This past weekend, I had the good fortune to visit not only one mountain but TWO mountains in the course of one day. It was an afternoon abounding with arduous climbing and ample sweating but ultimately was well worth the trouble and tired legs! First stop was the Marble Mountains. Although legend states that the five mountains in the small range represent each of the five worldly elements(four you say? seems that in Asia, wood trumps wind with an added offering of metal),the only sense of water I felt while climbing Thuy Son, H20's namesake peak, was the dampness of my own perspiration. However, the several caves located along the climb allowed time for cooling off as well as marveling at the many Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes that are nestled in the mountain's nooks and crevices. Over the years, the Marble Mountains have been occupied for a multitude of purposes, ranging from religious usage dating back to the ancient Champa kingdom to more recently harboring factions of the Vietnamese army during periods of the Vietnam/American War.


I learned that you can tell which guard lion is a female by checking for its baby cub!



The View from the Top


Supposed to be luckier now...we'll see!

Every temple is watched over by one happy guard and one evil/angry one!





After taking a short rest, it was off to Monkey Mountain! Although there wasn't much to see in terms of monuments, the views of the city were phenomenal and the ride up itself was amazing, as were the cookies we ate at the top. On the way back into Danang, we stopped at this tree that the locals say is 1,000 years old; I am willing to bet it is much older, as its roots have already grown to the point that they look like tree trunks themselves!

On top of Monkey Mountain
Those things that look like tree trunks are actually the tree ROOTS of just one tree!

The Ride back to Danang