Ba Na Hills, Da Nang, Vietnam

Statutory Warning  :  Picture heavy long post.  Don't tell me you weren't warned ahead.

The place we chose this year to visit for our girls trip was so well unraveled by Ramesh, ( which I knew he would) from the name of our guide, I guess. And the place was V for Vietnam. 

Birds eye view of Da Nang while we touched down 

Ba Na Hills was first in the list of “places to see” in Vietnam for us.   Sudha had shown, forwarded and pushed down our throats information about Ba Na hills and we were all excited about this place.   In fact, I remember Sudha telling me, (when I actually forgot the name of the Hills), remember Bana Kathadi ( it’s a name of a flying paper kite in Tamil) and you will remember Ba Na hills.  I kept asking myself, what Kathadi, all the time, till I actually set foot there.  😊

To save ourselves time, we skipped checking into the hotel and went straight to Ba Na hills from Da Nang  airport.  We were impressed with the breathtaking views of Vietnam from the aircraft and were filled with tranquility even as we touched down Vietnam.

One of the cable lines at Sun World Ba Na Hills

During our planning stages, we’d seen so many great pictures of the new golden bridge which is held by the enormous stone hands of Buddha, and also we’d heard about the legendary cable car-ride up the mountainside (which holds 4 Guinness world records, including the longest cable car at over  5 km in the world) and that it might just be worth the whole trip.  We thought we knew what to expect, but actually being on it was spectacular than our imaginations and the virgin forests of Vietnam & un spoilt greenery that these cable cars took us through will take a lot more time to fade from our memories.  The cable ride takes around 20 minutes approximately and there are multiple lines of cables with amazing frequency.

The excitement of the babes trip had started even when we had booked the tickets, but the flutter in our hearts just broke loose during the famous cable car ride to the top of the mountains.  It gives a real perspective on the geography of the surrounding area.  It was so cool to see Da Nang laid out in front of us and its not every day that you get the opportunity to ride world's longest cable car.  The ride is smooth and thrilling, similar to the ski lifts in resorts around the world.  Although this is just a transportation to the park itself. riding it is easily one of the days highlights.  And our guide Nyugen was getting used to our chatter in the cable car ride.

The Magnificent Golden Hands Bridge

  

A collage of our pictures of Golden hands bridge

The first cable car took us to the Marseille station, at the top, and we were dropped off at the first level of the mountain. We followed the excited crowds through the station to and across the Golden Bridge. This newly constructed bridge (opened to the public in 2018) is a semicircular bridge which appears to be supported by two giant stone hands, Buddha's hands, coming out of the mountain. The energy on this bridge is electric as the guests buzz around with their selfie sticks capturing every possible angle and we were not left behind.  The Golden hands bridge was also voted by TIME magazine as one of the “Top 10 best destinations of the world 2018” and admired by The Guardian as “The world’s most impressive pedestrians’ bridge”.

 

The Babes on the Golden Hands bridge

The only spoiler at Ba Na hills which we didn’t expect though, was the crowd.  So crowded, that the Ranganathan street of TNagar, Chennai would be no match for this place.  And since we are used to crowds, we managed to get some decent pictures. Apparently 20,000 people visit this place every day  and mostly Asians.

Oh, there was another spoiler too.  Nyugen kept telling us, that “The Bana Hills are so high up that the weather is different there. When it’s sunny in Da Nang, it could be misty and rainy on the top of the mountain”.  It must have been our bad luck, it was sunnier than a day in May at Chennai.  Pretty hot and humid, that I ended up with a headache.

Apart from our mobiles, Sudha’s DJI osmo  was being put to good use  and along with tons of photographs that we usually take, we are hoping we will have some awesome videos too.  The videos are in the processing stages.  Here again at Ba Na hills there are so many opportunities for photography with various displays set up for posing and having pictures taken. Huge stone statues beg to be climbed on, the well manicured flower gardens make for beautiful shots, there was this entire French village, the gigantic Buddha statue and faux ancient Greek statues are all created with an intent of creating photo opportunities.

View of the French Village - Jardin d'Amour

The queue for the funicular ride was so large that we didn’t want to waste our time standing up there and waiting, but it's the one thing we regret not doing. We were eager to get up to the French village, so then,  we were okay with skipping  the funicular ride to the Jardin d’Amour the French village dubbed "Europe at the top of Ba Na Hills”. You will be amazed at the architectural style of Europe such as ancient buildings, magnificent palaces, adjacent fences in gothic style, paved roads, designed by a famous French architect. This is where we got to the Debay Wine Cellar and the Linh Ung Pagoda where the giant Buddha statue sits.

With the 27m high Shakyamuni Buddha

Another view of Buddha, through one of the gardens

Linh Ung Pagoda is located at an altitude of nearly 1500m above sea level and has a statue of Buddha called Shakyamuni Buddha which is  27m high ( humungous) in a meditation pose on a lotus. Buddha statues and pagodas are so common in Vietnam and they transcend the serenity of Buddha to us, in spite of the enthusiastic crowds.

From there we went to the Le Jardin D'Amour Flower Garden that  consists of nine beautifully landscaped gardens with 9 unique architectural styles. It's one of the most popular tourist place in Ba Na.  Among the 9 gardens there is one  for Love.  Ahem.

At the fairy garden

Peacock Garden

The fairy garden

Ba Na Hills also has a dizzily vibrant and fascinating indoor game zone,  Fantasy Park, one of the largest indoor game zone of Vietnam that includes countless games, recreations and sports for families.  By the time we reached this place, we were so tired, the four of us sat down in silence for some time. The day was still young.

Ba Na Hills  took up most of our first day and we actually checked into the hotel pretty late in the evening after a long travel, back to Da Nang.

In short, Ba Na hills is the Disney land of Vietnam. 

I am sure the westerners, though they were very few unlike our Bangkok and Bali trips,  would have felt their privacy invaded, by the mindless tourists from Asia.  Just a thought, from a cultural perspective.

The colourful umbrellas on our way

Post script : Girls, as I write this, I realized, we could have waited for that one hour for the funicular ride and spent more time at every location and ride there.  Yeah, lets go back to Vietnam and do it all over again.

Before you all go, just one last picture for you folks ...

They three and we three :-)