SailorJill and I Sail on the Orient Express a.k.a. Millenium's Immersion Cruise

This is My Khe beach, once described by Forbes Magazine as one of the most luxurious beaches in the World. It stretches for nearly 20 miles along the central Vietnamese coast and the sand is as pure and white as sugar. Most Americans know this beach by a different name - China Beach. It was used by American military personnel as a rest and recreation site and it was the inspiration of ABC's television program of the same name in the late 1980s and early 1990s. If you watched that program you have seen this beach many times before.

But notice that the beach is totally empty - and this was a gorgeously warm day. Vietnamese value pale skin as beauty so you won't see a lot of Vietnamese sunbathing during the day. Our guide told us that the beach becomes quite crowded after the sun sets and, to a lesser extent, before the sun rises in the morning. We didn't have time to swim, but we did wade out into the water and it was great.

As I mentioned earlier, Da Nang has become a great tourist destination and resorts such as Hyatt, Raffles, and others have built along the beach. You can see the construction cranes building even more hotels.

If you look closely you can see people on the beaches in front of the resorts. Not a lot, but tourists appear to be the only ones enjoying the beach.

We will be doing Millennium this Christmas, 2017. So, we HOPE it is fun. :D

OOPS....that's what happens when I try speed reading!:( I know you will have fun. I hope you write a report on it when you get back - it will be interesting to get another perspective on the ports.

Jack

We can actually see our next stop from China Beach. In fact, we are told that you can see our next stop from any spot in Da Nang. It is the Linh Ung Pagoda on Son Tra Peninsula. It is just a short drive of about five miles from where the photo was taken. It will actually be the highlight of our tour.

If you were wondering what those round looking tubs were in the previous photos (and in the foreground of this photo) - they are fishing boats! They are used for fishing in very shallow water. Here you can see fishermen dragging a boat ashore. Typically only one person is in the boat, but sometimes two will fish from one.

This was taken from a moving bus so it is fuzzy, but it shows the little round fishing boats in a little more detail.

Apparently I erred when I said the beach was not used during the day as this dog has proved me wrong.:D

Thanks for the read!

 

 

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You are more than welcome. Thanks for reading and posting.

Jack

This is one of the three entrances to Linh Ung Pagoda. The Pagoda was built in the 18th Century and was just recently restored.

Looking out the main gate you can see the city of Da Nang in the background.

Once through the main gate you can see the Ancestors House.

The architectural detail on the buildings was amazing.

Lining the walkway to the Ancestors House are 18 very large stone statues, or Arhats - (which sort of translates as "one who is worthy"). The Arhats display all of the human emotions - anger, love happiness, and sadness, which are a popular subject in Buddhist art.

These photos help demonstrate just how beautiful this Pagoda was.

I'm not sure if the Happy Budda was an Arhat, but he was our favorite.

I have just loved the read and the photographs so far. Thank you. We are on the Millennium at the end of September around Japan and are contemplating a cruise to encompass Vietnam in our future.

The center piece of the pagoda is the Lady Buddha, also known as the Goddess of Mercy. It stands 67 meters tall - the equivalent of 30 stories - and is believed to protect and give strength to fishermen during storms. It is the tallest Buddha statue in Vietnam. We were told that this statue was carved out of a single piece of white marble! You can't help but marvel at the beauty of this statue and the pagoda as you stroll through the grounds. Around every corner there is something amazing to see. We were also impressed with how well everything was kept.

You can climb up inside the statue. There are seventeen floors up the way up with 21 small Buddhas located on the floors. From the top you can see forever (or so we are told as we did not make the climb.)

To give some perspective to the picture, if you look very closely you can see a the small Budda sitting on the top of Lady Buddha's head. What appears in the picture to be "little" is actually a little over 6 feet tall!

A side view of the Lady Buddha.

I have just loved the read and the photographs so far. Thank you. We are on the Millennium at the end of September around Japan and are contemplating a cruise to encompass Vietnam in our future.

I know you will enjoy the Millie...we certainly did, and Vietnam is a great place to visit. We visited south Vietnam several years ago, but enjoyed our visit this year to north Vietnam a little bit more. Ha Long Bay has long been on our bucket list and this year we were able to do it. Hanoi was also very interesting to visit. It was interesting to visit the Hanoi Hilton and hear their version of it! But whichever part of the country you visit you will have a great time.

Jack

This was one of the temples underneath the Lady Buddha. As was everything else, it was immaculate.

A temple inside of the out buildings.

This is the inside of the Ancestors House. Flowers everywhere. Truly impressive!

The intricately carved woodwork was evident in all of the inside venues. We saw this type of attention to detail in many of the places we visited in Vietnam - even in the restaurants.

During the Olympics here in Atlanta we had the opportunity to "buy" a brick that was to be used at the Centennial Olympic Park. Your name would be immortalized and at the same time help fund the park.

We wondered if the same was here to help restore the pagoda, but with a bench and not a brick.

This was an interesting temple. We were allowed to look in but we could not enter.

Arhats riding different animals - in this case an elephant and a lion.

This must have been quite a sight at night with a waterfall and ringed with lights.

Amazing photos of the pagoda -I don't think I have ever seen anything like it. By the way, I loved the laughing Buddha also.:D

Some final photos of the pagoda before we head to the marble factory.

I have never considered a cruise or any other type of vacation to Southeast Asia. The part of my psyche that still thinks of Viet Nam as a place where I lost my first fiance still influences me. Seeing your travelogue has made me reconsider. I can remember my uncle refusing to go to Germany because of his experiences in WWII. I couldn't understand his actions then, but realize that is what I am doing now.

While I have long been a Sailor Jack fan, this particular one has opened my eyes to a beautiful experience...Thank you, Sailor Jack!!

Another item for the bucket list

This is our tour guide explaining what we will be seeing at our next stop at Marble Mountain - which is just south of Da Nang and China Beach.

On the way we pass what used to be a huge American air base during the war. The structures off to the right are the helicopter hangers, which are the only remaining remnants of the air base. We were not sure if they were being preserved as a reminder of the war or if they just hadn't gotten around to tearing them down yet.

These are the Marble Mountains. The literal translation from Vietnamese is "five elements mountains" as they are a cluster of five marble and sandstone mountains. The five elements being metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. You can climb to the summit of the mountains and explore caves and tunnels as well as have a terrific view of the countryside. It is from these mountians that the marble was extracted to make the artwork for which the area is famous. Note: We did not make the climb!:D

Also, it was in these mountains - just a few kilometers from that huge American air base, that the Vietcong established a hospital. It has been said that the Vietcong were so sure of our ignorance that they built the hospital in plain sight.

Also located in the mountains were several Buddhist sanctuaries.

I have never considered a cruise or any other type of vacation to Southeast Asia. The part of my psyche that still thinks of Viet Nam as a place where I lost my first fiance still influences me. Seeing your travelogue has made me reconsider. I can remember my uncle refusing to go to Germany because of his experiences in WWII. I couldn't understand his actions then, but realize that is what I am doing now.

 

While I have long been a Sailor Jack fan, this particular one has opened my eyes to a beautiful experience...Thank you, Sailor Jack!!

 

Another item for the bucket list

Thank you for your comments - I shared them with Jill.

Jill also lost her fiancé in Vietnam - about two years before I met her. There was some anxiety on our part when we first visited Vietnam several years ago, but any concerns we had were quickly proved unfounded. I think I read somewhere that half of the population of Vietnam was born after he war and we were impressed with how well Americans were received - by old and young alike.

It is an amazing country - and should you decide to visit I know you will not be disappointed.

Jack

Our final stop on the tour was at a marble "factory" to see how artisans sculpt marble into works of art. Pictured below are the "factory" artisans at work. :D

The factory, apparently, was one guy - working in what appears to be no more than a moldy pit. I really don't think that he produced all of the statues surrounding him. Our best guess was that when they heard the bus coming this guy jumped into the pit and started banging away with his chisel.

The entrance to the factory store.

Amazing photos of the pagoda -I don't think I have ever seen anything like it. By the way, I loved the laughing Buddha also.:D

Glad you are enjoying them. Next to the islands in Ha Long Bay, this was our most picturesque stop.

This place had thousands of sculptures.

They are very nice, but according to our guide they come from all over. Lots of little villages in the area have artisans that make them and they either sell them to this store or put them on consignment. So very few, if any, are actually made here.

One of our travel mates actually bought the statue of the hooded lady on the far left and had it shipped home.

Inside the "factory" store were literally thousands of things - some pretty nice and some that were....

...just tourist stuff.

I had no idea what these were.

We usually refrain from buying things at these kind of tour stops, but Jill wanted to find a gift for the people who were watching our house. She found a very nice 8 inch serving dish but they wanted $95 for it. We walked across the street to a small shop and bought the exact same dish for $35 - after a little bargaining. just goes to show what the mark up is at the stores where tour buses stop. The people in the shop where we bought the dish said that the "factory" store paid a commission to both the driver and the tour guide to stop there - which I think is pretty much universal - whether it is a rum factory, a carpet factory, a glass blowing factory, etc.

Anyway, this was the last stop on our tour and we headed back to port to catch our ship.

We are back in the port city of Chan May. These are my last photos of Chan May and were taken from our moving bus so clarity is again missing.

This was a very large amusement park. When we drove by this morning on the way to Da Nang cars were lined up around the block waiting to get in. Notice the large Ferris wheel in the background - it seems nearly every city we visited had one.

The Dragon Bridge and both banks of the river.

The amusement park from the south side. Very green and very clean but no people. As this picture was taken in the late afternoon we guessed everyoine retreated from the sun in the heat of the day.

King's Palace. At first we thought it might be a casino, but turns out it was, we surmised, a hotel. I don't know what the room rate at this hotel was, but one of our tour companions said he stayed at a hotel in Chan May last year and he said he paid $8 a night. I suspect that the room rate was probably a little more than that at the King's Palace.:D

Anyway, that was our tour to Da Nang. Next stop - the amazing Ha Long Bay where we will stay for two days. We have booked a day touring the bay and a day trip to Hanoi where we will see the Hanoi Hilton - the notorious prison.

.

You sure managed to pack a lot into that shore excursion. Sounds great! Was it a Celebrity excursion or a private tour?

We have arrived at Ha Long Bay - a place that has been on my bucket list for ever and one of the two reasons we booked this cruise. Ha Long Bay is reputed to be the most beautiful place in Vietnam and was declared a world heritage site in 1994.

The emerald waters of the bay are doted with nearly 2,000 limestone islands and islets - may of which are hollow and home to magnificent caves and grottos. It covers an area of nearly 1,500 square kilometers and tourists from all over the world rent houseboats and spend a week or more just touring the islets and visiting the caves.

Ha Long Bay is increasingly being used as movies sets with a number of movies having been filmed here - with the most recent one being Kong: Skull Island.

So anyway, here are a few shots of our first early morning glimpse of Ha Long Bay as our ship slowly make its way between the islands. Slowly, because ( as we were told) this area was heavily mined during the Vietnam War and there is concern that there still may be some mines within the 1,500 square kilometers of the bay. Although the channels have been cleared, unexploded mines, reportedly, are still a potential hazard to local fishermen.

You sure managed to pack a lot into that shore excursion. Sounds great! Was it a Celebrity excursion or a private tour?

It was a great tour. It was also a ship's tour - I had a lot of OBC so I spent what was let in Ha Long and Hanoi.

Jack

Ha Long (as in Ha Long Bay) translates as "Bay of Descending Dragons." Apparently ( according to some reports) the name stems from a French newspaper in 1898 that published a report that the captain of a French ship reported seeing a giant sea snake in the bay - giving rise to the story that an Asian dragon was in the bay. At least that is one take on how the bay got its name.

We pass the first of the fishing fleet leaving the harbor - and we are still a long ways out.