The Museum of Cham Sculpture is at the junction of Bach Dang Street and Tran Phu Street, Hai Chau District, near the Dragon Bridge. It is a graceful building and an eclectic mix of French-colonial architecture and Cham elements set in picturesque surroundings by the Han river.   The history of the museum starts in 1891 when Charles Lemire started to collect Cham sculptures that had been discovered in scattered areas of Quang Nam Province and brought them to Da Nang.  The number of items increased to 90 by 1895 and they were housed at the “Tourane Garden”, where the museum would later be built. The establishment of a Cham sculpture museum in Da Nang was first proposed in 1902 by the Department of Archaelogy of L’Ecole Francaise d’Extreme Orient (the Far-East Archaeological Research Institute).  Henri Parmentier, a prominent archaelogist in the department, made great contributions to the campaign for its construction.  The first museum building was...

The Nam O Fish Sauce Village was established in the early 20th century. Nam O is a small fishing village at the mouth of the Cu De river, at the foot of the Hai Van Pass, and is in Hoa Hiep Ward, Lien Chieu District.   Nam O fish sauce is a speciality of Da Nang.  It is well-known throughout the country for its qualities which are highly appreciated.  The fish sauce is made of long-jawed anchovies.  To find out how the fish sauce is produced, you should visit two households making fish sauce by the two different methods, distilling and filtering.  After leaving the long-jawed anchovies in salt for a year, the fish sauce is extracted. The fish are preserved in salt from either Nha Trang (Khanh Hoa Province), Quang Ngai or Binh Thuan, which have a larger grain size than other kinds of salt.  The salt is dried on a cement floor for five to seven days and then kept in pottery vats for some years before being used.  The fish...

An Hai Village, formerly called Phuoc Vang Commune, used to be part of Phuoc Chau, Hoa Vinh District (now Hoa Vang District). It was renamed as An Hai Commune, An Luu, Dien Phuoc District, in King Nguyen Phuc Chu’s reign (1691 - 1725). This area, on the eastern side of the Han River, was chosen by the Nguyen Dynasty to build a citadel called An Hai.  Together with Dien Hai Citadel on the western side, it was responsible for protecting the Da Nang harbour.  After many attacks by French and Spanish allied troops on the city in the early morning of 1 September 1958, both citadels were badly damaged.  Although the remains of the An Hai Citadel have virtually disappeared now, the history of this glorious resistance is still in the hearts of Da Nang’s citizens. An Hai Communal House Festival was restarted in 2000 to remind people of the past glorious resistance. The festival is celebrated on the 10th day of the 8th lunar month.  After...