Danang, Ba Na Hills and Hai Van pass videos

I've uploaded some videos of my holiday. I'm back to work now and busy again. I'll be working every day for the next few weeks but after that it gets a bit easier. The money will be good and will help fund the next holiday to either Singapore, Hong Kong or the north of Vietnam.

The first video is of me on the back of a motorbike going along Danang beach. Its really beautiful very very long and always hot. It was raining in the video but its still warm enough to so swimming.

The next video is of the Hai Van pass about 15k north of Danang. Its the road that links Danang with Hue and goes through the mountains, the views along the road are amazing.

The third video was taken at the top of Ba Na Hills near Danang. The view again was amazing and the cable car was brilliant. It was a lot cooler in the hills which was a refreshing change.

The final video is one I took from the cable car leaving Ba Na Hills resort. You go over the jungle and see some great waterfalls. I got one of them in this video.

Marble Mountain and Monkey Mountain

This is our last day in Danang and again we've hired a motorbike to get to a couple of places around Danang. The first place was called Marble mountains. They were five mountains made of marble. Saying that, although they were big, they looked a bit small to be mountains. I guess Marble hills doesn't have the same ring to it.

Marble Mountains

They we're pretty good. There were numerous caves and pagodas on the hills. I think my lasting memory will be how steep and tiring the steps and how smelly the caves were. Also there was lots of marble sculptures were on sale at the bottom of the hills so if you want a 6ft statue of Jesus or Buddha, this is the place to come. The funny thing is the marble used isn't from these hills its actually imported from China.

Token Pagoda

After this we drove to a place called monkey mountain. This was in fact a mountain unlike the Marble hills. It was a nice drive which provided some good views of Danang. There was also a token giant lady buddha looking over Danang. We saw her from 40k away in Hoi An a few days before this. She was pretty big up close. 

Token giant buddha

Also some good news. We did see about 20 wild monkeys whilst on a deserted mountain road. We didn't stop as they're vicious little things. Its good to see some monkeys on monkey mountain after my disappointment in the Mekong Delta of not seeing any Phoenixes or dragons on Phoenix and Dragon Island. Below are some more good views from on the monkey mountain.

Nice view of Danang

So that's it for my holiday, its back to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow. I really like Danang. Its a nice city with a great beach. I can see it being a big tourist place in 5 years. It's nice to know I could come and work here too!

Lovely view.... nice.

Ba Na Hills Mountain Resort, Nr Danang

We travelled back to Danang yesterday by train. The trip was really good at the train track hugs the side of a mountain on the coast. We were basically on the side of a mountain looking out to sea. 

View from the cable car.

Today we went to a mountain resort called Ba Na hills. Its relatively new and just about 25k outside Danang. We hired a motorbike to get there. The journey was nice and we had a nice view of mountains. The good thing about this resort is you need to take a cable car and this cable car is the longest and highest no stop cable car in the world. It goes on for over a mile and takes you a mile above sea level. As you can see from the pictures its pretty big.

View form the top of the mountain

When you get to the top of the mountain there are various fun fair rides and things to see. Its ok but as its quite new there is still a lot of building work going on. I think if I came back i a couple of years it would be a lot better.

The big castle in the mountain

It was a bit expensive but the cable car ride alone was worth the price. It was also nice and cool up there due to the altitude. Tomorrow we're going to the marble mountains and a mountain called monkey mountain.

Another view from Ba Na Hills

Hue, Vietnam

Today we arrived in Hue. We are only planning to stay here for one day as we have lots of stuff to do in the rest of our holiday. We booked into our hotel and immediately hired a motorbike to get around the city.

Big flag pole at the former home of the emperor

The city used to be the home of the emperor before he abdicated and communism took over in the mid 1900s. In the centre of the city is a big stone walled 10k in circumference square called the citadel which is where the emperor used to live. It also housed all his building and other stuff.

Really nice pagoda

It was great to look around this centre which contained loads of Vietnamese history. In the afternoon we went for a drive on the motorbike outside the city to a nice pagoda (see above) and admire the view of the river (see the photos below). There was some great scenery of mountains, very similar to Laos were I was a few years ago, which is not surprising as Hue is not very far from the Vietnam / Laos border. 

Were off again tomorrow, back to Danang as there are some other places around Danang we would like to visit.

Around Hue

Around Hue

Around Hue

Around Hue

Around Hoi An

Today we hired some bicycles and cycled in the areas around Hoi An. There are lots of lovely green fields, small villages and miles of beach to explore.

Sunset on a bridge near Hoi An

Not much else to say on it really. It was a great day in which we saw lots of nice stuff. It was good to watch people outside of the tourist area going about their daily lives. I've attached some more photos below. Tomorrow we're of to Hue which is about 120k north of hear. It's the last big city in Vietnam I've not visited and it used to be home to the emperors of Vietnam.

Green fields around Hoi An

Vegetable garden near Hoi An

People working around Hoi An

One of the rivers along a path near Hoi An

My Son - Cham temples

Today we went on a day trip to the Cham temples. This was about an hour from Hoi An and we went as part of a tour. I've been looking forward to this for a long time as I quite like looking around old temples.

My Son - Cham temples

The temples were great! There were a number of different sites which had Cham towers on them. All ranging from about a thousand to several hundred years old. The Cham people used to be a civilisation in the middle of Vietnam that came from Indonesia. There is a big Hindu influence in the carving on the buildings. They were around at the same time as the Khmers in Cambodia. The temples were lost to the jungle before being found by the French in the early 1900s who immediately cut off all the heads on the statues and sent them back to Paris to be put on display at La Louvre museum.

Some of the amazing carvings

The brickwork is pretty cool too. People are still not sure how they made the bricks or how they got them to stick together. (no cement). A lot of them have really stood the test of time and fairing a lot better than some of those that have been restored.

More Cham temples

Sadly, In the war with America the US deliberately bombed a number of these building so some of the biggest (20 meters tall) and oldest (around 1,000 years old) are now piles of rubble. There were also a lot of large bomb craters from the B-52 bombers. The reason they bombed this site was because VC troops were hiding here.

Hoi An Town

We arrived at Hoi An town and have been spending the day looking around the place. it's a small riverside town that used to be the major Vietnamese port hundreds of years ago. Many different countries used to come here to trade before trading moved to Danang up the road. All the building here are a hundred or so years old and the town looks like it did at that time.

The streets of Hoi An

The streets are small and the buildings are lovely. Sadly 90% of the shops are tailors and pretty much everything here revolves around tourism.

Hoi An streets

However it is a lovely place and well worth a visit. Our hotel is great with a lovely swimming pool on the roof. Everything is walking distance and there are some nice places to explore on bicycle which we will do tomorrow.

The Japanese bridge

We're off on a day trip to My Son tomorrow which is a collection of old Cham temples dating back about a thousand years.

Danang and Hai Van pass

We arrived in Danang in the early hours of Friday morning after our one hour flight was delayed by three hours. Our hotel was nice and near the beach. We hired a motorbike to see the city as it's quite big. Its the third biggest city in Vietnam after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Danang Beach

 
We biked around the city which was nice and quite. It has a big river running through it and a big beach on the other side of one of the Islands. There are lots of mountains surrounding the city which make it look quite pretty.

View from up the mountain

 

In the afternoon we drove the motorbike up one of the mountains to the 'Hai Van pass' This is a road that connects Danang to Hue through the mountains and has great views and scenery. They went along this road on top gear a few years ago. It was pretty amazing. We biked it for about an hour and stopped at the top of one of the hills which had an old war building on it.

Me on the Hai Van pass

Danang is nice place but a little quite. ILA has a school here so I could live here if I wanted. As its warm, in the evening there are lots of people playing sports on the beach and swimming in the sea which is very appealing. Tomorrow were off to Hoi An which is a nice little town about 35kmv south or here.