Day 10 in Vietnam
This morning after a breakfast of waffles and coffee I had a final walk around Hue. I’ve had a great time here and enjoyed the city as well as getting my chocolate fix at Choco House ( Love Vietnamese chocolate and will take a bar of 85 % with me ).
A little after the scheduled pick up time a van pulled up and asked if I was going to Da Nang, he put my bag in the back and motioned for me to get in the front seat. The van looked pretty full but we picked up 1 more person before leaving Hue.
On the way I was watching the motorcycle and scooter riders and noted that I don’t think I’ve seen any bike over about 125 cc since I’ve been here. The bikes and scooters seem to outnumber the cars by about 2 to 1, and I remember being told in Hanoi that it’s expensive to own a car here because they are heavily taxed, I’m not sure if that’s just in the cities or if it applies all over Vietnam.
It’s a little over 2 hours from Hue to Da Nang but once out of the city it’s mostly motorway. There’s quite a few toll roads and it must recognise the number plate quickly because most cars barely slow down and rely on the barrier opening quickly which it does.
Just before Da Nang we entered a tunnel and after a few minutes I started to wonder when is it going to end, it took between 5 and 10 mins to go through at good speed. I looked later and it is the Hai Van tunnel and the longest in south east Asia at 6.28 kilometres long. After leaving the tunnel you can see Da Nang across the bay and it looks pretty impressive. First impression of Da Nang are that it is a large and very busy city.
It took quite a while to drive through the centre dropping people off and I was the last to be dropped off and away from the busy centre and more towards a beach area.
I got checked into the hotel and was impressed straight away, so far the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in here. I booked a tour around Da Nang and the Ba Na hills as tomorrow is my only full day here.
I checked with the receptionist about a recommendation for lunch ( she asked if I wanted Vietnamese food and I said of course ! ) and was directed either next door or 100 metres down the road . I dropped my bags in the room which was very nice and headed out to get some food. The place next door looked empty so I went down the road and they were just closing for the afternoon so returned to the other one. The Bun Bo Hue which is a regional Pho dish was amazing and probably the best I’ve had so far in Vietnam.
Afterwards I went off towards the coast for a walk, it’s only around 5 minutes away and was quite lively, with people playing volleyball, running and the occasional one swimming. It’s the first time it’s felt warm enough for shorts and short sleeves since I’ve been here, perhaps I’ll break the shorts out soon. The beach is very good with soft sand and I can now say I’ve had my feet in the South China Sea.
I noticed a lot of karaoke bars earlier in the area and can hear some very bad singing as I type this in the hotel room before going out for dinner. It could be a long night. 😂
I returned to the restaurant that was closed earlier and had another excellent meal there. I could see out of the corner of my eye that one of the waitresses was watching me eat, I didn’t think that I was too bad at using chopsticks at least by western standards and always managed to pick pretty much anything up, but I’m obviously not up to SE Asia standards because after about 5 mins she came up and put a fork next to me without saying anything.
After dinner I went for a walk to find an ATM but found the first one was empty, there was obviously a cash shortage in town as while I was looking for the location of another ATM 2 other tourists asked if that ATM was working. The 2nd ATM I found worked though. As I was walking around I was surprised at the number of karaoke bars, there close enough to drown each other out. I’ve obviously underestimated their popularity because even the hotel tv has karaoke channels but all In Vietnamese.
On the way back in this evening the receptionist told me it may be cold tomorrow at the top of the mountain so make sure to take a jacket, not sure how high it may be but we’ll see tomorrow.
Da Nang / Ba Na Hills Day 2
I was up early to get out for a walk before breakfast and to get ready for today’s tour to Ba Na hills. I walked towards the beach and it was already fairly busy with people doing various exercise routines and running or just out walking.
To say the trip to Ba Na hills was not what I expected would be an understatement but perhaps I should have looked into it more, the few tour descriptions I read did not prepare me for this. I was picked up at my hotel on time and most of the tour were already there, we just picked up 1 more French girl on the way. All together there were 5 Korean girls, 2 girls from Romania, the French girl and myself. The tour guide said her name would be difficult for us to pronounce so we were to call her “ Banana “. Banana gave us an introduction on the way to Ba Na hills, apparently the French named the area Banana forest but the locals dropped the final na hence Ba Na.
It wasn’t far to Ba Na hills from Da Nang but it was up. We arrived at the car park and began our tour. This is when I realised that the tour wasn’t what I thought it was. Ba Na hills was apparently a French retreat when they were here but it’s now been turned into an amusement park, there some gardens and the golden bridge as well as a French wine cellar to see before you get the second cable car to the “French village” at the top. The first cable car took us into the clouds and that’s where we remained for 5 hours, actually 30 mins would have been enough to see everything in the amusement park at the top.
So I’m currently sitting in a cloud typing this waiting for 3 o’clock ( About an hour’s time ) when we meet to head back ( I can’t help but find it funny though. Tacky doesn’t begin to describe it ). If you ever find yourself in Da Nang unless you really like theme parks I would advise you to give this a miss but we live and learn 😂. Would have been much better off looking around DaNang some more today.
I was speaking to 1 of the Romanian girls earlier and she was saying that they have been travelling from South to North and if I go to Phu Quoc to stay in the South of the island, which is useful to know.
As we were about to catch the first cable car down the sun started to come out at the top and the cloud lifted a little so we were going to stop at the Golden bridge on the way down again.
The trip back into Da Nang was straightforward and I’m now back at the hotel after a nice meal down by the beach. My time in Da Nang has gone so quickly, stopping for just 2 nights doesn’t really give you a chance to see much in a city this size but I’m at Hoi An for 3 nights at least and haven’t decided where to go from there, I was thinking Cham island but not sure if the weather is good enough to spend time there as it’s more of a water sports place so it may be a move further south after Hoi An.
So I’ve only got a few hours in Da Nang in the morning before heading to Hoi A which is only an hour away. I’ve booked a pickup for 11.30.
So I’m going to finish this up now and get it published and say goodnight and take care.
Thanks for reading
Regards Chris
chris herbert's travels/adventures 