Cultural tour of DaNang

The past few days we had the pleasure of visiting many of the educational, historic and spiritual places in the city of DaNang. First came "Monkey" mountain, named for this due to the previously inhabited area of monkeys. Today the government declared one side of the mountain a natural preserve which now is the home of those monkeys. On the opposite side of the mountain rests one of the oldest Pagodas is Vietnam with a enormous Buddha statue seen for miles across the sea from the mainland. This area was known as a demilitarized zone during the war and is now the area where many locals and visitors alike travel to pray and meditate. Its an awe inspiring site both structurally and more importantly spiritually and serene.

Next came Marble mountain, an area where caves where discovered containing some of the largest slates of marble in the world. Over 80% of the marble statues seen in Asian are carved from marble discovered in this site. Within this mountain are caves with beautiful carving throughout its natural walls.

We ended the day visiting the Cham museum. This museum describes the lives of the Cham people, a fierce population who ruled the Central area many years ago. Many valuable artifacts were stolen from this area over time, but many treasures exist depicting the culture and history of this now close to extinct population.

You can also see some of the most unique bridges in Vietnam spanning the river that runs through the city. Most notably the fire breathing dragon bridge which is lit in the evenings making this site unmistakably DaNang.