Teacher Blog

Roy's thoughts on Da Nang.

It gets hot in Danang, but it’s not the hottest place and you learn how to live with the heat. It’s the end of July and the weather seems not quite as hot. We don’t work in the heat and that’s great. Work is work but I can very honestly say that working here beats what I used to do, so I find very little to complain about. Our lives are what we make of them, so I choose to see the positive. As we work through the heat in our air conditioned office here on Quang Trung street we look from the rooftops and into the sky and it not too hard realize just how nice it is.

There’s often a nice breeze in the afternoon and in the summer afternoons, thunderclouds build up to the north in stunningly beautiful displays often topped with iridescent pearly caps. Just take the time and look. Sometimes they’re harbingers of rain and sometimes not. Often they drop no rain at all, disappear, and seem like memories. In the evening when it’s day off or at the weekend, many teachers, and a lot of the local folks and expats walk down to the riverside and enjoy the cool with a brew or two and sit.

Your social life is what you make it. The Bamboo 2 Bar is popular where you can sit comfortably at the roadside and watch the motorbikes under the lights and talk. You can order coconut ice cream at the coffee shop called Heaven and you’ll: 1) eat it from the shell, 2) drink the coconut water, and 3) eat the coconut meat as well! You can find food on almost every street in the little shops, where you’ll sit on little red or blue stools, or you can eat at the more pricey restaurants and have the occasional hamburger or pizza and sit in a chair.

Everything depends on your comfort level. You can try the food court in the Indochina tower three stories above the street, look out onto the Han river, and afterward play air hockey with a friend in the arcade. Green plaza has really good food at the top too. The Waterfront (a newer place) with a great view, serves excellent food from its kitchen and features beers and chilled wines from around the world. Seafood? If you like seafood you can eat it three times a day: fish, shrimp, mussels, etc. The Pacific ocean is at the doorstep.

Ask around when you get here. Get to know Danang. It may be hot…but it’s a nice place to live and work.