Michael Batson

South central Vietnam has its share of people-made wonders but hereabouts has its natural attractions also. Just south of Danang squeezed between the South China Sea and the rapidly encroaching suburbs of Vietnam’s fifth-largest city are the Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn). Holy hideaways used down through the ages by the Cham peoples through to the Viet Minh battling the colonial French and the so-called Viet Cong fighting a superpower, and now to make a dollar or two from sweaty tourists climbing hundreds of steps under the tropical sun. The exertion can be hard work, but the views and the history are worth it, and so is the breeze that comes with the change in altitude, nature’s air-conditioning. Legend has it the mountains came about because of a golden dragon, a tortoise, and an old hermit. The dragon laid an egg, the tortoise claimed to be a god, the hermit buried the egg, after which it hatched and split into five elements: metal, water, wood, fire, and earth, those being the mountains. For over 400 years it was custom to take marble from the mountains for furniture, sculptures, jewellery and to be used as building material. Such is the marble’s quality it was used to line Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi. It is rumoured treasure of gold and precious gems have been hidden in the mountains over the centuries, booty from feudal lords with instructions the monks at the mountains hide the whereabouts, the monks taking the secret location to the