The stark contrast between "regular" and "fancy" Da Nang

I moan a bit too much. Not just about Da Nang but probably about a great many other things in my life. This is something that I work on regularly as I try to find the good in things whenever possible.

The other day I was walking down the street because there is this bagel place that actually makes a decent New Yorker bagel and was just noting the things on the side of the road that make me upset about this city.

This is just a regular street here: nothing special, nothing too terrible. The business owners kind of keep things in line out of some sort of obligation I guess, I have no idea if it is required by the city, but then you get to a plot of land that nobody occupies or has been recently torn down and the ugly blemishes of this city, area, and perhaps the country kicks in

Whenever there is a plot of land that is unoccupied, you can be all but guaranteed that people are going to use it as a dumping ground. I've kind of figured out why this is as well. While Da Nang actually does have pretty great waste-management from a public perspective, there are certain types of garbage they will not pick up. Basically, if it doesn't fit into a green garbage bin or if what is inside of that bin is too heavy or damaged for the truck to scoop it up, they leave it there. Plots of land that are unoccupied end up filled with trash, often construction debris, and then the rats move in and things just get nasty for everyone.

This is just how life is here. When someone buys the land they will take it upon themselves to pay to have the detritus taken away and I have a suspicion that they just take it to some other plot of land and dump it there.

However, I went the other night to something that would be considered a bit "fancy" with some friends and well, it is a whole different world over there.

This is a Marriot Hotel that has a lobby special for tapas and wine at night and if you look closely, you can see that the spot of land that is actually theirs, is very nicely maintained, but just a meter away from that on the street level, it is not at all. I don't suppose there is any good reason why they should look after it I guess.

You can see the line at that yellow barricade that must be the DGAF indicator where the staff no longer need to clean anything up.

Once you get inside the Marriot though, I feel like I was entering a land of opulence.

I don't know what you consider to be fancy, but this place made me feel under-dressed for the occasion. Also, it wasn't even very expensive. just 500k for 3 hours of tapas and wine (this is about $20) and I don't think you can really argue with the price.

The wine just kept flowing. I never asked what it was I have to presume that it wasn't anything particularly good but I did kind of get the impression as the hours ticked by that we aren't the kind of class of customer they normally expect. They, I think, believe that people are going to come by and have a bit, not arrive right when it starts and then stay for the entire 3 hours. Let's just say there is no chance they made any money off of us.

Afterwards we were encouraged to go up to the rooftop viewing level and it didn't disappoint. The drinks were no longer included up there and we soon spent more money than we did on the buffet. I guess that is how they get ya!

The point of all of this is that while most of my posts tend to have a negative skew to them, I want people to realize that for the most part this city is actually really nice if you are willing to seek it out. Garbage being in most places is unfortunately just a part of life here, but if you are willing to seek it out, you too can go to a really fancy dinner for $20 and honestly, I don't think that is possible in most of the world.

So I suppose you need to take the good with the bad.

I try to be conscientious about not littering and cleaning up when I can but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the norm over here. But then again, being able to go to a 3-hour wine and tapas buffet for $20 isn't a norm either, now, is it?