See Vietnam for beginners Part 1 here.

Football day

Booking a vacation during football season is always a gamble. This time I’m missing a Fremantle Dockers home game. The mission was to find a nice venue to watch the game live. On out first day, we thought we’d found the place but they turned us off with their bill – $100+ for 17 beers and 5 cocktails – outrageous!

The day started with a bicycle ride through the streets around the hotel. Jane talked up her bike riding prowess, but couldn’t get out of the carpark, so she decided she should wait at the pool. Anthony and I spent about 30 minutes riding around the nice streets. We were lucky enough to see a herd of water buffalos making their way somewhere. From what Thomas, our “My Son” tour guide had to say about water buffalos – were they going for a swim?

Around lunch time we made our way into the old town to find a sports bar. We tried the Shamrock Irish Pub, but some rugby league and F1 fans had already hogged the TVs. We pushed and found Seventyone Steak House and Sports Bar that both NRL and AFL on. That’ll do! Jane went to get her hair coloured. She joined us half way through the game. An easy win to the Dockers over the Richmond Tigers was satisfying.

We went back into the town for another Banh Mi at Tiệm Bánh Mì Phượng. Good, but Belmont is still Jane’s favourite.

Later on we have dinner at the Met Vietnamese Restaurant. Food was ok but not comparable to QQ my two food critics declared.

Da Nang

The next day we planned to spend the day in the city of Da Nang. Da Nang is the fourth largest city in Vietnam and is a popular tourist spot in its own right. Its famous for its beach and proximity to Ba Na Hills and Hoi An. It has a few other attractions which we’d planned to explore in the afternoon.

After eating Vietnamese food exclusively since we arrived, we were ready for some western food. I was particularly hanging out for a pizza. I researched a place (4P’s Pizza) on the river with high rating. It seemed like everyone had the same idea and there was a quite a queue at the door. We decided to walk up the streets and find somewhere else. We decided on a small Vietnamese restaurant on the street. We had Pho and all agreed was the worst meal of the trip so far. The soup was far to “perfumy” for my taste – coriander beat me for the first time in Vietnam.

We took a Grab to Chùa Linh Ứng Pagoda which features a Buddhist temple and gigantic Lady Buddha statue. There was lots of statues and temples in a nice garden setting. It was quite hot walking around so we decided to back to the beach area and cool off with a drink.

The beach is a popular spot for tourists. There were quite a few people enjoying beach activities and water sports such as parasailing and jet skiing. There were looks of restaurants on the beach. We did a mini pub crawl down the beach sampling beers and cocktails. Watching the people on the beach (mostly young girls taking photos of themselves) and the sunset was fun.

Once the sun set we walked back towards the dragon bridge to find a good position to watch the fire show. On weekends at 9pm the head of the dragon breathes fire. This is one of the must-see attraction in Da Nang. We wandered through the night markets and found a elevated bar with a good view of the bridge. At around 8.30 we had dinner and waited for the fire. When it came it was spectacular, but a little underwhelming. After the fire the dragon head sprayed water. We had been advised to stay away from the water because it’s actually dirty (smelly) river water.

We caught a Grab back to Hoi An having enjoyed the day.

Ba Na Hills

The next was a full day at Ba Na Hills. Ba Na Hills is 30 km from Da Nang and an hour’s drive from Hoi An. Its formerly a French Village built high in the hills. It has been rebuilt into a theme park part of the Sun World chain. The only way for tourists to get there is by a long spectacular cable car. There is actually a series of cable cars connecting the base station to the various attractions.

We organised a Grab driver the previous night to pick us up from the hotel, wait for us and drive us back. We had read its better to arrive early to try to avoid the crowds. He arrived at 7am and were made to the Ba Na Hills, arriving at the carpark at 8am. There was a small bus ride to the “Base” station where we purchased tickets. (1M VND each).

The cable car ride was indeed lovely. We were lucky to have a clear day and the views were spectacular. First stop was the Golden Bridge. This has become iconic with Vietnamese tourism. Its a 150m bridge “supported” by two enormous hands. There was already lots of people on the bridge and was difficult to take clear photos. It was very impressive nonetheless.

We caught another short Cable Car to the main village. This was much bigger with the historical French Village with restaurants, shows and amusement rides. Anthony and I went on the “self drive” rollercoaster. It was good fun, although quite a short ride. We walked around the area exploring the structures. When we found the Beer Plaza we cashed in our vouchers for two glasses of their beer brewed on the premise. We had lunch a fried chicken restaurant, more to rest our feet if nothing else. After lunch we noticed we were on time to see the “After Glow” cabaret show. It was entertaining but seemed out of place and a bit weird in such a family oriented attraction.

At 3pm we felt we’d seen everything and made our way down the cable car to meet our driver in the carpark. It was a great day out, although very tiring.

We got back to the hotel in time for happy hour and dinner.

Tuesday was our last day in Vietnam. We decided to have a lazy day. Jane went into the town to have some hair treatments.

Its a wrap

Home on Wednesday after a whole day of travelling. Thanks to Anthony for inviting me into the Singapore Airlines lounge in Singapore. Jane was happy shopping in the designer shops while we enjoyed beers, G&Ts and dumplings.

What a fantastic introduction to the beauty of Vietnam this holiday was! We all agreed that we must return soon to explore even more.

My thoughts on the trip:

• Probably a wrong choice of hotel. The Bellerive was nice and a reasonable price. A hotel in the Hoi An old town would have been better – closer to the action.
• We didn’t use most of our lunch/dinner/cocktails inclusions. We also didn’t use our Afternoon Tea entitlement.
• Grab is invaluable. There were always drivers available and very cheap.
• Food was great. We ate almost exclusively Vietnamese food. We didn’t get coriander poisoning as we feared. It was actually difficult to find coriander. I think they over do it in Australia!
• 10 days (ended up being 9) was probably too long for just one place. However, there was enough to do and see around Hoi An and Da Nang.
• We realised you could have a very cheap holiday here provided you can get a good priced airfare.
• Travelling with Anthony is always fun. He seems to know what to do all the time and is never stressed. (Great to balance out travelling with Jane!).

A more comprehensive trip to Vietnam is in the planning – travelling the whole extent of the country. If you have any recommendations let me know in the comments.