Da Nang & Hoi An, Vietnam 2020
- V.Gray
- Feb 23, 2022
- 6 min read
The city of Da Nang has everything: the beautiful beaches, mountains, lots of dining, plenty of accommodation options, and attractions. We fell in love with Da Nang on our first day there. After checking into our AirBnB, we went to a beach bar and met up with our friends from Germany (Marc and Alanae). The sun was shining and it was a beautiful 25 degrees, which was a welcome change from Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh's rainy and overcast weather. The beaches are very inviting, so naturally the boys decided they wanted to try surfing. Us girls, however, found a spot on the beach, lay in the sun and killed ourselves laughing at their “surfing talent”.
As the day continued we returned to our AirBnB and got ready for dinner. We met up with Marc, Alanae, Paul, and Rhonda. After grabbing some drinks at the corner store, we started walking to the night market by the Dragon Bridge.
The Dragon Bridge runs over the Han River in Da Nang, at night around 9 pm the bridge starts to spit water (turning it blue), and shoots fire (turning it red). Photo Credit:V.Gray
Everyone gathers at either end of the bridge, shutting down one side of the 6 lane traffic, and watches the show; this lasts 10 to 15 minutes.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
As you can imagine we moved as close as possible to the head of the dragon,
Photo Credit: V.Gray everyone but Ryan was soaked by the end of the show. Ryan had purposely stood behind our taller friend Paul, mostly to protect his beer but he also stayed pretty dry too.
The night market here is amazing, they have everything from deep fried chicken to fresh crab or lobster. If you sit at a table you are expected to order from that vendor's stands, if you do not you will be asked to move on. As we wander through the crowded market you will find clothes, shoes, games. It is like a mini fair.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
Another big attraction is Marble Mountain (South of Da Nang). We decided to take a morning hike to the mountain. It is a grouping of 5 marble and limestone hills. It is a very nice, short, easy hike.
In the afternoon we rented a scooter and tagged along with Paul and Rhonda. They were going to Monkey Mountain to try and find the endangered Red-Shanked Doucs monkey.
We saw some great views as we travelled up the mountain. There is a checkpoint at the top of the mountain(what we thought was the beginning of the ride) that leads to resorts or the trails to search for the monkeys. On the map it looks like it should be the start of where you look for the monkeys, but it's actually half way through the route. When we got there they turned us away, since our scooters did not meet the Photo Credit: V.Gray requirements to continue on. We needed a standard scooter due to the mountain’s steepness. This did not stop us though, we went back to Da Nang to rent the correct scooters.
Photo Credit: Rhonda C.
Eventually we returned to Monkey Mountain with the standard scooters. We spent the entire afternoon going up and down searching for the Red-Shanked Doucs. The roads and trails are not all marked clearly, so we ended up in some pretty adventurous places (see video below). We had a great time looking for monkeys, seeing other stops on mountains, the views were stunning from the top. We saw multiple monkeys unfortunately none of them were the Red-Shanked Doucs. As always at some point the day started to come to an end, and we had to head back down the mountain.
Video Credit: V.Gray
Later we found out there are two trails to take on Monkey Mountain, we had only done half the mountain. So if you are looking for something to do, make sure you have a full tank of gas,a standard scooter, and are ready for an adventure.
Ba Na Hills started as a hill resort built back in 1919, since then it has become a bigger tourist attraction taken over by the Sun Group (same company that owns SunWorld in Ha Long Bay). Sun Group created an amusement park at the top of the hills, with a resort and the Golden Bridge.
You take a cable car up the mountain (650,000 vnd or $36.00 cad / person). The views on the way up are gorgeous . The trip takes about 15 minutes one way, and goes through the mountains; past little waterfalls and rivers, and you can see all the way to the East Sea.
The resort, amusement park and Golden Bridge are on the Truong Son mountain range; one of the highest mountains in Central Vietnam.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
When the French built the resort in 1919, they called it the "City in Clouds". As you walk
through the resort and amusement park you can see the influence of ancient European architecture throughout. The food and beverages are a fair bit more expensive up the mountain.
A lot of people go for the amusement park and resort, we actually went for the Golden Bridge and Hands of God. Before we left for Vietnam, I had been playing on Instagram and found the Golden Bridge. We had agreed not to make any plans. We would wing the trip
Photo Credit: V.Gray and if we happened to be in the area of
certain sites we wanted to see, we would
go do them.
This avoided any disappointment if we did not get to a certain city or attraction.The Golden Bridgedid not disappoint. It was even better than what I expected.
We were so impressed with the Golden Bridge and the resorts up in Ba Na Hills, we planned on doing another trip up next time to stay overnight (stay tuned).
Photo Credit: Rhonda C.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
We took 3 days and stayed just outside of Hoi An Ancient town, at the Silk and Sand. We stayed over Tete Holiday, so the streets were lined with flowers throughout the day. We wandered through the night market displays (flowers and gifts), and the lantern displays at night on the Thu Bon River.
This is when we really got to see the Vietnamese hospitality culture.
People are very friendly and kind, when we walked by groups of people in their homes or at restaurants celebrating Tete, they would offer us food, drink and bring us into their celebrations. We even caved and sang karaoke a few times, it was a lot of fun and it made for a couple of late nights.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
The other big thing to do while in Vietnam is get tailored clothes made. This was Ryan's third time to Vietnam and in the past he had had a couple of suits made. We tried to go to Mr XE, which is where Ryan had had suits made before, however he was closed over Tete. Since we were on a time frame (3 days) we walked around Hoi An and spoke to a couple of different shops. Walked into Sam Sam clothing shop and found our place.
They brought us in, talked to us about the material, the styles, looked at magazines and offered us beers while Photo Credit: Alanae going over everything.
They were so kind and helpful, they took our measurements and started our clothes as we walked out the door.They requested we return the following afternoon for a fitting.
Ryan ended up with 3 suits (pants, jacket, tie, handkerchief, 1 vest and 1 dress shirt), I got 2 dresses, Paul ordered 2 dress shirts and at a later date Rhonda got 2 rompers made. They also shipped everything home to Canada for us. This saved us from having to carry it all around for the rest of our trip. All said and done for Ryans 3 suits and my 2 dresses with shipping was about $1,200 CAD.
Our last day in Hoi An, our AirBnB owner offered us a free Vietnamese cooking class.
He taught us how to make veggie rolls with rice, mixed vegetables and sauces. Taking us through all the spices and teaching us the different cooking methods. He went on to tell us that before owning the Air BnB, he had been a chef all over the world and loved to travel.
This was a great end to our tour of Vietnam, the next day we were catching a flight to Thailand.
Photo Credit: V.Gray
Next stop Bangkok, Thailand! Cheers!
Map of Vietnam and places we travelled.
**Please note that all opinions and views expressed in this post are my own, from my own experiences. If you would like to see more pictures follow me on Instagram vikki.gray
This post is edited by E.Gray Editing. (https://www.egrayediting.com )**
Comments