooking the route up the hill from Lăng Cô.  A few concrete bunkers lie in the area, one of them converted to a small cave temple, with refreshments stands and souvenir stalls set up in front of the entrance.  

       After crossing the pass, it’s another 25 km or so to Đà Nẵng, Vietnam’s fourth largest city and the northern limit of the country’s tropical zone.  City suburbs begin along the shore of the Bay of Đà Nẳng, while the main port and commercial area lie further east and up to the coast.  On the eastern side of the bay the large hilly Sơn Trà Peninsula stretches out north of the business district.  Also called Monkey Mountain after the primates living there, it is mostly an off-limits military zone, but does provide a nice backdrop to views from beaches.

wartime watchtower at Hải Vân Pass

       Known as Tourane in the French colonial period, it rose in importance from the beginning of the 19^th century, replacing Hội An, where river silt had accumulated to the point commercial ships could no longer reach the port.  Đà Nẵng is now a thoroughly modern city, but a fairly relaxed one.  Traffic runs smoothly even in rush hour.  With no old town extant, the only buildings identified as tourist attractions are a couple of Buddhist temples, the French-built cathedral, a Cao Đài temple and the well-stocked, fascinating Chăm Museum.  For some travelers, this museum is the only reason to stop in Đà Nẵng, especially since it’s a short trip from Hội An.

       The city’s other main physical (and cultural) attraction is the group of five small hills, called Marble Mountains, just beyond its southern suburbs.  Non Nước, the village next to the largest hill, has long been a craft village specializing in marble sculptures.  Tour buses from Huế en route to Hội An often make a stop here, where teenaged girls immediately importune the passengers to purchase anything from a small carving that can be held in the hand to a heavy, life-sized statue of a lion or religious deity.  Marble deposits in the hills were played out long ago and now Non Nước imports its raw materials from Thanh Hoá.  The skill survives, though, and the business is still thriving.

boats in Đà Nẵng

       Each of the hills is named after one of the five essential elements.  The largest, nearest the beach, Water Mountain ̣(Thủy Sơn), contains several cave shrines that have drawn religious pilgrims since the time of the Chăm kingdoms.  Originally Hindu, the shrines now honor the Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian deities popular with the Vietnamese, who added statues of gods and guardians, built temples and erected pagodas on the hill.

       Guides are available to the sights, but visitors can simply follow the pathways that wind around and up the hill to the temples, pavilions and pagodas and branch off into the caves.  One leads to a complex of several caverns, connected by two tunnels, with old Chăm stone carvings and more recently installed concrete Buddhas.  The most interesting is Huyên Không Cave, with a very high interior and a small opening to the sky at the top.  When the sun is overhead a shaft of light pours through this hole and strikes one of the altars.  During the American War the cave was a Viet Cong field hospital and the base of a Women’s Artillery Division famous for shooting down nineteen American warplanes. 

Huyên Không Cave

Buddha statue on Water Mountain

       The seacoast next to the Marble Mountains is lined with beaches, but around Non Nước and for several km towards Hội An walls belonging to a succession of resort hotels block public access.  The beaches closer to Hội An, a more popular tourist destination than Đà Nẵng, are usually quite congested.  But Đà Nẵng residents and visitors have a few prime beach alternatives right next to the city. 

one of the Marble Mountains near Đà Nẵng

       A long beach runs along the shore of the Bay of Đả Nẵng, frequented by suburbanites in the late afternoon.  On the eastern shore of the East Sea (a.k.a. South China Sea) the beaches offer a more scenic view of Monkey Mountain, but the waters are only calm enough for swimming in the summer months and a bit rough other times.   From mid-September through December, however, they are quite suitable for surfing.

       The northern beach just below the peninsula is called Mỹ Khê, while further down it is known as China Beach.  American Marines landed here in March 1965 in the first major commitment of U. S. troops to South Vietnam.  China Beach later became a popular R&R spot for U. S. soldiers, flown in by helicopter.  Nowadays, over five decades since the war’s end, with comfortable hotels and fine restaurants, for both Đà Nẵng residents and passing travelers, China Beach is once again serving its former purpose--rest and recreation.

China Beach and Monkey Mountain, Đà Nẵng

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Delta Tours Vietnam’s cultural-historical journey through the country passes over this route. See http://www.deltatoursvietnam.com

Babao to Haizibian: Through the Middle of Wenshan

                          by Jim Goodman

the hill scenery at Babao

       Twenty years ago I had an assignment to revise and update the Yunnan and Guangzi chapters for the Insight guidebook to China.  This was my only trip to China in which I ventured beyond Yunnan.  Certainly the scenery along the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo is a spectacular sight, but the rest of the destinations, like drab and gray Nanning, were not so impressive.

       Moreover, the local Chinese were unlike what I’d become used to in five years of journeys through Yunnan.  They were polite, but my conversations were always brief, ending shortly after they learned what my occupation was—researching the ethnic minorities in Yunnan.  They knew nothing about ethnic minorities even in their own Guangxi, didn't want to and just couldn’t understand why I found “those kind of people” at all interesting.

Zhuang village next to Babao

       Since no one in Nanning could recommend any minority-inhabited areas anywhere near the city, I decided, having finished my work there, to curtail my exploration of Guangxi.  With the remaining time on my visa I would visit a place in Yunnan where I had not yet been—Wenshan Prefecture in the southeast.  I bought an overnight bus ticket to Babao because I’d seen a nice photograph of the hills there in a big Yunnan picture book. 

       Arriving about noon, I checked into a guesthouse in the center of the old town and had a meal in its restaurant before I started wandering around.  While I was eating I heard the only other customer, a Chinese man, ask the manager, ‘What’s the foreigner doing here?’  ‘Probably the scenery,’ the other replied.  ‘Also for the ethnic minorities,’ I told them.  ‘You are interested in the ethnic minorities?’ the manager asked me.  ‘Yes.’  “Then when you finish your meal, go out the door and turn right at the first street until you are past the hill.  Then turn right again.  There’s a Zhuang village there.  You will like it.  They still keep the traditional statues over the house doorway to keep away evil spirits.”

Zhuang women laying out warp threads for the loom

       What a different attitude towards minorities that was compared to my encounters with Han people in Guangxi.   Anyone could have told me how to get to the nearest Zhuang village.  But here was a Han resident informing me not just of the directions, but also of a particular minority cultural trait he thought would pique my interest.  In my time in Babao I found the Han people quite appreciative of their Zhuang neighbors, considering them a prime asset of the district, as well as the Miao and Yao, who lived further away but were frequent visitors.  They have had a longer and closer relationship with the minorities than the Han have in Guilin, Liuzhou and Nanning.  Consequently, they view them not as inferiors, but as interesting equals.

typical Zhuang house near Babao

       I took the manager’s advice and soon entered Babao’s scenic hill area.  A Zhuang village lay at the base of the nearest hill, of mud-brick houses with tile roofs and, as the manager had promised, a niche above the doorway holding a snarling, lion-like creature.  Two women in a lane were busy laying out the warp threads that would be mounted later on a loom.  The women’s clothing wasn’t particularly attractive—medium blue, side-fastened jacket over black trousers and a white turban on the heads.  But all the Zhuang women wore it.

villagers coming to Babaoi  for market day

       Villagers were full of smiles upon meeting me and soon folks invited me in for tea.  They hadn’t had many foreign visitors back then, if any, and my presence was a sensation for the children.  They followed me all through the village, bursting into animated discussion whenever I stopped to take a photograph.  The hill behind the village had a staircase to a viewing platform at the top, but the children didn’t ascend it with me.

       This is the best view of the landscape Wenshan people call Little Guilin.  Looking east, the limestone hills, generally 50-200 meters high, in a variety of shapes, rise above a perfectly flat plain, with a river meandering among them.  Zhuang villages of 50-60 houses, densely clustered, lay beside many of the hills, their rice fields filling the spaces between them.  The hills can have very smooth sides, look like cones or gumdrops or crouching cats, covered with green vegetation, but too stony to make terraced farms.

Zhuang villagers bringing storage baskets to sell

       The same river also runs through the town, crossed by stone bridges, straight and arched, that add to Babao’s atmosphere.  It rained throughout my first night there, making an excursion to the waterfalls next day impossible, for no vehicle would chance taking the unpaved road.  But it was market day that day, when those bridges were active with rural folks coming into town.   The rain was occasionally heavy, but mostly just a drizzle and ceased by the afternoon.

       Local residents and villagers set up early, with stalls selling clothing, shoes, household goods, toiletries, cosmetics, noodle dishes and snacks, as well as vegetables, grain, bee larvae, tools, fishing nets and baskets.  Zhuang villagers also brought huge bamboo storage baskets to sell and men carried small pigs in bunches, tied up and suspended from each end of a balance pole.  By mid-morning Miao from the surrounding hills arrived, some selling Miao women’s clothing components and accessories.

a rainy market day in Babao

       Two kinds of Miao turned up.  Women of the more numerous group wore plain, side-fastened jackets in various solid colors, occasionally with some sleeve decorations, over bulky, pleated, knee-length white or black skirts.  Long, rectangular, fully embroidered and appliquéd panels hung from the waist to the hem, front and back.  Another group wore ankle-length pleated black skirts, the top half covered with colored strips, with long-sleeved black jackets embellished with colored strips on the sleeves, hem and lapel.

Yao girls on their way to Babao

       Yao from one of the Landian branch sub-groups also attended market day.  The females dressed in hip-length black jackets and trousers.  They wrapped their hair inside a black cap, topped by an engraved or embossed silver disc.  A bright belt around the waist and strings of beads and pink thread tassels around the neck added dolor to the outfit.  Children dressed the same as adults, but wore round caps with a broad band of colored strips around the base and tassels attached to the top.

       From Babao, Highway 323 ran straight west through the middle of Wenshan via Yanshan, then past the prefecture boundary to terminate at Kaiyaun.  The scenery consists of low, rolling hills, pleasant but not outstanding.  The main changes I noticed en route were among the minorities.   Zhuang villages in southwestern Guangnan County comprised stilted, wooden houses, though the women dressed like those in Babao, except for a few stripes on the sleeves.

Yi women in Ameng

young Yao woman in Ameng

      After crossing into Yanshan County, around Amemg I found the Zhuang women wearing very different, much more colorful ensembles:  short green jackets with broad bands of mostly red trimming on the sleeves, lapel, neck and hem and a wide cap with the front heavily brocaded, a skill for which Zhuang women have long been famous.  Yao women dressed in black like those in Babao, but with a large white collar on the jacket and embossed silver plaques just below it.  Ameng was holding market day when I passed through and Yi women were also in attendance, wearing short black, side-fastened jackets with colored bands on the sleeves and all around the lower half of the jacket.

Zhuang woman on the road to Yanshan

         Yanshan city lies at the northern end of a long, elevated plain, mottled with limestone hills, a few of which pop up within the urban area.  A medium-sized, modernized city with wide avenues and new buildings, it had a park on the eastern side where stood big sculptures of the city mascots—a pair of chickens.  Elderly folk practiced tai qi exercises here in the evenings.  It was a relatively quiet city, without the loud karaoke bars that marred my evenings in Babao.

       In the center of Yanshan stands a rocky hill called Chengzishan.  The Hui quarter lies south of it and an unusual mosque is at the foot of the hill, its central green domed tower flanked by a pair of thin minarets with sharply pointed tops.  A viewing tower on the hill gave me a view of nearby Tinghu Reservoir and the broad farms growing pseudo-ginseng, a local specialty.  A park at the base of the hill provided a late afternoon venue for urban men to meet, relax, and listen to the caged songbirds they brought with them.

the suburbs of Yanshan and Tinghu Reservoir 

       I took a day’s excursion to Haizibian, in the narrow strip of territory between the eastern and western chunks of the county, sited next to the natural body of water called Bathing Fairies Lake (Yuxianhu).  It is bounded by low hills on the southern shore, contains several small islands, a Zhuang village at the near end and a Miao settlement at the far end, with water clean enough to be drawn by villagers for domestic use.  Apparently attempts had been made to turn it into a resort, for groups of floating cabins lay just offshore and the village’s Qing Dynasty temple had been turned into a hotel, with the former monks’ quarters transformed into rooms for guests and a subsidiary building made into an entertainment hall for ethnic minority dance shows.  An arched bridge stood next to the boat landing and a fancy pavilion offered views of the lake scenery.

Miao woman near Haizibian

       No one was lodged in them at the time, nor were any of the floating cabins occupied.  In such a picturesque setting, with friendly and colorfully dressed Miao, Zhuang and Yi in the area, I was surprised it wasn’t filled with tourists, or at least city day-trippers from Yanshan and Wenshan.  There were no restaurants or bars in the vicinity, though, and most shops in Haizibian were closed except on market days.   

       I hiked the trail along the shore to the Miao village near the end of the lake.  All the women wore their traditional outfits of pleated batik skirts and bright jackets, heavily embellished with strips of embroidery and appliqué.  I watched a weaver at work and got invited inside next door for tea, liquor and snacks.  Then I wandered around the village and its mud-brick, tiled, one-story houses before returning to the trail along the lake back to Haizibian and flagging down a minibus going to Yanshan.

       My time then was too limited to stay longer.  So I added Haizibian to the list of places in Yunnan I wanted to further explore one day.  Ten years later, while heading for Kaiyuan, west of Wenshan, I detoured to Haizibian to stay a couple nights and get a second look.  I wanted to stay in the old temple converted into a hotel, but it was locked, the rooms shuttered and the entertainment hall turned into a storage room for crops.  I had to settle for a room above a small shop.

Bathing Fairies Lake (Yuxianhu), Haizibian

       The resort not only had not revived, it was in ruins.  The bridge was mostly under water, the boats gone, the floating cabins dismantled and the few restaurants and viewing pavilions on the shore empty, stripped of their glass and furniture.  Nevertheless, the lake was still beautiful, village architecture still the same and people just as friendly as on my initial visit. 

       Luckily for me, it was the peak of market day when I arrived.  All of Haizibian’s fifty or more shops were open and local ethnic minorities set up stalls on the streets to sell products of their villages.  Besides the nearby Miao, the market attracted many Yi and Zhuang, whose women all dressed traditional style.  The Yi here are a branch of the Sani, who also live in neighboring Qiubei County.  They wore blue jackets, white if unmarried, with contrasting colored bands around the sleeves and along the lapel. 

       Zhuang women dressed much more colorfully than those in Babao and Guangnan.  Their jackets had two colors, blue and brown or black for the older women, black and brighter shades for the younger ones, with embroidered bands around the sleeves and along the hems.  Over the jacket they wore a long bib, with the top part or edges lavishly embroidered.  Some wore plain black turbans, others a headscarf with a brocaded front, like around Ameng, or a tall cap laden with triangles of silver studs.

fancy Zhuang headdress for market day

Zhuang woman at Haizibian mareket day

       In the late afternoon I walked along the lake and discovered that everything else about the area was unchanged.  Villages still looked the same.  No development projects had added new factories or buildings.  Ox carts still carried people around, not motorbikes.  Rural life carried on as it always has.  It’s easy to imagine the eventual resurrection of a resort scene here.  More people are traveling than ever before, searching for the natural and the authentic.  Unspoiled destinations are getting scarcer all the time, even in Yunnan.  Bathing Fairies Lake won’t remain neglected forever.

drawing water from Bathing Fairies Lake

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