Ba Na Hills, Vietnam

We booked a private driver to bring us from the city of Hué to our next destination, the lovely city of Hoi An. We stopped at several sightseeing spots during the day, and it was a great way to see the countryside, as well as an intriguing theme park we had heard about in the Ba Na Hills.

We started the day by following a similar route we had done by train a couple days before. We saw lots of rice fields, and several water buffaloes. Water buffaloes are the primary source for beef in Vietnam and they are massive animals. Our first stop was at Lang Co Bay, where tens of thousands of oysters are farmed for their pearls. The operation looked pretty primitive compared to what we saw in Ta’ha (French Polynesia) a couple years ago. They used thousands of old motorbike tires split in half to make the artificial reefs the oysters attached to. These were then attached to bamboo poles in the bay. Traditionally, workers used round bamboo boats to attend to the reefs. You could buy jewelry right there and if we were into jewelry, this would have been a very economical place to buy a string of pearls.

Our next stop was the Hai Van Pass. The Nguyen empire built a fortified gate there to protect Hué from the south. For a long time, it was the only way to cross the mountains by land. Today there is a long tunnel through the mountain so only tourists and petroleum trucks use the winding pass road.

From there we continued to Ba Na Hills, which was originally a French mountain retreat in the early 20th century. Today it has been transformed by a company called SunWorld into a fantastical theme park of sorts. It was a strange, unreal place built atop a 1500 meter (4921 feet) high mountain. In fact, to reach it, we had to take an almost 5.7km (3.5 miles) long high-speed cable car.

It was clear right away that this place was built to handle a LOT of people. The ground station was immense, and had long queuing hallways and dozens (maybe hundreds) of escalators. There were five or six separate cable car lines that traversed the mountain to arrive at different stations. We went across several mountain ranges above a lush thick jungle, and we even saw a waterfall before arriving at the top. It was quite a ride!

One of Vietnam’s top instagram spot, the Golden Bridge, was the first thing we saw when we got off the cable car. This curved pedestrian bridge is held up over the mountain side by giant stone hands. It looks like something out of ancient mythology. Unfortunately, it was extremely crowded there when we arrived, so it was hard to get a picture. Also, we were literally in the clouds our whole time at the park – a bit ironic considering the park is called SunWorld! Apparently on a clear day, the views from the park over the mountain range are incredible. We have to admit though that the clouds created quite an atmosphere up there.

We decided to jump on another cable car to go to a different part of the park. We arrived in a giant, opulent palace where we had our lunch at a Las Vegas-worthy buffet. The scale of the place was huge with giant windows overlooking the mountains (or in our case, the clouds) – all built in marble and with live piano music, quite extravagant. Upon exiting the palace, we found ourselves in a beautiful Paris-like setting complete with monuments, statues, columns and gardens – and more castles and palaces. It wasn’t very busy there and we marveled at the scale of the place. The fog from the clouds made it even more surreal.

From a place called the Lunar Castle, we took a little train to another part of the park. Upon existing we found ourselves in a surprisingly authentic looking French medieval village. There was even a Boulangerie which excited Sophie, who loves her French bread., and even a yellow 2CV!

The last place we explored was a spiritual zone that climbed to the highest peak in the park. There were several temples, pagodas and shrines there honoring different religions. It was beautiful.

By now, we had spent longer than intended in the park and made our way back down by yet another different cable car. It was quite an experience. Apparently the SunWorld group has created a similar park in the northern Vietnam mountain area as well. These parks attract a lot of Asian tourists from places like Korea, China and India. We also saw a lot of western tourists like us there.

After the park, our driver took us to Marble Mountain in Da Nang, which is a massive block of marble that had interesting pathways, caves and temples scattered throughout. It was unfortunately closed by the time we arrived. One interesting thing, though, is that the marble from this mountain had spawned a marble statue carving industry in the village below it. We stopped to visit one of the many shops producing marble statues. Today they get marble from all over the world, and carve everything from religious artwork, ancient reproductions to modern art. The size and scale of the statues they produced were incredible. Everything from marble tables and chairs, to giant elephants and buddhas. I will have to keep this in mind should I ever decided to build a palace…