Day 129 – Da Nang
Exploring the amazing Ba Na Hills
Today we woke up at Danang Seawind Beach Hotel and went to have breakfast at 7am, which we had ordered the previous night. At 7.45am our food was ready, as there was only one staff member making all the meals for everyone. We had just 5 minutes to eat, before the tour bus was waiting for us.
The minibus, spent the next 10 minutes picking up more passengers. We ended up stopping right next to Marble Mountain at a massive gift shop. There were some cool sculptures but nothing that we wanted or needed.
Sculptures are placed all around Sunworld Ba Na Hills 
Next as we approached Ba Na Hills the heavens opened up. Our guide took us up the 20 minute cable car to the first stop. Here we went outside to see the famous Golden Bridge. It was so hard to see the hands unless you were right next to them, due to the heavy fog and rain, but this just made the experience more majestic in my opinion.
We were honestly thinking there was nothing else to see at Ba Na Hills. We were so wrong! The Golden Bridge is part of a theme park called Sun World Ba Na Hills. After the bridge we got lost in the many gardens and temples that have been created along the hill. The ones that we saw had Roman and French styling. We didn’t have time to see the majority of the gardens.
Then we went further up by cable car (only 3 minutes) to the restaurant for lunch. It was a buffet lunch and the food was really delicious. I’m not typically a fan of buffets, but this food was good. Apparently it is a 5 star restaurant. After stuffing our faces for an hour, we went back outside into the rain to explore the artificial French Town, which has many hotels, a Christmas World (probably seasonal) and Fantasy Land, which is a 3 level arcade.
Unlimited access to the arcade is included with the entry ticket, which is amazing, but expect massive lines for everything. We were only able to go on one ride, which was the haunted ride on the bottom level. Unless you run out of things to do, I would not recommend it.
We took the elevators and cable lifts down to the base of the mountain and re-grouped with everyone else. Once on the bottom, the rain decided to stop….GREAT!!! On the way back to our hotels we stopped for another 20 minutes at another souvenir shop. This store felt like a Vietnamese grocery store. Then for a change of luck, we were the first people dropped off from the bus. We came to our room, and dried up by cranking the heater to full blast for a while.
And the rain stops as soon as we leave!!! Sea horses for sale
Overall an amazing experience. We had organised the tour through Seawind Beach Hotel, and it included tickets entrance fees, buffet lunch, guide and hotel transfers. It cost us 950,000 VND / $57.47 AUD per person.