I’ll be honest, the reason why I really wanted to go to Da Nang was because of the line in Good Morning Vietnam where Robin Williams says “Da Nang Me Da Nang Me, give me a rope and hang meeeee!” which in my eyes is as good a reason as any to go somewhere.  So we flew from Ho Chi Minh to spend some time on the beach and what an incredible beach it is.  First brilliant part about Da Nang for us was our hotel.  We had paid for the 15^th floor beachfront room right on the beach and the view was just magic (was still $60)  Da Nang reminded us a little of Surfers Paradise in that it’s a long white sandy beach with high rises along the waterfront and restaurants and bars all along the beach.  The beach however is too hot to be on during the day so the whole town comes alive at night.

It also has a huge incredible bridge which is shaped liked a big Chinese dragon and on Saturday and Sunday nights it breaths fire and spurts laser light lit water from its nostrils.  It’s really a sight to behold…we are told… as although we were there on a Sunday night we thought it happened every night of the week at 9pm not just on the weekends and so didn’t see it.  Anyway, you live and learn.

The beachfront in front of our hotel had seafood restaurant after seafood restaurant.  These all had tanks and could well have been an aquarium as they were huge.  There were also probably 200 tables at each restaurant so it was a massive affair.  We decided to try our luck.

Now, as you know I don’t really eat seafood apart from prawns so we were slightly limited in what we could choose and even then the language barrier proved to be a real issue and we ended up pointing at things that vaguely resembled what the people at the table next door were eating and that looked quite good. We could have gone downstairs and specifically chosen the particular stingray that we wanted and they would have hauled it out and chopped it up in front of us before serving it with great gusto and a side plate for the bones, but we went for the barbequed prawns.  Everything started arriving and so did the staff to deshell your prawns and chop through everything at the table.  We also ordered a beef stirfry (which was understandably probably the worst beef stirfry we had in Asia).  It was one of those meals that you put down in the books as an experience but not necessarily for the food.

After the beach life came the Hoi An Life.  What a pretty little city.  We stayed right on the edge of the Ancient City which is a walled little town with a canal running through it.  They are famous for their lanterns and everywhere you look they are hanging in every colour.  They are in the trees, the hotels, the restaurants and in the night market stalls where you can buy them.  It’s also the number one destination for locals to come and have photos for their wedding album taken.  So at night when it is particularly beautiful you will see happy couples in their traditional gowns and suits with their hairdresser, stylist and two photographer’s in tow following them about all the main spots to take very loved up (but not actually touching) photos.

When we arrived, the receptionist told us that we were so lucky as we had arrived on the night of the lantern festival and so we needed to be in town ready for when that started (she also told us that although people will try and make you buy an entrance ticket to the ancient city just to say you are only walking through and not stopping – good advice that was).  Just after the sun goes down the cute little old ladies who have been selling bananas to you all day come down to sell little paper lanterns with lit candles in them.  You take them to the edge of the canal and release them and make a wish.  Hundreds and hundreds of little floating candles then go down the canal and end up… well who knows where but it is incredibly magical for the observer.  We felt so lucky to be there on the one night it happened to witness it and thought that it made up for missing the dragon fire water spout bridge.  Next day when we went to breakfast the waitress said “You are so lucky you are here just in time for the lantern festival tonight… make sure you are in town for the lanterns it will be very special”.  Appears that every night is lantern festival night in Hoi An!

We walked and walked and bought mangosteens in the market and ate amazing Vietnamese food and swam in the hotel pool when it was too hot.  We also did a huge load of laundry for $1 a kilo and got woken by the fire alarm at 7am (which was a good practice run for Nigel and I on how long it takes us to evacuate a hotel room). It was fine just someone burning the toast in the restaurant.

We had hired a driver for the day and he picked us up from Hoi An and was to take us to Ba Na Hills and wait for us and then drive us back to Da Nang.  He was a bit of a character.  We called him Tootie McTootface.  He tooted when he was passing someone, coming up to a corner, driving past someone on the road, driving straight through an intersection, when he wanted to show us buffalo and pretty much any time he thought that a jolly good toot was necessary.  He also loved 1990’s Boy band music and was especially fond of George Michael.  He was a bit of a Karaoke King too but only knew the chorus.  We had a good old singalong in the car that day me and him.  He also had very limited english which mainly consisted of “Oh La La Vietnam” anytime he saw someone carrying something large and awkward on a scooter (which happens all the time in Vietnam).  Dude on scooter carrying large red plastic horse “Oh La La Vietnam”.  Dude on scooter carrying sheets of plywood “Oh La La Vietnam” Dude on scooter carrying 6 foot palm tree… Oh you get the picture.

So Ba Na Hills.  It’s pitched as a quaint French Colonial Village high in the hills overlooking Vietnam.  And it sort of is, except its all fake.  When we arrived we were dropped off at a replica of the Forbidden City in Beijing.   This is reception and as you walk through the walls and enter what looks like the lobby of a massive hotel and ascend the escalators to the cable car entrance you start to wonder why you feel like you’ve got yourself into a queue at Disneyland that you don’t really know what it’s for.  The paths lead through lovely cultured gardens to the cable car system in a very queue like and systematic fashion.  We started to get suspicious.

Now the cable car ride is spectacular.  It’s about 5 kilometres long and runs right up and over the rain forest straight up the hill.  We were very lucky as the weather was perfect for us on the way up and when we arrived at the top we felt cool air for the first time since we’d arrived in Sth East Asia.

The first clue was the massive construction site with cranes and bulldozers that is building the next stage of the Ba Na Hills resort due to open in 2020.  It’s going to be amazing, huge and Gothic inspired and very European.  We then entered a European inspired Village that has been built from the ground up to resemble what could be a European Village somewhere at some point in time that was sort of French Colonial and kind of Italian Renaissance and very Gothic.  It has a Cathedral and a town square and for some reason a German Beer Hall, a Luge and a Wax Museum.  Even the temples that they have built at the top of the hill for meditation have piped music and seem to be more temply than the temples we had seen.

They have people dressed in European clothing to have your photo taken with (steampunk Victorian outfits, a giant slinky?? and other German and French inspired outfits).  They have bands playing the theme from Game of Thrones as well as an oom pah pah band in the beer hall.  The Vietnamese absolutely LOVE It.  They can’t take enough photos of themselves in front of all these wonderful things.  The Loudies also love it and hire costumes to wear while they are taking photos of themselves in this beautiful European Village… which it is… but it’s not.

We had a really awesome day though.  The crowd watching was hilarious, the German beer hall was fun (they had very good German Sausage Hotdogs) and the cable car ride was worth every cent.  It’s just really not what we were expecting.  Which to be honest sums up Vietnam quite nicely.  Things are never what you expect.  Maybe it’s because it’s only really opened up to tourism lately and not many people have been here before?  Maybe it’s because we really didn’t have any preconceived plans and ideas on what we were going to do?  I don’t know it’s just that the whole country surprises us at every turn.

We went back to Da Nang for one last night (one last chance for the Da Nang Me Da Nang Me line) and because I had reviewed the Hotel well on Tripadvisor after our first stay we were upgraded to the top floor suite and so decided that we could have room service and watch the world go by from our beautiful room.  And a pretty amazing world it is too.