Michael Batson

Da Nang or Đà Nẵng, but also spelled Danang, is the fourth largest city in Vietnam by population and the largest by geographical area. It’s also ranked the fifth wealthiest among all Vietnam’s regions and is getting wealthier as an economic and transport hub popular with expats and tourists alike. Da Nang is at the northern point of Vietnam’s spectacular South-Central Coast (Duyên hải Nam Trung Bộ), which covers 45,000 km² stretching almost 700kms from north-to-south as far Binh Thuan province about 200kms northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) once Saigon (or Sài Gòn) and to those native to there, still is. This coastal region is the gateway to the Central Highlands bordering northeastern Cambodia and southeastern Laos, and are home to the various mountain peoples (Montagnards), who largely escaped control of the lowland classical kingdoms and in many ways are still a world apart.

The city stretches along the shores of Da Nang Bay to the nature reserve of Sơn Trà Peninsula then south along Mỹ Khê Beach. Inner city Da Nang is bisected by the airport and the Han River. Part of Quảng Nam Province, Da Nang itself reaches as far as the Cambodian border in the Central Highlands as part of the 2025 Megacity Merger designed by Vietnam’s government to resolve Da Nang's shortage of industrial land and turn the city into an economic powerhouse for the 21st century, the so called “Da Nang Miracle”. You can get there by bus, train, by plane and probably soon enough, by cruise ship. From the air it looks a city of parallels. The main beach is parallel to the river and the river is parallel to the airport, smack in the middle of town and runs parallel with the western part of the city. The main thoroughfares run parallel to each other across the city in a criss-cross pattern.

The Han River starts and ends in the city. The river is less than 10kms long, on average about 1000m wide, and about 4-5m deep. It is known for its night cruises and six bridges including the Dragon Bridge and the Hàn River bridge or Song Han Bridge, the only swing bridge operating in Vietnam. Da Nang is a coastal city on the western edge of the East Sea, which is what Vietnam calls the South China Sea, halfway between Hanoi (or Ha Noi), the country’s capital, and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam’s biggest city, in the middle of the curve of a country shaped like an “S” or a dragon depending on what you read or how you see shapes. It has a population of about 1.2 million people and is noted for its beautiful beaches in a country that’s one long beach.

Da Nang is where France began its colonial occupation of the country in 1858 and is where the first US troops came ashore to begin their military occupation almost a century later. It has three World Heritage sites nearby: Hue to the north, Hoi An to the south, and My Son inland. Da Nang is home to the Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn). The climate is tropical, with a relatively cool winter from December to February and a hot, muggy summer from May to September. There is a dry season from February to April and a rainy season from September to December due to the northeast monsoon. As in the rest of Vietnam’s central coast, the summer monsoon brings little rain. Typhoon season in Vietnam runs from June through November but most likely arrive in September. Many make landfall in and around Da Nang so best to time your visits accordingly.

The city has had many names, most of which make reference to its position at the Han River estuary. During the Đại Việt or Great Việt (10th-19th centuries AD) it was called Cửa Hàn (Hàn River Estuary). During French rule it was Tourane (or Turon). Possibly Da Nang is a variation of the Cham word daknan meaning “the large water”. One Champa researcher, claims a connection with the Raglai (an ethnic Cham group) word “danang”, meaning “river source”. Confucian scholars had various names for the city: Trà Úc, Trà Áo, Trà Sơn, and Đồng Long Loan. In Chinese pinyin, Da Nang is known as Xiàngǎng, which is derived from an older name meaning “clam harbour”. It had its own name form in Chữ Nôm, the logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language, and used until 1945. Following the 1945 August Revolution led by the Việt Minh against the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and the Empire of Vietnam, it was called Thái Phiên commemorating the nationalist leader (1882–1916) of the 1916 Duy Tân Resistance led by the Vietnam Restoration League against French rule, for which the French colonial authorities had him guillotined.

I had never spent time in Da Nang before only passing through to the tourist hub of Hoi An, a short way down the road. That was 20 years ago when I arrived by train on the Reunification Express from Nha Trang about an eight-hour ride to the south. I had always wanted to come back for a proper visit but it took me 20 years to do so. Though to be fair, I did almost make it in 2025 until stopped by a typhoon which made landfall the same time I was planning on arriving. Nha Trang is also a coastal city on a long beach in a spectacular setting with a wide beachfront boulevard. Then Nha Trang was a laid-back small city but in the years since then has undergone development with hotels and high-rise apartments. Some of the city remains low-key and has an easy-going feel about it. By comparison, Da Nang has five times the population of Nha Trang and its development has been on a bigger scale, though seemingly without a strategy or even a plan. Parts of it make it look like coastal developments in Thailand but on steroids.

For my latest and first proper visit, I arrived after dark by plane from HCMC. and got a taxi from the airport to my hotel. Outside the arrival hall I was intercepted by a local who announced taxi fares were “all $16”. He directed me towards the first cab on the rank and off we went for about a 20-minute journey along boulevards without much traffic doing a fair speed towards Mỹ Khê Beach, my first port of call in Da Nang. For this first part of my visit, I stayed centrally at the Dragon Sea Hotel on Hà Bổng, near the corner with Hà Choung, one block back from the beach but with a “view” of the sea. Mỹ Khê Beach is about 3kms from the city center, depending on how you calculate that, and is one section of the city’s 30kms of beachfront. Forbes magazine has named it one of the best beaches on the planet. It was known perhaps more famously as China Beach, a nickname it got during the Second Indochina War because the shoreline directly faces the body of water known in English as the South China Sea, and probably because members of the US military couldn’t pronounce “Mỹ Khê” (pronounced “Me Kay”).

Along part of this beach high-rise developments line an eight-lane boulevard named for Vietnam’s most famous soldier, Võ Nguyên Giáp. More a military strategist, Võ Nguyên Giáp was once a history teacher and largely self-taught in soldiering learning on the job before leading Vietnamese forces to victory and independence against the first the French, and then the US industrial military machine. Across from the boulevard there’s a wide promenade with no shelter, no trees and not much else. A row of nightclubs and restaurants sit towards the southern end opposite an empty lot, partly fenced-off like they ran out of money or ideas. There’s not much surf but the beach is flat and wide with good access and for those escaping a wintry homeland must seem like paradise. It’s mainly frequented by Russians, and a few Vietnamese, but because it’s long and wide, looks empty. Compared with Nha Trang’s beach area, Da Nang’s looks rather soulless like they haven’t yet found what they were looking for.

A twin tower development rising 50 stories is being built, not far from others left unfinished. Perpendicular from Võ Nguyên Giáp Boulevard, streets, some of them wide dual carriageways, disappear off inland towards the city but often have little traffic on them. There are wide roundabouts with few cars. Massive shopping complexes. More high-rose developments looking unoccupied. Tour buses go by some full and some not, off to somewhere. Further south there are more huge developments, one with a Marriott hotel on top, but fenced off and patrolled by a single uniformed security guard, dwarfed by the empty towering structure.

The sea view from my room is still there because the hotel development in front has been abandoned. My room on the sixth floor looked over the unfinished construction. On the corner of Hà Choung there are two coffee houses: one does food namely Vietnamese bread rolls universally known as Bánh Mì, and the other café, which has cheaper coffee, does not. The cheaper cafe also sells carvings some from wood and stone, and others looking suspiciously like animal products. Sitting there one morning I was approached by two young Vietnamese walking by who stopped to chat with me. The woman asked if I was travelling alone or with someone. I replied I was alone to which her response was “Ah, freedom”.

My regular morning seat at the corner café allowed me to watch this part of the world wander by. There’s a constant stream of Grab riders. There were tourist buses going to the big hotels down the street and elsewhere in the area. Chinese went into some of the cheap restaurants on Hà Bổng or to the convenience stores that blight Asia but at least here they seem family owned, not chains like 7/11 which must be responsible for putting many more families out of business than most other ventures. Despite signs in three languages including their own, Chinese insist on smoking in hotels: the lobby, the stairs, the lifts, and doubtless the rooms too. While the Vietnamese national pastime is sweeping: footpaths, shop and house fronts (Cambodia too) Chinese occupy their time inhaling licensed noxious smoke and then wanting to share. Most Chinese tourists I saw in Vietnam, or most others places in Asia, don’t do casual well. Some seem to be in their pyjamas. Mind you lots of nationalities also have similar difficulties dressing down, like it’s too much effort to relax and be casual.

I hired a motorbike one day and went along Võ Nguyên Giáp Boulevard, about 10kms in each direction and lots of other places as well. To the south it turns in Troung Sa, and where there were empty beaches and a few backpacker guesthouses 20 years ago, there are now bland multiple luxury bungalow developments and the inevitable golf resorts. Further south is the Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn), a cluster of five limestone hills named after the five elements and full of caves and tunnels: If you keep going on that road you wind up in historical Hoi An, a few miles south. Heading north in the opposite direction is Man Thai fishing village with rows of identical townhouses overlooking the sweeping bay and dozens of small fishing vessels, the flat-bottomed sampans (ghe). But mostly there are round basket boats (thuyền thúng) once handwoven but now mass-produced and made of blue plastic and small enough to beached by hand. Beyond here is the Sơn Trà Peninsula (or Monkey Mountain) a 700m-high nature reserve. The road winds around the peninsula and is a popular drive for locals. There’s the Linh Ung Pagoda with the 67m Lady Buddha statue resplendent in pristine white, which attracts visitors from all over Vietnam.

Another day I took a Grab into the city centre for a look around and to see, among other things, Da Nang Cathedral. Also known as the Pink Church for the colour of its exterior, and previously called Tourane Church by the French, is it better known as the Rooster Church or the Chicken Church which refers to the massive bell tower which has a weathercock in the shape of a rooster on top. This is nothing to do with French symbolism, rather the rooster is associated with St. Peter's parable in the Gospel about repentance and awakening. Built mainly in 1923 and inaugurated the flowing year the church is one of the few remaining French colonial buildings in Da Nang. Despite its distinctive Gothic architecture such as pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses., the church is unique for having many Vietnamese features. Construction was hampered by a high turnover of builders slowing progress. In the end three brothers with builders, labourers, and artisans from their own village finished the project working around the clock.

The city centre and riverside area are pleasant to wander around. Vietnam has great cafes, many of which are open air. Coffee was introduced to northern Vietnam by the French in 1857. Arabica plants struggled with disease (like leaf rust) and the humid northern climate. Coffee cultivation expanded to the Dak Lak province near Nha Trang and the Central Highlands in the late 1800s, where the rich, red volcanic soil and ideal altitude made the region thrive. Iced Coffee (Cà Phê Sữa Đá) was invented in Vietnam during French rule as fresh milk was scarce and prone to spoiling in the tropical heat. The Vietnamese cleverly adapted European coffee methods by substituting fresh milk with sweetened condensed milk, which created a thick, sweet counterbalance to the intense, bitter Robusta.

The Indochina Wars destroyed vast networks of coffee plantations, many of which were abandoned. By 1975, the industry was in ruins and exports virtually dried. Then came the Đổi Mới (Renovation) economic reforms from the 1980s enacted by the Vietnamese government. This transition to a socialist-oriented market economy opened the country up to global trade, allowing the coffee sector to experience explosive growth and transforming Vietnam into an agricultural powerhouse. Today the country is the world's second-largest coffee exporter —second only to Brazil—and supplies about 40 percent of the world's Robusta beans. Down the road from the cathedral is the Café MP Quoc, which seems to be a chain, there being others about town. If it is one of a chain it’s a wonderful site and a great place to take a break and watch the world go by.

Nearby is the Han Market which began in the 1940s as a spontaneous trading area. The market was revamped with construction beginning in 1990 and reopened the flowing year with two floors covering a combined 28,000 square meters with 576 stalls and 36 kiosks. This did leave me wondering where the locals do their shopping. There are many small family-run shops in traditional shophouses but I didn’t see supermarkets or many other fresh markets. Han Market appeared mainly a spectacle for the tourists though many locals go there as well. On the way from Mỹ Khê to the city I did pass a giant shopping mall; bland, oversized and another example of modern development that sucks the life out of a city, and sadly now all too common in Southeast Asia.

Another morning, I went south of where I was staying to the Happy Heart Café that had been recommended by one of the guests at my hotel. Located in a quiet residential area on the Grab motorbike I laughed passing a restaurant called Donald Trung (yes). The Happy Heart is Vietnamese owned and curiously employed a young American woman as a waitress. She told me it was her second day on the job. There’s a small outdoor area at the front and inside is air-conditioned. There was an older Australian couple; a young European couple and a table of middle-aged Americans: overweight, loud, polite, and judging by their conversation which is virtually impossible to ignore, extremely ignorant about nearly everything.

While staying at the beach hotel I took a Grab motorcycle taxi (they’re everywhere) to the Ho Chi Minh and Military Zone 5 Museum. It seems the standard entrance fee for foreigners to museums and cultural sites in Vietnam is 60,000VND (about USD2.30). The museum is sometimes called the Da Nang Military Museum or the Da Nang War Museum, among other names. The museum complex comprises four main sections. Out front is some military hardware leftover from the Second Indochina War for while the US is adamant no one gets left behind; it seems they’re far less particular about their equipment; the whole region is littered with it including ordnance that failed to explode on impact but that continues to explode with lethal frequency.

At the back of the museum is a replica of Ho Chi Minh’s house in Hanoi. To say he was a man of modest tastes is putting it mildly. Under the house, which is elevated on stilts, is a replica of the politburo meeting room; open air and also modest with just a small conference table and chairs. Technology back then was basic and it’s amazing to think nowadays with the internet and satellites, that this is how the Vietnamese beat not one but two western war machines both of which possessed far greater technological resources at their disposal. Next to the house is a Ho Chi Minh Museum or temple (also called the Ho Chi Minh Temple or less formally, the Uncle Ho Temple), which like all monuments to the man, has a shrine like feel to it and with good reason.

The Military Zone 5 Museum (or Bao Tang Quân Khu 5) in the main building facing the main road is over three levels. For as Christopher Goscha described in his wonderful ‘Modern History of Vietnam’, ‘the timeless Vietnamese culture of resisting foreign invaders’; the theme of the museum is Vietnamese resistance to occupation. The museum was crowded with school children when I arrived, three busloads of them. In Vietnam, people make sure they learn about their history is one thing I’ve noticed on my visits as that history has been long, bloody, and brutal.

The museum is co-located within the headquarters of the 5th Military Region (Zone 5 or Quân khu 5) of the Vietnam People’s Army. Da Nang is a strategically vital command directly under the Ministry of Defence. Zone 5 is responsible for defending the South-Central Coast, the disputed archipelago of the Paracel Islands, and the Central Highlands (Tây Nguyên) border with Cambodia. As the whole site is an active military base it’s advised not to go wandering off any where you’re not supposed to be. Part of the museum commemorates the Battle of Van Tuong fought near to Da Nang in August 1965. This was the first major offensive of the Second Indochina War to be conducted solely by the US military; and was fought against forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and those of the National Liberation Front (South Vietnam).

I had taken a Grab motorbike to the Ho Chi Minh Temple and Military Zone 5 Museum but not having the internet was then stuck for my return journey. In the end I flagged down a Grab rider who said he couldn’t take me as he had no spare helmet (they’re very strict about this in Vietnam unlike in Cambodia where helmet rules are haphazardly applied) and was in any case on a food delivery. So, he kindly booked me a ride and then waited with me for it to turn up before heading off to complete his delivery. Very kind of him. I paid in cash for my rides and I was surprised when every rider insisted on giving me the exact change. One woman patiently counted out 4,000VND (about 15 cents) for my change even though I insisted she keep it. I found nearly everyone I met while in Vietnam to be very polite and friendly.

I went to the Mỹ Khê Temple nearby to my beach hotel. Guide books say you need to book and pay an entrance fee but I just wandered in unchecked. The building and frontage are colourful unlike the empty lot in front of it and the towering hotels nearby. An oasis from the busy road a block down with its exhaust fumes and motorbikes swarming about like locusts. Back from the beachfront you can find more traditional Vietnamese streets: quiet, with little traffic, some shophouses, corner cafes, and restaurants. Many streets are mainly residential and I have to say Vietnam does contemporary domestic architecture well with interesting and imaginative use of urban gardens adding touches of greenery. You could be a world away from the hustle of a big city but are in fact only a short walk. Like another world. Here and there are old houses untouched by development. There are interesting uses of bamboo like on the façade of the Nguon Spa on Tran Bach Dan. Multistorey terrace houses come in all colours and dotted about are bungalows in mock colonial form some finished in bright ochre.

Later on during my Da Nang trip, I stayed at the Lavender Riverside Hotel on Đ. 2 Tháng 9. The staff were very nice, the hotel afforded great views over the city as far as the dull grey smog would allow, but it’s not really near the riverside. A block over from the Lavender is one side of the Military Zone 5 headquarters, so I wasn’t far from the Ho Chi Minh Museum. This Lavender is located on a busy street near new developments and a motorway overpass, outside the entrance was noisy and bereft of places to see or eat. But one or two streets over away from the traffic back behind the hotel and nowhere near any tourists are family run eateries. A bowl of Pho (in Vietnamese phở and pronounced “fur”) and a side dish of vegetables costs USD1.25 and so nice I ate in there for lunch three days running. Near there was a nice bakery and one of those chain coffee shops, which in a café sense is like eating takeaways rather than a meal in a proper restaurant. The back streets were full of more contemporary Vietnamese architectural delights. I was amazed when walking by open doors to houses the cool air from inside rushes out providing temporary relief.

One day I walked up Đ. 2 Tháng 9 to the Dragon Bridge. I went into the local Harley-Davidson franchise for a look. Phnom Penh briefly had one of these before they realised not enough people in Cambodia have the money or inclination to keep such an outfit in business but it seems Vietnam does. There were one or two tourists wandering about this area looking lost. That’s how I got to the Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture (Bảo tàng Điêu khắc Chăm), on foot, and back again. The museum is on the west bank of the Han River just as you come off the Cầu Rồng, the Dragon Bridge. The bridge is often what identifies the city and features in images and has been shown in movies like The Protégé (2021). Other films like remake of The Quiet American (2001) also features Da Nang and the Central Highlands, though is set well before the bridge was built. The Dragon Bridge is 666m long, four lanes wide and took four years to build (2009-13) by Ammann & Whitney, bridge builders based out of New York City.

The sculpture museum was one of the first museums built in Vietnam by the French. It was first proposed by Henri Ernest Jean Parmentier (1870-1949), a French architect, art historian and archaeologist. He later became one of the first European specialists in the archaeology of Indochina: Cham, Lao, and Khmer. Parmentier later became head of the French School of the Far East, École Française d'Extrême-Orient but usually referred to by its acronym, the EFEO; which was founded in 1900 and headquartered in Hanoi (but is now based in Paris), a position he held for 28 years until his retirement in 1932. Among other things the EFEO was responsible for developing the romanisation system for Mandarin used in Vietnam.

The museum was originally designed by two French architects, Auguste Emile Joseph Delaval (who was also a painter) and Claudius Auclair (who served as inspector of civil buildings and chief architect of Tonkin). They were inspired by Parmentier to include indigenous design themes which resulted in the building’s distinctive appearance; a blend of French colonial and Cham design and finished in a pale ochre colour. The museum was first proposed in 1902 but construction didn’t commence until 1915 and it was finally opened in 1919. Over the decades it has been expanded twice and safeguards and presents the cultural legacy of the Champa civilisation (2nd century CE until 1832). Today, the museum houses nearly 2,000 artifacts, comprising the world’s most comprehensive collection of Cham art. The collection spans an entire millennium (5th – 15th centuries), tracing the kingdom’s trajectory from its early Hindu-inspired traditions to its eventual decline.

The museum’s renowned collection originates primarily from significant archaeological sites of the Hindu-Buddhist Champa kingdoms that once flourished across central Vietnam. Many of the defining styles of Cham art are named after these sites, and the galleries are arranged to reflect their geographic provenance. One of these Champa sites is My Son, inland about 30kms from Da Nang. You can take a tour there or go by motorbike. A Grab will take you there for USD6 but getting back is a problem. My only visit there was in 2006. My Son has been: lived in, worshipped, added to, fought over, built and rebuilt, studied, described, depicted, photographed, flooded, bombed, mined, restored, admired and now, tramped over by tourists (290,000 of them a year pre-Covid). There are still bomb craters there left courtesy of the US air force; one I recall a near perfect inverted cone shape you could fit a small house in.

The museum is spread over three levels. It’s fairly easy to move about. It’s open air in that the doors and windows are open so not air-conditioned. They have fans about as it’s still hot despite the fresh breeze. At one point I sat down on a plastic chair provided by the attendants who then moved a fan over for me. Nice of them. There’s a small shop selling souvenirs, and a café with seating in the garden providing a view of the busy road and the Dragon Bridge. The museum is worth an hour or two, and you might even learn something.

When I stayed at Hoi An 20 years before I’d ventured in Da Nang to the Marble Mountains, been taken to the jade shops nearby, and been to My Son so I’d seen some of the city’s attractions before. I thought my few days there enough and had booked with Vietnam Airlines to return to HCMC. From the Lavender Hotel to the airport is barely $! For about a 15-minute motorbike ride with Grab. Then the fun at Da Nang airport begins. Grab motorbikes aren’t allowed to drop you off outside the terminal, rather you’re dumped as it were near the carpark and have about a 200m walk. Then you have to climb stairs to the departure lounge and check-in.

Despite having already checked-in there are no facilities to check your bags, so you have to queue up with everyone else. The terminal building is too small now for the numbers of passengers it processes. The security procedures take an age, the queues snaking their way down to nearly the check-in counters. There don’t appear to be enough staff on hand to process passengers going through security. There’s a VIP lane with no people, and one used by solely by cabin crew, but everyone else is squeezed into a small area with few lanes at one end of the terminal building. If you are flying out of Da Nang you should allow an extra 45 minutes just for this part of departure, otherwise you’ll miss your flight.

Tourane Airport as it was known, was built by the French colonial government in the 1930s as a civilian airport. The Japanese had used the airfield from 1940 in an agreement signed with the Vichy French, making an offer they couldn’t refuse. It was bombed at the end of WWII by the US air force from land bases in China and from aircraft based at sea. As Tourane Airfield it was used by the French air force during the First Indochina War (1945-54). During the Second Indochina War (1959-75) it was for a time the busiest airport in the world, as Da Nang was a logistical centre for the US military.
Da Nang International Airport as it’s now known, is smack bang in the middle of town. Surrounded by the city there’s no scope to expand as it’s built in all around. It’s quite dated now and fairly small for the traffic it handles. South of Da Nang at Chu Lai is another airport developed during that same conflict. As part of Da Nang’s continued economic development plans are afoot to develop and expand that airport to cater for increased passenger and freight numbers. But for the time being the old airport continues on, and if you’re flying out of Da Nang best leave additional time for check-in and security screening, which facilities struggle to cope with.

A flight to Da Nang of just over an hour from HCMC was much preferable to 14 hours by road in a dreaded sleeper bus, or even longer by train. The country’s national airline, Vietnam Airlines, which once enjoyed a monopoly has now had competition since 2011 from the private sector, with VietJetAir based in Ha Noi. Another local airline, Bamboo Airways began operating in 2019. Air services around Vietnam are well organized and affordable so if you’re not wanting hours of bumping along the country’s roads are a good alternative and much faster. The train is something you should do once even if only for one-leg along the main track route. From the beach feel of Da Nang it was back to the smog and traffic of HCMC Mỹ Khê had already receded as if a dream.

See also:
https://michaelbatson.com/blog/218-hoi-an-living-in-the-past-24-january-2019
and
https://michaelbatson.com/blog/219-my-son-circles-of-kings-in-lands-below-the-winds-21-february-2019