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Down on the Danang waterfront, 50-ft. fishing launches berthed smack in front of the American consulate, disgorging refugees. Five hundred arrived in ten boats, and many of them began unloading television sets in their original crates, Hondas, four or five bicycles per family, an occasional room fan. They had paid $14 per family for the 19-hour water-borne escape from Hué. The normally graceful quays along the river were a mass of humanity camped beneath the green tamarinds amid a bazaar of blankets, ponchos and suspended cheesecloth. "These are the rich ones," mumbled a relief worker when he saw two little girls wearing sweaters. By local standards, he was right.
Danang will get pressure from the north. "We're really worried about having enough rice for everybody," said Le Ba Dinh, who operates the Quang Tri Friendship Association in Danang and has taken in 350 refugees. "We're getting refugees out of the south too, from Quang Ngai and Quang Tin."
It was an unreal sight. Danang residents played netless badminton by the roadside, while the homeless streamed past, casting dancing shadows from the little trash fires that housewives light beside the road at night. "When they get here, they don't know what to do," said Ngo Van Chung, a relief worker surveying the confusion on the edge of town. "They don't know where to sleep or what to eat."