Category: Uncategorized

SON TRA PENINSUALA lies just 8 kilometers by motorbike east of Da Nang on Vietnam’s central coast but feels like a different world than the buzzing small city nearby. It’s truly a refreshing break from the city’s noise.

A bike trip into the interior of Son Tra is an adventure into a green wonderland with distinct flora and fauna that has earned the whole peninsula the designation of a nature reserve.

The small peninsula also boasts pristine beaches, twisty motorbike paths clinging to sheer cliffs, forest hikes, and sprawling temples.

The highest point on the peninsula is Son Tra Mountain (also known as Monkey Mountain to American soldiers stationed nearby during the American War),  a rocky 850 foot rise with panoramic views.  It’s a relatively short walk to the top on a concrete path – or if you’re in for a driving challenge, a transmission-busting slog up a crazily steep and narrow motorbike route.

Another highlight of the trip is Linh Ung Pagoda, with its colorful Buddhist statuary and its unique 67-meter-tall Lady Buddha statue.

Our favorite feature of Linh Unh Pagoda has to be the Arhat statues that surround the main plaza. Arhat are figures in Buddhism who have attained enlightenment through meditation and deed. The sculptor, Nguyen Viet Minh, carved whimsical expressions on the enlightened figures along with their mythical animal companions.

Son Tra Peninsula is definitely worth a day trip. If you’re comfortable riding a motorbike and can handle lots of curves and hills, we would recommend renting your own transportation. If not, there are tons of tours leaving from Da Nang that capture all the major sights.

We will definitely head back someday to catch all the things we invariably missed. Until then, onward up the coast.

Up next: Hoi An and Hanoi!

A lot of the experiences we’ve had traveling the world are easy to classify and relate to people who haven’t been to those places. But ask us about Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument on Earth – visible from space with the naked eye – created by the visionary leaders of the Hindu Khmer empire out of sheer excess of imagination – and we don’t even know how to begin. So many sensations, so much heat and history, and so much footage.

How does one even narrow down the Angkor Wat experience? That’s what we asked ourselves. Our answer? Three Temples, a serialized short film unlike anything we’ve produced before.

In the film – which we’ll release in four installments over the next week or so – we roam three giant structures at Cambodia’s fabled Angkor Wat in 100 degree heat, all while having had practically no sleep.

Stax’ idea was to try and capture, using film and music, just what this challenging and ultimately rewarding experience was like. And Before Dawn is Stax’ rather spooky one-minute intro to the film. Enjoy – and oh yeah, watch out for Sunrise over Angkor Wat in a couple of days!

Camera by Stax and Beej. Edited and narrated by Stax.

Music: “Mariner 4/ Project Blue Beam” is by The Fucked up Beat from their album Europa II and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.
No changes were made to this music.