Mass tourism
Our next few stops in Vietnam were a weird mix of mass tourism, and empty quiet spots to soak up local culture.
Right after Hoi An we caught a bus just 50 minutes up the road to Da Nang. We contemplated whether to even visit Da Nang as there was mainly two reason everyone went, and we were sure it was our thing. But decided to go, just spend 1 full day seeing the sights before heading onto other places.
Da Nang is quite a small coastal town, nested right next to some tall mountains, which is home to one of its key tourist attractions - Ba Na Hills. A theme park and viewpoint at the peak of the mountain, around 1500m above sealevel. Its most known for being the sight of the famous "Hands Bridge", where two hands protrude out of the side of the mountain, holding a golden bridge in the air.
There was a few things that slightly put us off when thinking about whether to visit; it is a MASSIVE tourist and Instagram spot. Infact the Forbes article written about the park says "This Vietnamese resort was built for the ultimate Instagram picture"🫠. Which is not our bag. Also, it wasn't - it was built by the French in 1919 initiallt as a train station and small resort for French tourists to escape the heat of Central Vietnam. But since then, its been developed into a touristy Instagram spot. Also, it's quite expensive for a Vietnamese tourist spot at just over £30 per person.
All that being said, we decided to give it a go. To get up to the park you first have to take a cable car up the mountain, the longest cable car in Vietnam infact. This part was really really fun. A bit terrifying? But great. We ended up traveling through a thick layer of clouds, and as we came out the otherside had perfect blue sky above us and could look back and see nothing below us but that layer of cloud. It was pretty spectacular!
Once you reached the peak of the mountain, I have to say the views were absolutely beautiful! We had a panoramic view across the peak of the mountainous landscape. It was, as to be expected, packed. Despite us getting there very early. The first thing you see as you enter the park is the famous hands Bridge, which was magical!
The rest of the park is very bizarre...it was like a cross between a Disney Park, a miniature(but full size?) town, or an Alton Towers theme park. The park was made up of a series of small "towns" each different themed; a Spanish town, a German beer hall, a Japanese village etc. Then in amongst that, is an ungrounded amusement park with bumper cars, rollercoasters, shooting games and arcade games. It was all very odd. Maybe the weirdest part though was just how massive the whole complex was, and how so much of it was just built entirely for photo opportunities. Whole massive French style mansions, with nothing in them, just a facade for a photo.
All in all though, we actually enjoyed our at at Ba Na Hills more than we expected. Was it too touristy, absolutely! Was it too expensive, yeah for Vietnam I'd say so! But was it was so beautiful and picturesque. It was also just a really fun change of pace for a day, something very different to our usual adventures.
The other main tourist spot in Da Nang is another odd one. There's a long bridge that goes across the river through Da Nang, decorated with a large golden dragon. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays there is a 30 minute performance where the dragon breathes fire and water. It was an odd, but fun little evening show. The highlight was definitely the water part od the show though, as everyone with front row seats standing on the bridge got absolutely soaked and raced off the bridge to escape the water!
Peaceful escapes
After such a busy day in Da Nang, we were looking forward to a more quiet escape. First off we went to Phong Nha, a very small little town in North Vietnam. Its particularly known for its beautiful landscapes, massive caves and a bizarre little activity.
We only had one full day here, but rented a scooter, hit the road and headed straight for the biggest cave in the area, Paradise Cave. The drive there was absolutely beautiful, winding roads between limestone cliffs and rice fields.
The cave itself was unreal. I have never seen anything like it. Its about 7km long, and you can walk 1km of the length into the cave. It was enormous! We've seen a few caves on our trip so far, but this was tops it easily. What was nice is it was so quiet. It was a 3km walk up to the entrance of the cave, and we didn't see a single person the whole way. When we reached the entrance to the cave there was a long area to queue up, so it must get very busy at certain times of the year, but again this was empty! Was kind of nice after such a packed visit to Ba Na Hills.
While in Phong Nha we also made a visit to a very special activity... duck feeding (and dancing). For around £2, you can pay to go into a duck sanctuary, feed them, and do some dancing games with them. It's quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I have done on this trip, actually most ridiculous thing I've ever done actually. But was absolutely hilarious. Some light hearted fun!
Tet in Tam Coc
We left Phong Nha on a night bus up to Tam Coc, a small province of Ninh Binh. Thankfully this time, the bus didn't catch fire. But we did arrive at 4:30am, where our hostel didn't even open until 7am. And then we'd still not even be able to check in until 2pm. But to make matters worse, not only did we have a 2 and a half hour wait till our hostel even opened... it was 8° when we arrived! We were absolutely freezing! We've been so used to warm weather, this totally caught us off guard. We we're so under prepared. I went through my backpack putting on all layers I could, and ended up in two pairs of trousers, 3 tops, my jumper and my raincoat. And I was still cold!
Eventually we got into our hostel, had some breakfast before going out to explore further before check-in opened. We ended up buying our first knock-off gear here too, a fake Patagonia beanie hat, just to keep us warm!
Tam Coc was quiet and sleepy, something we had expected as we were arriving during Tet. Tet is the New year celebrations in Vietnam, and during this time the Vietnamese travel back to their family homes, to spend a number of days at home celebrating the end of one year and the start of the other. So it's common that shops and restaurants might close for a number of days, and tourist sites to close. So we'd anticipated a quiet Tam Coc, and it was actually lovely. We went to the shops and bought back up food for the main day of Tet (New years day) incase we couldn't find food elsewhere and got settled in a quiet few days to rest, explore the city without any tourism. It was magical. We spend our time doing life admin, resting, and going on very quiet walks around the surrounding rice fields and farm land.
We were so glad we went to Tam Coc for Tet. We'd read lots of reviews online about how bad it was to travel Vietnam during Tet, even recommending that you should leave Vietnam for the week of Tet. So we were worried we'd make a mistake by staying in Vietnam for it, but we loved it. Things were actually open on the day which surprised us, so meant we could get a nice drink around the fire (yes it's that cold!) And for those shops that were closed, they only closed for around 48 hours anyway! But generally the whole town was quite quiet throughout the day of tet, until midnight... When hundreds of fireworks were set off. It really put all of our firework shows at home to shame. We had a little balcony to our homestay room, so sat out there and watched them for a good hour!
Cruising between caves
The day after Tet tourist spots opened back up, so we decided to do a boat trip through the caves and mangroves just outside Tam Coc. We'd rented a scooter so could drive ourselves there, which was once again a super beautiful drive!
Turns out, the day after tet is not the best day to go. It was PACKED! We ended up queuing for alnpst two hours just to get to a boat. But the wait was worth it. The boat trip was amazing, and different to any we'd done previously as it was inland rather than at sea. There's four tours to pick from, but we went for the tour that took us through 3 caves, one of which took over 10 minutes just to row through! Along the tour we also stopped off at a number of temple and shrines along the river. Tam Coc is often referred to as the Ha Long Bay on land, and I can see why.
Because we'd hired a scooter for day it meant we could head on and continue to explore the surrounding area in the afternoon. Tam Coc has an imperial city just outside of Tam Coc which we decided to go visit. This spot was much quieter which was nice. It was definitely smaller than we'd expected but was beautiful to just wander around before heading home.
Our favourite type of exploring, bicycling
For our other full day outside of tet we decided to rent bicycles, explore the closer surrounding landscape. Renting bicycles always has and always will be one of our favourite things to do in any city, and it certainly helps when it's in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.
We cycled about 5km up to a well known view point near tam coc. Its a 600 step climb to the top of a twin peaked limestone cliff with uninterrupted views across rural Tam Coc and Ninh Binh in the far distance. The climb was hard. I cant believe were 3 months in and my fitness is still non existent and not improved haha. But I made it, after many many breaks to catch my breath. But wow were the views worth it.
There was two peaks you can climb to, one a little higher than the others but both spectacular. One has a very impressive dragon statue that sprawls across of top of the mountain. It's a pretty popular thing to climb across the peak of the mountain and get some very impressive photos with the statue. However, that climb is dang sketchy; across jagged rocks, no hand rail or protection from falling off the edge. Which is a strong no for me and Chris, two very clumsy people🤣 so we got some nice pictures from safely behind a barrier.
These views were some of the most incredible I have ever, ever seen and something I'll never forget.
Tam Coc was definitely a highlight if our whole visit to Vietnam. It was such a beautiful mix of peaceful, adventurous and relaxing. It was also so wonderful to be part of the preparation for tet and the big day itself.
It was also our first taste of the cold of North Vietnam...but we had much more to come with our next step to Sapa🥶
Comments