Swimming

Mike's coworkers had a plan to go to a waterfall north of Danang. Risa had to run to an atm, so Mike and I grabbed breakfast on the corner outside their house. A lady would set up with a huge pot of soup and sell pho to morning customers. Apparently pho is traditionally a breakfast food. It was really good, which was surprising because I really didn't like pho here in the US. I think that the Asian equivalent of cilantro/Chinese parsley is less strong so I didn't get that soapy taste.

We then met up with Mike and Risa's friends and started off on what ended up being a two hour ride through the mountains. There were six of us on five bikes and I commented that felt like I was in the world's least threatening motorcycle gang. 

We stopped at the summit where there were a few ruins. The scariest bit was the bullet holes in the buildings. Vietnam war fighting took place here and the US troops even made it a little bit further north before they pulled out.

The roads were very windy.

Bullet holes. Yikes.

We continued on our way. I didn't put enough sunscreen on and got burned. I made it until the last day of vacation before I got a sunburn, argh! After much confusion, we found the turn off and hiked up the hill until we saw this:

It's a waterfall in the sense that the water is running downhill, but the locals have dammed it up in various spots to form these deep swimming pools. The water is so clear, it only looks like it's a few feet deep, but most of the pools are actually deep enough to submerge in. The main one we swam in was probably well over 10 ft deep. They'd also built platforms next to the river and would lay down carpets for a few dong.

After swimming and relaxing, we packed up and headed back off on the scooters. We started to stop at a restaurant in Lang Co, but realized stopping meant trying to go over through the pass in the dark. They had some awesome birds just hanging out though and I got some pictures before we left.

On the way back, we saw this cloud that seemed to be pouring over the mountain. It was beautiful. Mike and I joked that it looked like the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke after its head was cut off. We later drove through the cloud which was for lack of a better word, delicious. It was cooling and felt like being dipped in a sparkling drink.

We all headed to a cafe called the Bread of Life. It's a restaurant run by Westerners who employ deaf Vietnamese for the baking and cooking to give them job skills. The menu is very American, but it was pretty good for Asia.

We all looked very tired after the drive.

I ordered a burger. The bun was the best part, light and crispy.

We headed back to the house and then grabbed a taxi (for my poor spine which at this point was considering filing for divorce after the abuse I'd put it through for the past two days) to the local shopping center, "Big C". Like most shopping centers in Asia, it was crazy crowded. Risa grabbed an aloe vera leaf which was huge and ended up being 10 cents. I bought some marble pendants and we headed back to the house to rub aloe vera on our sunburns.