It was supposed to be a chill day. Just going to explore the white sand beach and hopefully cool off with an ocean breeze. What I did not expect to happen was to get to the beach, notice how overcast it was, see a statue on a distant hillside and decide to walk to it.
For one thing we underestimated the distance but also the sheer size of the thing. According to our trusty tour guide Google it's called The Lady Buddha and is in fact a giant 220 foot high white marble statue overlooking Da Nang harbor. As we walked, we transitioned from beach to road and started hiking as the statue grew steadily bigger. I've found drivers here slightly more courteous than in Hanoi. By that I mean they take street markings a bit more seriously and actually honk to announce their distance in relation to yourself and not because they are fundamentally against the concept of courteous silence.

As we reach the top of the hill we notice a set of stairs carved into the mountain side. Curiosity getting the better of us we say "why not" and started climbing. If halfway up you realize that it's a bad idea it's usually too late. Reaching a section at the top barred by rebar we came to the realization that we really shouldn't have climbed the steep looking stairs. But as I said, if you realize that after the fact you're out of luck. Funnily enough others seemed to had made the same mistake because a section of rebar was bent out of place enabling us to duck under and continue up.

Finally making it to the summit we surreptitiously climbed over a fence which, under normal circumstances, you are obviously not allowed to cross and walked up to the main temple and the Buddha.

Now, when I say big, I mean like I finally feel I have an appreciation for people in Godzilla movies. This thing is enormous. What i think the biggest question is how the hell did they erect it. Because my god was it windy on the crest of that mountain. Like yanking papers out of people's hands and pushing over small children windy. All things considered though it was really worth the walk to see the statue up close as well as all the smaller temples around it.

Having no urge to walk all the way back to the hotel, let alone down the hill we got a taxi back (a whopping 7.50) and proceeded to shower and crash.

Tomorrow is going to be both a travel and a sightseeing day because we are going to be taking a car to Hoi An, a neighboring city to Da Nang.

The hike really took it out of us both so we're having a bit of an early night.

G-

As you can see the grey clouds are slowly descending on us.

To put it into perspective we hiked from just next to that tall building in the distance to where we took this picture.

The "official" entrance to the temple complex...

That's One Giant Marble Statue