Hai Van Pass From In VietNam

[loohoang]

Đèo Hải Vân – The Pass of Ocean Mist – is a mountainous stretch of road in Central Vietnam. On days when vapour from the South China Sea rises into the forests and clings to the mountaintops the pass lives up to its poetic name. But despite its romantic title the Hai Van Pass has always been something of a frontier: a boundary of kingdoms and climate, often fought over, sometimes tragic but never losing its ability to inspire awe.

Gazing north over the Hai Van Pass
GAZING NORTH OVER THE HAI VAN PASS
During the ‘American War’ (as the ‘Vietnam War’ is known to the Vietnamese) the Hai Van Pass was known as the ‘Street Without Joy’. Back then, the pass connected the two war-scarred cities of Hue and Danang via the dangerous and hotly contested Highway 1. Thanks to a tunnel under the mountains, completed in 2005, the Hai Van Pass today is the ‘Street Without Traffic’. The majority of transport now takes the tunnel, which leaves the Hai Van Pass – one of the most scenic roads in Vietnam – to two-wheeled vehicles and the occasional oil truck (both of which are not allowed through the tunnel). The spectacular Hai Van Pass is perfect for a relatively easy, safe and short motorbike trip between the popular tourist spots of Hoi An/Danang to the south and Hue to the north.

Hai Van Pass
‘STREET WITHOUT TRAFFIC’ – LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE HAI VAN PASS
The Hai Van Pass is a natural wall. It’s a mountainous finger jutting into the East (South China) Sea; an east-west spur of the Truong Son (Annamite) Range that runs north to south along the western spine of Vietnam. For centuries this natural barrier represented the limit of one kingdom and the beginning of another. The Hindu Kingdom of Champa resided south of the Hai Van Pass while the Confucian-Buddhist Kingdom of Dai Viet (Great Viet) was to the north. The two kingdoms fought constantly to control land either side of the pass. The Cham pushed as far north as the Dai Viet capital of Thang Long (Hanoi) in 1371.

Partly due to the favourable climate and fertility of the land south of the Hai Van Pass, the Cham in this area were known as the ‘Coconut Palm Group’. The Hai Van Pass sheltered the Cham from strong, cold winds and storms that blew from the north. Known as ‘Chinese Winds’ these still ravage territory north of the pass each year during the ‘typhoon months’ – around September and October.

Hai Van Pass - Chinese Winds
‘CHINESE WINDS’ BRING BAD WEATHER NORTH OF THE PASS
The good climatic conditions south of the Hai Van Pass helped to build the Cham civilization, which lasted for more than a thousand years from the 3rd century onwards. It was the lure of the land of the ‘Coconut Palm Cham’ that led to its eventual conquest. Dai Viet, to the north of the Hai Van Pass, was growing steadily thanks to liberation from Chinese rule in AD938 followed by two strong imperial dynasties, the Ly (1009-1225) and the Tran (1225-1400). Agricultural productivity and population were on the rise, but unpredictable weather and devastating flooding in the Red River Delta was a constant threat to stability. With China looming large over their northern borders, Dai Viet looked to the south for more land and a better climate for their growing population. After centuries of fighting, it was the Le Dynasty who finally defeated the Cham in 1471, annexing the sunny territory south of the Hai Van Pass for Dai Viet.

My Son Cham ruins
RUINS FROM THE KINGDOM OF CHAMPA AT MY SON, NEAR HOI AN
The appeal of the land of the ‘Coconut Palm Cham’ is still obvious today. If heading out of Hue on a wet, Private Car From Danang To Hue grey February morning and driving up the Hai Van Pass in thick, moisture-laden cloud, when you arrive at the top and look down on the sun-filled Bay of Danang to the south, it’s easy to imagine how attractive these lands must have been to the Dai Viet from the north. Curling your way up the switchbacks and hairpin bends, the motorbike engine struggling to deal with the gradient, and then rolling down the other side, wondering if the brake pads will wear away before you reach the bottom, it’s also apparent how the pass could have separated two civilizations for so long.

Hai Van Pass - Cham
‘LAND OF THE COCONUT PALM CHAM’ – SOUTH OF THE PASS
Whatever the weather the Hai Van Pass is a scenic route. As with other great views, the pass has often inspired wonder – sometimes in the most unlikely of contexts and least likely of people. When Paul Theroux was passing through Vietnam during his Great Railway Bazaar in 1973, the Paris Peace Accords had only recently been signed by the Americans, South and North Vietnamese. Direct American military participation in Vietnam was officially over, but the war still had two more long years before the ‘liberation’ of Saigon. As most of the Trans-Indochinois Railway (now the Reunification Express) that linked Hanoi with Saigon had been blown up, Theroux was only able to travel on short sections of the line that were deemed safe. Fortunately for him one of these safe section

 

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