Given that yesterday was a bit of a non-day, it was important to get everything done today. A taxi is parked outside our hotel and we enquire about prices to the Museum of Cham. The driver starts talking about taking us to the Marble Mountains after the museum, which is fine with us, because that's another place we want to visit here. We also tell him that we want to go to the beach, and a price is negotiated. After our bad luck from yesterday, we can't believe things could be this easy.
The Museum of Cham contains artefacts from Cham sites; sandstone carvings. There aren't many people in the museum so Rachelle takes a photo of me behind a headless statue to make it look like the body is mine. Security guards didn't notice me getting up on the display. Some of the statues and decoration were really good, and unlike British museums, photographs were allowed. We leisurely browsed the gift shop with no intention to buy anything, but then, almost out of nowhere, we see a Lonely Planet guide - the same one I lost yesterday. When we open it up we immediately realise it's an illegal copy: In Vietnam they photocopy Lonely Planet guides and sell them on cheap because they know it encourages tourism. We snatch it up and pay the 200,000 Dong, which feels like a bargain knowing how valuable the guide is to us. The pictures are in black and white, the maps not as clear as in the original, but it's good enough. We hop in the taxi and head for the Marble Mountains.
The Marble Mountains are south of Danang and used to be Islands a very long time ago. There are five, each said to represent the five elements (water, metal, wood, fire and earth) and they tower over the surrounding buildings and countryside. We visit the Water Mountain. In the heat it's a long climb up all the steps and the bottle of water we bought at the bottom seems to empty quickly. Halfway up is a Pagoda and a little further on is a beach viewing spot. I couldn't really see the beach from it though, just the sea. On the top of the Marble Mountain you can walk around and there are three caverns to explore, each with Buddhist shrines. From the top you can also see the other Marble Mountains.
All the way down the other side is another Pagoda with elaborate statues around it. I thought we could get from the other side back to our taxi, but that wasn't true, and Rachelle playfully resented me for all the steps back up again. It was a tiring sight to see, quite beautiful and enjoyable to explore.
Back at the bottom we look around a shop of marble ornaments before the taxi takes us to the beach, but when we get there, there's a problem: The taxi driver said we could only spend 30 minutes there and we wanted much longer. We discuss paying him and having him leave us here to find a taxi back when we please. Of course, this means we needed to discount the agreed price of the taxi, and given that it apparently costs 70,000 Dong from the beach back to Danang, we thought 380,000 (down from 450,000) was fair. The following conversation occurred:
Tom: How much from here to Danang?
Taxi: 70,000 Dong.
Tom: Okay, so 380,000 Dong is fair, yes?
Taxi: No, 400,000.
Tom: 450,000 minus the fare from here back to Danang is 380,000. That's fair.
Taxi: No, 400,000.
Tom: No, if we pay you 380,000, that makes sense because we agreed a 450,000 day trip.
Taxi: Okay, I will do 370,000.
Tom: ...Okay.
... and I thought I was bad at haggling.
We stay at the beach for hours. At first it was deserted. The whole place to ourselves. The sand was warm and the sea was the perfect temperature to swim in. The sun hid behind thin clouds most of the time, but it was so warm anyway that it didn't matter. More incredibly, I could see the horizon. After the mountainous landscapes of the past weeks, the horizon has been a distant memory. Out across the sea, I can finally see it again. Beach is a nice change from rain forest.
After we get something to eat, the beach becomes a bit more crowded. Despite the clouds, Rachelle gets sunburnt and we decide to head back. We find a metered taxi and get in. We had shown the driver the name of our hotel and yet, when we got to Danang city, he didn't have a clue where to go. Rachelle and I kept trying to tell him the directions, but he was useless. He kept stopping to ask other taxi drivers and kept going round in cirlces, despite the meter continuing to go up. Eventually, we find the hotel, but the cost has gone to 98,000 Dong and he insists we pay it. I refuse because it's his fault it took so long and we start arguing. He can hardly speak English and I can't speak any Vietnamese, so it took a while. Eventually, the hotel owner came out and we all started trying to solve the problem. The hotel lady and the driver did most of the talking. Rachelle and I had no idea what they were saying, but after a while we paid 70,000 Dong. I'm glad I stood my ground for the equivalent of one pound.
In the evening we went to Bread of Life cafe, where we had eaten on our day of arrival in Danang. Many of the staff are deaf, it's nice food and a proportion of the profits go to deaf people; it's like food with a side of morals.
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