We barely fell asleep last night, and my alarm goes off! How dares it, honestly?! Ok ok, I have a good reason to roll out of bed first this morning. Our driver will pick us up at the hotel at 7.45am for today’s grand adventure! I wake the others, and we head to breakfast.
We arrive at Ba Na Hills about 45 minutes outside Da Nang at 8.30am, and although there are people here, it’s not crowded, it’s not packed. First, our driver lets us off at the drop off, where we are shuttled onto a bus to drive us the 2.5 minutes to the cable car station. (Don’t ask me why, I just obey and follow.)
This place is ENORMOUS! Just like the cable car place in Nha Trang over to the VinWonders island, this place is clearly equipped to handle large masses of people, and luckily, this one seems staffed to handle the job. Does that mean that people actually come here?
We take what feels like a million escalators, following the people ahead of us, but it was probably just 10. When we get to the cable car station, there’s still no real lineup, maybe 10 people ahead of us, but with the smooth flow of cable cars, we don’t even have time to stand still.
When it’s our turn to enter the cable car, we realize this one doesn’t have walls. THE CABLE CAR DOES NOT HAVE WALLS!!! It has a grid of bars, but no walls. This is a 20 minute cable car experience, and ours does not have walls. An open air cable car, if you will. Did I mention, our cable car doesn’t have walls? We share this harrowing experience with a Korean family, whose adult son looks very uncomfortable. His mom laughingly hands him an air sickness bag, because luckily those are present.
On our way up the hill, we pass through clouds/fog/mist, and we get very discouraged. We think, oh well, all the best planning couldn’t really stop the weather at the top of a mountain from doing what it wants, and if we have to experience Ba Na Hills inside a cloud, I guess that’s what it’ll be. But THEN! We break through the clouds, and above the clouds, the sun always shines! It’s a glorious day to be on top of a mountain!
Ba Na Hills is a mountain with one spectacular draw, and a whole entire fake European castle-village, with entertainment, restaurants, shops and yes, more photo ops in all directions. This is what meets us right off the cable car. Oh, and there are FIVE cable car lines going up to the mountain, we just happened to pick the furthest one from the bus. Each line arrives at a different area on the mountain top.
This bridge, golden in colour, is held up by two enormous fiberglass hands, oh and other supports, of course. Isn’t it spectacular? We have been talking to other tourists this week, who due to timing had to visit this mountain on Monday or Tuesday, when everything was wrapped in clouds and rain. We planned our visit for today because we could, we looked at the weather forecast and decided not to attempt it other days. We’re lucky that we were able to do that, and get stunning pictures like these:
We finally leave the bridge to the steady stream of arriving tourists, and head off to explore other areas. We’re in a section of the village called “The Moon”, and head over to check out some of the buildings.
Inside one of the castles, we aim for the 4D movie experience, and don’t really have time to ask questions or figure out what the show is. Turns out, it’s a cartoon (thank goodness) but one that is meant to be scary. It’s a haunted roller coaster ride, and the 4D portion makes us get sneezed on by a mummy, and colony of bats fly across our ankles. Téa and I don’t love scary things, and for Maylin, this was a little too scary.
The minute we exit the experience, we follow the stream of people up to the next floor and ANOTHER movie experience. We know nothing about this one either, and end up standing in line for 25 minutes this time, as each of the two theatres only holds 25 people at a time (from a crowd that just filled what seemed like an IMAX theatre). Good thing each showing only lasts 6 minutes!
We are seated in what looks like a roller coaster car that holds 5 rows of 5 at a time. The car is then pushed forward towards a rounded screen that goes from the floor all the way up to a very high ceiling. The experience is a video pretending to have us fly high above the world, looking down on very bad animated versions of several world cities. The dolphins splash us with water, and the clouds cover us in mist, so it’s definitely a 4D experience. The car shakes, and we fly through storms. Both girls absolutely love it, and Maylin wants to go back and line up again. She says she wishes we had done this flyover experience twice, instead of the first scary one.
After two movies in the space of 45 minutes, we are ready for lunch. We trek through the different worlds, and end up at a Vietnamese restaurant at the top. Most restaurants are European themed, or Japanese, or Korean. We opt for this:
After lunch, we head towards the furthest area. I cannot believe they are still building such vast areas up here, it seems incredible. How would you even get all this stuff up here to build? How do staff get here every day? Do they live up here? Maybe they’re building staff accommodations? We see tourists with large suitcases on the cable cars, so yes, there are hotels up here as well.
Joe and Téa decide they want to go on one of the high swing rides. Maylin contemplates joining them, but ends up panicking completely and crying the entire time her dad is up there, hanging on to a machine by a thread (I mean, it’s a swing, held in place by strong chains, it used to be my favourite ride). Once they’re safely back and she’s reassured Dad is ok, Joe and the girls go for the bumper cars next. This one is fun for all three of them, and I happily act as the backpack holder while they zoom around out there.
We find a bakery and pick up some treats for the afternoon, and then call ourselves done with the mountain top experience. Our driver has been paid for an 8 hour day, so we need to be back at our hotel by 3.45pm. We start our return down to “Earth” (that’s what they call area where the cable car bases are) around 1.30pm, as we’ve read reviews of the hour-long queues to get back down. Of course, we have no queues. But this time, we have WALLS! YAY!
I sleep the entire way back into the city. Joe naps in the hotel room for a bit, before we decide to head out for dinner. Our German tour mates from yesterday’s adventure have recommended a restaurant, so we taxi across the bridge and hunt for this restaurant.
As we were told yesterday, the restaurant only serves four things. Joe confidently sits down, points to all four, and thinks he’s ordered one of each. The server nods, and instantly brings the first two. We look at all the food, eat for a bit, and I dread the arrival of more food. I can’t believe we have another two dishes coming! But the dishes never come, thank goodness! We have enough food, and just the idea of eating more makes me nauseous. We pay our $7.50CA, and head back out into the night.
We decide that because we didn’t stuff ourselves silly at dinner, we also have room for dessert. We are going to walk there, as it is only about 10 minutes away. Along the way, we find this building, which looks brand new and complete, but also empty and dusty. This is just one example of the many large, modern and beautiful buildings that sit, looking to us as if it is ready to be occupied, but kind of like a construction site that has been put on pause at 99% completion.
We are heading to Nana’s desserts, and she too is in an alley. We all order something exciting, and our treats soon arrive.
Dessert is delicious, of course, and gone way too soon. The thing with desserts when they aren’t too sweet, is you can eat more, without feeling like you’re crashing. I really, really like this type of desserts!
When we finally get up off our tiny stools, we walk up the street towards our area of town for a bit, to look for a place slightly less congested to wait for a taxi. On our way, we spot this lady Buddha:
It’s been a super long day, and we collapse into bed when we get back. Tomorrow is our last day, and we have to figure out packing for an airline with the strictest baggage limits I’ve ever dealt with. But first, sleep. We are all asleep within minutes…
I love the lady buddha.
She’s everywhere!