Day 59

Ba Na Hills

After waking up and leaving about 7am we got a Grab from Hoi An over to Da Nang which took about 40 minutes. Our driver asked us what our plans were for the day and we said Ba Na Hills and he offered to take us there and back. Sweet we thought, he seemed like a nice guy and we wouldn't have to worry about finding a driver and not being able to get back. We quickly dropped our stuff off at our hostel and grabbed a quick Banh Mi for breakfast before we made the hour long drive over to Ba Na Hills.

When we arrived, our driver took us to the ticket office (possibly to get a commission?) and we were ready to rumble. After getting his WhatsApp and talking about his 70km run he did a few years ago, it was time. Ba Na Hills is a bit of a theme park but also a tourist destination - a real mix of things. First and foremost, there was a 5771 meter long cable car that took you to the top of the hill which I think is the longest in the world? We hopped in and took it the oddly quiet views over the dense jungle below. I was very excited to be honest, it felt like I was at Thorpe Park all over again.

Map ready, I studied a possible route for the day. We started in Spiritual Zone which was filled with nice little temples, pagodas, and even a tea room. What really sealed the deal was the robot who's sole purpose was to hit a big ass bell every now and again. What a job. Plus the pagoda gave a nice view over the French Village. The French Village was kind of at the centre of the whole park, and by French Village what they really mean is imagine you're inside Lord Farquad's Castle from Shrek and boom you're there. Still though, the stone buildings were really nice and very aesthetic. We managed to catch the tail end of a show in the centre of the plaza which was a bunch of people in tight black leather dancing around with whips to the beat of different songs (no its not what it sounds like).

Within the French Village was Fantasy Park! This was the entirely indoors theme park type thing. Themed entirely like the inside of a volcano, there were 3 floors and the centre was a drop tower and a rock climbing wall with a large glass dome shining light down from above. We decided to work our way top down so that we wouldn't miss anything. Honestly it was all pretty gimmicky but still alot of fun. Highlights include a journey through Jurassic Park, a 4D movie, a 5D movie, a spinning swing thing, and bumper carts. And then we got hungry so we had a break from the action and went to find the least overpriced food we could find. I settled for an expensive BBQ chicken pizza which was pretty good, plus I got some nice views over a fancy fountain and a medieval style market. Righto back to the intense action of Fantasy Park. There wasn't alot left to do so me and Alfie got on the central drop tower, looking over the rock climbing wall (which you had to pay for so we skipped that one). We also enjoyed a whole load of free arcade kind of games (think the type you'd find in a bowling alley) then queued for the final ride "Journey to the Centre of the World". After 30 minutes and a brief appreciation of Josh Hutcherson, we were let down by a shitty shooter ride.

After Fantasy Park we moved on to the next section, towards the Palace. This bit was a lot less busy but had some very cool looking castles as well as some very awesome looking rock carvings. Well they weren't really carvings so rock sculptures made to look like carvings? I'm not sure but they were super bad ass. After a non successful breaking and entering attempt into a castle, we hopped on a cable car down to the next section. This was where the "main attraction" was - the thing that most people came to see - the golden bridge. A golden bridge suspended by 2 massive hands. It was also where everyone liked to get their main character pictures and videos which is always funny to watch. It was quite cool and I've seen pictures where the bridge is enveloped in fog which gives a really cool mystical aura. The other areas in this section were also super nice, lots of nice sculptures, structures, gardens, as well as a big white Buddha that looked over the mountains. It was also around sunset now and we got some really nice views of the castles in the distance.

After that, we texted our driver that we were heading down and hopped on the cable car back down to where we started. We passed some nicely lit walkways and found our driver and headed back to our hostel. After that we went out for some food - where I had some very fancy looking dumplings (gold leaf on top!?) as well as something else that was new that I can't remember the name for. We headed back via a shop where I brought a dark chocolate tolberone for only like £2 then we went for a swim on the rooftop pool overlooking the lit city.Read more