To describe it as unknown would be a lie. A more accurate description would refer to what is not worth knowing about. Curiosity killed the cat and then that cat was probably reincarnated as a female companion from back over in China that was visiting me for a few days.
Previously we had stayed at a place last year known as the Sea Phoenix hotel at the end of Đường Hồ Xuân Hương, we stayed there for a week-long vacation long before I had decided to stay here for longer periods. It served as my gateway to Da Nang despite the fact that it was located miles away from everything.
That hotel was ridiculously cheap (at the time of booking), had a swimming pool on the roof, and was also close to the beach. Yet like all things too good to be true, there were certain catches to be found. There was a massive Accor managed set of private villas blocking the nearest stretch of beach. It was a decent-ish walk away from everything in An Thuong. The nearby neighbourhoods weren’t exactly the most upmarket places in the world. That hotel could be described as adequate, yet nothing spectacular.
This Friday morning, a special day when local people will be celebrating ‘Tết Đoan ngọ‘ had began with a late breakfast at place located fairly close to that particular hotel. The Aussie style breakfasts at Hilly’s cafe went down well with us and we had timed it in such a way that lunch was not going to be required.
You may notice from the photo that the deaf chef had forgotten to add the bacon to my plate. However, she was so sweet and nice when she later brought the bacon over to the table that she could instantly be forgiven for that and various other crimes that she hasn’t even committed yet. It was then decided after settling the bill, that some walking was to be done, but we had nothing special to really walk to.
Soon it dawned upon us, that we had never ventured to the right of the Pullman Resort, ever during the total duration of our respective amounts of time spent in Da Nang. We needed to walk for the sake of exercise, so we ventured out there. The parts of Đường Võ Nguyên Giáp that go past there are a peculiar place. On the left hand side of the road, you can see luxury resorts and villa for the next few kilometres ahead; yet on the right, you can mainly see the kind of shit restaurants that are totally dependent upon patronage from Chinese tour groups made up of newly monied, dumb brainwashed fucks that will never explore a place independently. Half of those businesses will most likely to some extent be Chinese owned, thus ensuring all that tourism spending goes into local economy, right? 😉
We had already established that the right hand side of the road is a bit of a shithole. That’s OK, shitholes can be fun. What about the left hand side?
Well, I can tell you from experience that most luxury resorts don’t always enjoy levels of occupancy, their F&B operations are mostly reliant upon guests being too lazy to venture elsewhere and they’re often staffed by underpaid workers from the countryside that couldn’t give a shit about their job. Unless, you’re staying in a genuinely dangerous country, there’s usually no need to stay within the gold plated cage of a luxury resort as far as I’m concerned.
While we were not able to find a justifiable reason to enter one any of the resorts, a public pathway to the beach was spotted. A little stroll down there confirmed everything that I have just mention as you could witness the staff ‘at work’ from both sides; they were mainly chatting shit loudly to each other and doing very little of value. Eventually, we got to that damn beach, that the reincarnated cat had nagged me to head towards. It was nothing special, rather empty and the areas at the back were rather neglected, with rubbish thrown around everywhere.
If you had been yet to witness a coconut tree up, close and personal during your short, miserable life this may have seemed absolutely wonderful; fulfilling all those tropical beach fantasies for you all at once. What I contemplated was the fact that this stretch of beach, although publicly accessible was the one that the high-spenders were supposed to spend their vacation time chilling out at. It just goes to show that many a luxury product or service is overrated, when a similar experience can be enjoyed for free. Get a beach towel and a few cold beers and you’ll be having an equally good time as everybody else.
The time was 12 a.m. We headed back and realised that we were doing the one thing that most sensible people would not advise by standing out in that midday sun for too long. We headed back and laughed at the spectacle of a busload of Chinese tourists arrived at what could be described at the most isolated, awful looking Phở noodle restaurant in the whole of Da Nang. Every second car heading down road was sporting a ’92’ number plate, thus partially confirming the suspicion that the only real decent purpose that this road served at this moment in time was getting to and from Da Nang and Hoi An.
We escaped that burning sunlight to arrive at the place where my companion had enjoyed her first ever Vietnamese milk coffee. There is nothing special about the place called ‘Leo café,’ barring a slight element of sentimental value. However, what it lacks in charm, it also lacks in loud obnoxious Western women complaining about a lack of vegan stuff on the menu. It also has ‘chocopie’ flavour iced blended drinks on the menu. It can be confirmed that the production of such a drink actually involved putting a chocopie in a blender.
If there’s ever going to be a real reason to visit Leo café, it might be that you have a slight chocopie fetish. It’s on 140 Đường Hồ Xuân Hương, if you want one.
Đà Nẵng Diaries 