The Marble Mountains and China Beach

This morning I left Danang for Hoi An, stopping along the way to visit the Marble Mountains and China Beach. I got there by means of my driver and tour guide Hai, who was pretty knowledgeable about the American War, having fought in the South Vietnamese army from 1968-1973. Later, when I was having lunch along the beach, he showed me the scars that two bullet holes from the war had left. One was right above his right nipple, and other was on the outside of his left leg just above the ankle. Even now, he has strong sympathies for the Americans, even though South Vietnam was eventually folded into the rest of the Communist regime in 1975.

The Marble Mountains are literally composed of marble, which I found out after seeing the many stores at the foot of the mountains that had marble sculptures for sale. One of the stores' sculptures were so big and numerous that they had a sculpture garden of sorts to display all the sculptures. The mountains themselves contained two large Buddhist temples and pagodas that were visible on the mountainside from the beach below. There were also three caves that contained Buddhist shrines within, and it was beautiful to see a few shafts of light shine into these caves from small holes in the ceiling that let in air from outside. There were several large Buddhas housed along the mountainside; the most impressive ones were made out of polished sandstone and polished white concrete. I cooled off after the hiking by going to China Beach and swimming for a little bit. China Beach is a 30-km stretch of beach that was surprisingly nearly empty of people. There were a few dinghies completely beached by the low tide, and and island with a large mountaintop was barely visible along the horizon over the sea.