One of the interesting sights that has appeared recently in tourist photos is of a bridge being held up by large hands. This has become a somewhat iconic photo of Vietnam. While the bridge may look old, it is actually fairly new having opened in 2018. It sits in a large resort built in the last fifteen years just outside of Da Nang, Vietnam. Known as Ba Na Hills, this resort area has become one of Vietnam’s major attractions. With one more full day left in Da Nang, we had to check it out.
Andrea and Jacob joined us for our day at the resort. The taxi ride to Ba Na Hills was about an hour in length. A lot of that is not so much distance as just the challenge of traffic in Da Nang. Our taxi driver took us out and later came back to pick us up. For that service it cost about $28. We stopped to buy tickets along the way. Tickets for Ba Na Hills seemed a little pricey for Vietnam. You can see the current prices here.
After our driver dropped us off, we wandered through a number of buildings. The directions were not very clear as to where we should go. It seemed the main purpose was to keep us walking by the shops and food venders so we would buy things. Everything was very new and clean.
We finally found the location of the cable cars that would take us up to the top of the mountain. The journey up was actually quite long, a good fifteen minutes. However, the problem was we were literally climbing into the clouds. Soon the fog surrounded us, and we could not see very far. This became the theme of the day. We had limited visibility the whole time we were up on the mountain.
When we got off the cable car, we entered a large area of restaurants and shops. We started out one door and realized we were on the Golden Bridge, the one with the hands. The bridge was pretty crowded, and the fog made everything dim so our photos didn’t turn out as nice as we might have like. They at least show we were there.
On the other end of the bridge were some large statue of other body parts like faces and legs. It was kind of strange yet interesting.
We wandered away from this area and entered a French garden. One thing we noted throughout the park is a reference to the French. The French were colonial powers over Vietnam for many years. However, the resort seems to emphasize the actual French world in their park displays.
The gardens were nice, and had some lovely flowers. They had a formal design. One interesting section was a garden maze. The walls of the maze had green plants growing in pockets on them. As one walks through the maze, there is nothing to see but the walls. It can be a little stressful to wonder if you are going to make it out.
Below the maze the resort featured an area dedicated to Buddhism. There was a large white Buddha statue here along with some other religious statues. A pagoda finished off the religious theme of the area. It was in a fairly isolated area, and not many people made their way down to the area. Having seen all the Buddhist sites in Marble Mountain the day before, we didn’t spend much time here.
After we had a bit of a snack, we walked back toward the cable cars. We saw the Golden Bridge again and got a different perspective of it.
We now had to figure out where the rest of the park was. The maps of Ba Na Hills were confusing to us. That was partly because we were not where we thought we were. We thought the cable cars had taken us all the way to the top of the mountain, but it had stopped short of that. We had to take another cable car up to the top where the rest of the activities were. Fortunately it was a short ride.
As we left the cable car exit, it seemed the fog at this level was even thicker than the fog below. We could see a large structure in the fog, but it wasn’t until we got right up to it that we were able to tell what it was. This was really a bit frustrating.
The French theme continued here in both the structures and decorations. There was a glass Louvre-like building. There were some other buildings as well with French finishings. Outside there was some interesting art. Some topiaries were topped with the heads of cats which made for an interesting sight. Then there was the rock carved into the shape of a man who appears to be crawling on the ground. This was a huge piece. It was an interesting area, but there didn’t really seem to be anything to do here except to admire the gardens and the architecture.
We finally came to a building and the entrance to a funicular. This ended up taking us back to the main entrance area for this level of Ba Na Hills. We still felt uncertain as to what we should see and experience here. So we began to walk in the opposite directions.
The signs indicated a French village ahead. We did see a church which was surprising considering the emphasis in the Buddhist area of the park. I wondered if it was based on a specific church in France. There were some other buildings, but again the fog kept us from really getting a good look at them. If we backed away too far, we couldn’t see them through the fog. A beer theme seemed to come through which didn’t seem very French.
Arriving at the end of the park, we turned back. Somewhere there was supposed to be an amusement park area, and we had yet to figure out where that was. We took off in a different direction which indicated a rose garden. It was actually a very large garden area, but no roses were in bloom at this time. It did have a more formal look.
After walking through the rose garden, we passed by a Starbucks. Finally we came to the Fantasy Playground. It turns out that the amusement park area is all indoors. Considering the weather on this day, that turned out to be a good thing.
The amusement park covers three floors. In the center is a ride where people sit in a circle facing outward, and then they are lifted and dropped. It goes through all three floors and seemed quite popular.
I found it interesting that the amusement park was based on American ideas. There were characters around with the adventure theme. Many looked like American kids dressed in safari type outfits. They had arcade games one could play to win a prize. All of them had English names over them. No Vietnamese words could be seen.
Andrea and Jacob took the game plunge and drove the bumper cars. The wait for their turn was rather long. Afterwards we wandered down to the middle floor. There we all participated in what they called a 5-D program. This was a western themed activity. We all got on fake horses and found a gun. There was a screen in front with 3-D images of bad guys. The horses would buck, and players were supposed to be shooting the bad guys on the screen and earning points in the process. My problem was I never figured out who the bad guys were on the screen so I didn’t do very well.
When we meandered down to the first floor, we ended up watching a short movie in a 365 degree cinema. We used 3-D glasses again and watched a movie about baby dinosaurs. Parts of the movie were shown all around the circular theater. The 3-D was good. Many years ago I tried to watch 3-D, but it wasn’t very effective. This worked well and was fun to watch. There was also an area with dinosaurs in a museum-like setting to walk through.
With that we decided it was time to leave Ba Na Hills. We had to take the two cable cars back down. During the second segment a family from San Diego joined us. They were visiting Vietnam for the second time with their two school aged boys. They had also been to Laos which is where their family came from. It was fun to hear their story.
We found our cab driver and had our long ride home. Aaron and Michelle came over to have a final dinner together. Tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Minh City while Andrea and Jacob head home. They needed to go back to work Monday. We still have over a week left of our travel time, but it has gone by quickly so far. It will be sad to see Andrea and Jacob go, but more exciting adventures lie ahead.
Credits: Photo of Andrea, Silvette and me in the cable car taken by Jacob Fuentes. Photo of Silvette and me taken by Andrea Lee. Picture of the players in the western themed game taken by Jacob Fuentes, and the one of Andrea and Jacob taken by Silvette Lee