Hai Van Pass

[Janet]

We are speeding toward the conclusion of our time here in Vietnam.  We knew it would be like this--trudging through peanut butter in the early weeks and flying along on greased tracks here at the end. We're not sorry to be coming home, but we are sorry to be leaving behind our many new friends  The next few weeks will be filled with last chances for this or that, final conversations, emotional goodbyes.  This is when we question the niceness of interrupting people's lives with our presence for such a short time and then leaving!  But all in all we know it's worth it, and we hope that some of these people we will be seeing again.  We are going to be visiting China in June, and we'll be seeing precious students we said goodbye to 16 years ago.  Could be that the year 2032 sees us in Vietnam again, though we'd prefer to return to Asia before then!

This past weekend we got to do an adventure we've been saving up since we got here--we motorbiked over Hai Van Pass and then swam at the river we visited in October with one of Tim's classes (remember jumping in waterfalls and climbing on boulders?).  Nineteen motorbikes made the journey, most of them carrying two people.  We assembled at our house at 7:30 to distribute bodies and supplies, then made our way across town to another meeting place for more people, then on up the pass.

Hai Van Pass takes you over a huge mountain that separates Da Nang from Hue, the imperial city of the last dynasty of Vietnam. At the top there are old viewing towers that may have been built by the King to defend against the French.  I say "may have been" because the friend telling us about it wasn't confident of her facts.  Whatever the story, the ruins were pretty cool and riddled with bullet holes.  Impossible to imagine actually being in war and using those towers for lookouts, being shot at while in them, etc.

View of the highway from the top.

The drive over the mountain was a lot of fun.  There is a tunnel through the mountain that provides a much quicker way through for people who are just trying to get from one city to another, so the traffic on the pass is very light and mostly motorbikes out for a scenic drive.  Motorbikes and pig trucks, that is.  It's illegal for the pig trucks to drive through the tunnel, and we saw at least a dozen such trucks throughout the day. We also saw quite a few grazing cows and goats, some of them hanging out in the middle of the road.  Driving in Vietnam is sometimes tiring, but never boring.

Our destination for the day was a swimming hole that turned out to be far more popular than we ever dreamed.  We had gone there on a weekday in October and had the place to ourselves.  On a sunny Sunday in April, however, the place was packed.  Many picnic pavilions had been constructed out of bamboo poles and were perched all over the rocks next to the many natural swimming pools. The waterfall nearest our pavilion was a ton of fun to swim in.  In October the water level had been too forceful to go too near the falls, but this time we could climb all over the waterfall.  None of the Vietnamese friends we traveled with had been there before, and it was so much fun to see them enjoying the place. Usually they are so careful not to be out in the sun, but no one could resist the fun that day.

Our pleasure was increased all the more by getting to share the day with our good friends from Bend, Charissa and Josiah.  We have made so many memories here that we will share with only the people we're leaving behind, so we're grateful to have a few special ones we can reminisce over with friends and family back home.

Happy Adventurers in front of a pasture of happy water buffalo.