Rare Adventures

Category: Vietnam

In 2026 we spent a month exploring and having in Vietnam, with a little hop over to Cambodia while we were there

These are the stories from our trip

Exploring Da Nang and Bana Hills

When you ask people who travelled in Vietnam 20 years ago, “What is the best place?”, they often say Da Nang as it had a reputation for a chilled out beach resort. Well, all that has changed now.

The Da Nang is in the lee of a mountainous headland which is now a national park, and with a beach that stretches for 20 miles along the coast to the estuary at Hoi An, it is very easy to see what it would have been like back in the day. However, the tourist dollar, and in particular, the Korean Won has had a bit of an impact on the place.

The locals describe it as Miami, because it now has 10 miles of high rise hotels stretching along the beach and reaching a few blocks inland. The place is bustling, with wide pavements along the beach to enable the hoards to walk to stretch their legs and plenty of things for them to do.

All is not lost, with a bit of hunting around I did find a little surf shack on the beach that felt as though time had passed it by, and we did get to have lunch and feel the surf vibe despite being in a concrete jungle.

We planned to meet youngest son, Sambo, here for the night before he headed to the Philippines on his world journey. We treated ourselves to a bit of 4* and a 20^th floor balcony, and I have to admit the Hilton was worth the extra money.

As normal, some chaos ensued. When I booked the hotel, a quirk in the hotels.com app led to a double booking. I contacted the hotel and they could see it was booked within seconds and agreed to cancel the second room when I checked in, which they did.

Sambo had planned to stay in a hostel, unexpectedly turned up and asked to stay with us in our 4* hotel. I then had to go back to reception and ask if I could cancel the cancellation of the room that had just happened, they said no as I had to pay the walk up rate. So, I then ended up having to pay 25% more for the room I had just cancelled because I was booking it on the day – who would have kids, even when they are 21.

We had looked at the potential entertainment options from Da Nang, and most of them involved going to Hoi An or trekking into the mountains but we were quite happy to hang out on the beach and chill for one of our last days. We had read about the Bana Hills amusement park and decided this was not for us, we had done enough of these Vietnamese tourist attractions designed to attract the Koreans.

I wasn’t feeling too great as I was at the onset of a virus that ended up lasting a month, and quite frankly felt like poo and was happy to do not very much. Then Sambo turned up and all that changed.

There is a famous Instagram picture of a mystical hand holding up a bridge, it seems to be one of those that has to be done. Sambo explained it was only a 10 minute taxi ride away so we agreed we would all go and get our photo done.

We called the Grab cab and realised the 10 minute cab ride was actually an hour, and we were heading into the mountains we decided not to go to. We then discovered that the hand was an integral part of the Bana Hills theme park, another place we didn’t want to go to, and when we got to the ticket kiosk, I was £100 lighter by the time we bought the entry tickets, Mugged by Sambo yet again, bless him.

Bana Hills

golden bridge da nang

I have to admit that Bana Hills is a truly amazing place, even if I didn’t want to be there. The Vietnamese are in the process of building a vast amusement park ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN. It is only when you get there that you start to grasp the scale of it.

There are FIVE cable cars reaching out from the park entry up to different peaks, each of which has a different perspective on the park. When we were there only 2 of the cable cars were actually working, but just travelling up in them is a marvel, it doesn’t really match Fansipan near Sapa for size, but it is heading that way.

First job was to head for the Instagram favourite, the Golden Hand bridge, and fight our way through the selfie hoards, so we could do selfies ourselves from every angle, and it was quite easy to miss the incredible views back towards Da Nang and the national park.

After getting over the sheer scale of the place, it is even more surprising to find that it seems to be dedicated to French culture. The French have many qualities and I love going there, but not many of them lend themselves to being a theme park. Once you have had the croissants, baguettes and glass of wine for lunch you start to quickly run out of steam and have to head for the amusement arcade for entertainment, which the Koreans seem very fond of.

It reminded me of some of the Disney Epcot park, where they emulate scenes from around the save the Americans from going there, I think the Vietnamese are trying to do the same thing.

There is an Alpine railroad, which is basically a little cart that runs along a rail, it had to be done but we were glad we only paid for one go, the queue to get on it took 50 times longer than the ride itself.

The owners of the park obviously got bored with the French theme and built a huge German bierkeller, which I have to admit was a lot more interesting, with all the beer being brewed onsite. Which was another reinforcement of this incredible engineering feat, as all the water has to be piped up from the valleys, absolutely incredible.

After an hour we were finding it hard to find reasons not to go back to the hotel, so we did, we then hit another problem, finding food. The seafood restaurants required us to select the individual seafood creature we wanted to eat, which made Sambo and Wooksie a bit queasy, and they were already very hungry, so we settled for seafood paella and whatever was in it, by this time I felt so rough I just went to bed and left them to it, then we had an huge tropical storm, which was a spectacular end to the day.

Next day it was it was goodbye to Sambo for 6 months, and time for us to head back to Hanoi for the flight home as our adventure draws to a close.

21/08/2026
Coconut boats and Cham Islands from Hoi An

However captivating the lanterns of Hoi An can be, ultimately there is only so much time you go can spend sat on the quay watching the boats go past, or sweating in the back alleys of the old town looking at shops, so it isn’t long before you are looking for something else to do.

Staying out at An Bang beach really helps, as there are plenty of things to do, from jetskiing on some dodgy old boats to just marching along the beach in the heat, which is my favourite pastime for some reason.

Coconut basket boat ride

The obvious thing to do is head for Da Nang, but as most of the people we spoke to travelled down from Da Nang this didn’t seem a great strategy so we tracked down a couple of fun things to do.

This was a great little trip, a taxi picked us up and took us to the harbour to meet our boatman. All Vietnamese seem to have a fun gene and a good sense of humour and our boatman was no exception.

The boats are very odd, because they are round, and totally unsuited to going anywhere but years of practice clearly helps, and we headed down the river in a little procession of round boats that soon split up. We were then on our own with the boatman serenading us, rather like a Venetian Gondola but in a mango swamp.

The boat dodged in and out of the mangoes where there were large pineapple like things hanging from the trees, which were generally harvested at some point. We then tried a bit of fishing, throwing a hook and line into the roots and trying to coax out one of the numerous crabs out, but they were cunning beasts and seemed to guess that simply letting go of the bait would save their lives.

We then moved out into the main estuary, offered the chance to try standing up and spinning the boat around as per a demonstration by a very agile young fella. Wisely, nobody in our flotilla took the opportunity to demonstrate how to get dizzy in a boat as falling out seemed the inevitable consequence.

Then we boarded the fishing pontoon, and were given the chance to try throwing a net out into the river and haul in a fish. The bloke ahead of us nearly followed his net into the river, which was a warning to us all, so when my turn came I made a big point of planting my feet firmly on the deck and throwing the net, needless to say we didn’t catch any fish but at least I didn’t fall in. Not surprisingly, Wooksie sat in the safety of the boat hoping for a big splash.

We then headed back up the river to the dock, having a lovely sing along with our boat man, and finally stepping ashore and having a nice cold beer, this was 2 or 3 hours very well spent.

Cham Island snorkelling

No trip to a tropical paradise is complete without a snorkelling trip, so it had to be done. The trip departs from a modern port near the mouth of the estuary near Hoi An, so only a 15 minute taxi ride from the old town. The organisers picked us up from An Bang in a taxi which was a nice easy start.

We assembled on the quay and it was good to find myself in a nice fun group of people, most of which had travelled down from Da Nang, with the English Premier league coming to an exciting season ending we all had a lot to talk about.

The trip itself is a very simple model, we boarded a high speed boat, put on life jackets (and were inspected by the river police) and were then jetted out of the harbour in the direction of Cham Island, we held on tight and bounced across the waves until we reached the remote islands.

The boat steamed along the coast to the best spot, where we donned our snorkelling gear and set off following the current along the coast. This is no Great Barrier Reef but the seabed has plenty of variety, reflecting the history of volcanoes that created the islands, but there was enough coral to bring in the colourful fish that make the snorkelling fun.

We reboarded the boat and headed for one of the most beautiful island beaches I have seen, with white sand spreading around a bay, and opportunities to paddle board and kayak, but most people took the opportunity to have a coffee or beer in the shade and sit around chatting.

We then reboarded the boat for a second dive off one of the headlands, to be honest, this one wasn’t as good but it there was enough to keep us interested and just enjoy being in the sea. Nothing goes off without a drama, and I lost my snorkel when I jumped in and forgot to hold on to my mask, luckily the locals can hold their breath so the snorkel was recovered from the depths.

Last job of the day was a great lunch in the beach bar, a chance for a swim or something, but I was just happy chatting with my fellow travellers and solving the problems of the world, interrupted by the occasional dip to moderate the temperature.

The trip home was similar to the trip out, board the boat, strap yourself in and bouncing across the waves to get us home.

So another great day out, lots of great company and plenty of things to enjoy beneath the waves in the snorkelling gear.

30/07/2026
Twinkling Hoi An and it’s secret beaches.
Very few people who consider a trip to Vietnam will miss out on the images offered by the romantic lights of Hoi Ann, but we nearly did. We needed a week on a deserted beach somewhere to recharge after all the trips, but it all worked out in the end and we managed to achieve both.

It is worth mentioning that Hoi Ann is on the coast, it sits on an inland waterway that becomes an estuary and flows into the sea. The ancient fishing port of Hoi An is hot and busy, most people stay in the town or visit as part of a day trip from Da Nang about an hour away and has a vibe more like Miami that a desert island.

A bit of further research unearthed the discovery that there is deserted coastline only 10 minutes away by cab. An Bang beach is a relatively narrow stretch of beach that runs for miles with little beach resorts spotted along the coast, so we found our perfect solution, we had our deserted beach to kick back on, whilst still enjoying the fun of Hoi An, top result.

An Bang is a busy little town, with plenty of bars and restaurants overlooking the sea. It has a wonderful array of seafood restaurants, with most of the seafood being grown in large tanks in the restaurants or tanks in the back streets. We were in a little resort 10 minutes’ walk away called Sol An Bang Beach Resort & Spa, it was a smashing place, right on the beach and with friendly staff, just what we were looking for.

We unpacked our bags and called a Grab cab and headed into Hoi An for $3. We arrived in late afternoon and it was notably hotter than the beach. It really is an ancient town, which is famous for the shops that spread out from the river into the back streets.

Hoi An is particularly famous for their tailors and seam stresses and their ability to create their wares very quickly. The shops stretch back a long way, and peering through the doors you could see tailers busily stitching away in the background.

The first thing that strikes you is the heat, it is much hotter just a few miles from the coast, the second thing is the colour at night, the bright multi coloured lanterns are everywhere.

If it isn’t a tailor, it will be a gift shop or a restaurant, tourists are not interested in much else obviously. Walking along the quay every shop is a bar or restaurant; the key being how well placed they are to watch the boat parade at night with all the twinkly lights.

As the sun goes down the lanterns on the boats come on, and the nightly twinkly parade gets under way. The waterway is split into 2 sections. In one section there are the boats with rowers, they move gracefully on their route down river to the central bridge, turn around and head back to the landing stage.

The other alternative is on the eastern side of the central bridge where the boats are bigger and have motors so move much quicker and you get to see more of the town. As you wander along that part of the quay you will be hassled relentlessly to take a trip on the boats as well.

We opted for the slow rowing boat approach. It was a simple process; you buy a ticket and wait for your boat to turn up. Then you clamber onboard and your helmsman heads off in silence, although he was most insistent that we put on bright orange life jackets, which rather killed the romance considering Wooksie is a redhead.

There are many similarities with the taking a gondola ride in Venice, you cruise down the river and it is quite peaceful. Our boat trip was at dusk and during the trip full darkness fell, so we have the best of the changing colours of the evening and the arrival of the twinkling lanterns.

It got me wondering the tradition what the origins of the lantern flotilla. Hoi An has lantern boats because of a blend of traditional Buddhist rituals, its rich history as a trading port, and a modern desire to preserve the local heritage.

The concept has deep roots and modern appeal for several reasons, but most of all, I suspect it is like lots of things in Vietnam, it makes a fantastic tourist attraction to bring in more customers.

:
- Spiritual Ritual: The full moon has long been a holy day in Vietnamese Buddhist culture. On these nights, locals place candlelit, lotus-shaped paper lanterns on the Hoai River to honour their ancestors, pray for good fortune, and make wishes.
- Historical Influence: Dating back to the 16th century, Hoi An was a bustling international trading port where Chinese and Japanese merchants settled. These cultures brought their own lantern-making traditions, which local residents adapted and continued.
- Heritage Preservation: In recent years, local authorities standardized and formalized the hand-rowed boat operations. By removing motorized boats and requiring rowers to follow set guidelines, the city preserves a peaceful, glowing atmosphere that honours its ancient roots while supporting local tourism.
Hope you enjoy the video.
27/07/2026
Nim Bin – the ancient and modern worlds meet

The trip to Nim Bin is one of those “must do” tours when you are in Hanoi, and it was the last on our itinerary before heading south to Cambodia and Da Nang.

We booked this tour through Tripadvisor, there are a couple of itineraries to choose from, one has a longer boat trip than the other, it wasn’t really clear how to make a choice so we flicked a coin to save on brain power.

The trip sets off at the crack of dawn with an early pick up that leaves you scrambling for some breakfast before it the hotel officially opened. To make matters worse, I had picked up some sort of horribly runny nose kind of cold and was not in great shape.

It is a long journey from Hanoi, about 3 hours to get there, and all the while the day is warming up. Nim Binh is the name of the area and there are a number of things going on, first activity involves climbing up a near vertical staircase to get to the top of a mountain and we assumed a temple of some sort. It was quite evident from the state of the people coming back down that this was going to be a hot and sweaty climb, and so it was.

The entrance involves some walks through huge fields of water lilies, with the inevitable South Koreans getting dressed up and having their photos taken in wedding outfits, while we took selfies of ourselves and tried to avoid having them in the background, though I am sure I was in in a few of theirs!

In truth, I don’t think it actually took much more than 20 minutes to climb the stairs, but it felt a lot more and was hard work on the heart and the knees in humid 40c conditions, especially when you have a cold.

On the way up there are lookouts where you can have a breather and admire the views down to the river where the tourist boats move in and out of the limestone caves, this is the post lunch activity.

When you get to the top of the climb, firstly you find the recently built Bich Dong Pagoda, after that you can join the queue to get a selfie with the recently built dragon as well, this is a rather precarious exercise on sharp rocks with hoards of young people getting their Instagram photo.

You then realise that Bich Dong has no historical or religious relevance, like many the tourist attractions it has been built for tourists to climb and have their photo taken, other than that it has no purpose. To be fair to their tourist people, it works because there were hundreds of people clambering up and down the path. There is a statue of the mountain lion in the cave, with some vague reference to a fable, but mainly it makes a good photo, this is brilliant marketing.

After the climb, it was back on the bus and off to the ancient capital of Vietnam, Hoa Lu. On a hot and humid day after that hard climb, all we wanted was shelter but there wasn’t any. This is potentially a really interesting place because it dates back to the 10^th century so lots of history, but not really that much to look at if I was honest.

We then headed to a little restaurant with great aircon, but first we had to go on the bike ride around the village, which involved a close encounter with a local tractor, Wooksie hates bikes but I thought she did rather well not getting annoyed, but we did all get even sweatier.

It was then time to get in our boat which promised to be a bit cooler, until we actually saw the boat, which had no shelter from the sun. Luckily, everyone was issued with an umbrella for sun or rain. A few people decided they couldn’t take any more sun and didn’t want to sit cross-legged for 2 hours and opted out, so we were lucky to have a little more space in our boat.

The rowers were all women, and they were super strong, I bet they had 6 packs like washer boards as they stood up all the way and were rowing against the tide. We then realised that the passengers were expected to help, so the chaps got to work in the boat and before long we were in a race with the other boats, which helped pass the time, it isn’t easy being cramped in a boat for 2 hours, however stunning the limestone scenery is. In fact, there comes a point when the novelty of the limestone scenery does actually wear off, but it takes a couple of weeks.

The journey along the river took us through some huge caves, and it wasn’t clear to me if they were all natural or maybe some were man made to open up the river to tourists. Vietnams investment in tourisms has been huge and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the caves hadn’t been enlarged to take the traffic.

One of the highlights was a pagoda in the middle of a lake, once again great for photos but not sure it was actually used by the locals for anything. The best thing about these trips is the people you meet, and we had the company of a couple from California and enjoyed many laughs about the state of the world and the US role in the continuing chaos, lovely people. In the photo they even leaned forward so they didn’t spoil the picture, that’s them lying in the front of the boat!

So Nim Binh was the last of the tours in Northern Vietnam so it is now time to head to Cambodia and have a look around Da Nong and Hoi An, a few hundred miles south.

24/07/2026
Ha Long Bay cruise – a bit of 5* luxury

Basically, the Ha Long Bay 2 day trips are 24 hours spent on a ship. There are dozens, probably hundreds of them, in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. They don’t really go anywhere either, Cat Ba Island is vast so they cruise a few miles along it’s coast and that is it. All the tours do roughly the same itinerary and we discovered that you actually do a lot more activities if you do a 1 day trip rather than an overnight. All that said, 1 or 2 day Ha Long Bay is an essential element of any trip to Hanoi. Basically, you get what you pay for with the cruise ships, the cheaper the trip the older and rougher the ship.

This was probably our most anticipated trip. I had really wanted to make this our first adventure but the schedule didn’t work that well so it ended up as our penultimate trip in North Vietnam.

Ha Giang Loop planning had been a bit of a distraction and there was little internet coverage out on the roads to book our trip. When I came to book the trip 3 days ahead a lot of the options were fully booked, so if you are planning a trip then give yourself 7 days ahead. We were using Tripadvisor and plenty of options were offered, until you tried to actually book the trip, so we booked with Getmyguide in the end.

As a result, we ended up booking on a 5 star trip on the ship Celina, which I have to say, was a fabulous luxury, the only regret was we only had one night to enjoy it. We chose the 2 day trip and it was the equivalent to booking 1 night at a luxury hotel, you board about midday and checked out at 1030 the next morning, before being dropped at the quay for the bus back to Hanoi.

We were picked up at our hotel in the old town in Hanoi, very efficiently and in a very nice mini coach. We were joined on the bus by a mother and daughter who said they were Portuguese, but they had very distinct Russian accents. They explained they were from Porto, where we happened to go last year and we seemed to know more about it than they did. We then realised that there are not many countries in the world that welcome Russian tourists nowadays so we let the matter slide and enjoyed their company as they were fun people, it was their idea to do the Jeep Tour of Hanoi

We arrived in Ha Long, and after trying extremely hard to board the wrong cruise ship we discovered we had a 1 hour transfer on a tender, our boat was too big to get into the harbour apparently. So, after a trip through the bay, we spotted our ship and boy did it look aexpensive. We were advised it is the biggest and most expensive ship in the area.

We were helped aboard by attentive staff and found our way to our fabulous cabin with its own balcony; this is the life. The schedule quickly kicked in and we were sent up to the lounge for our 5 star lunch, which was excellent.

I don’t know why, but 5 star is full of snobby guests. On this trip, there were no friendly people to have a chat with, they all seemed to want to live inside their own shells, except the crazy South Koreans who lived in a much bigger shell, and created a lot of noise and karaoke, now who’s being snobby!

We did have a kayak but it was very dull, we had full stomachs and paddling around a flat calm bay wasn’t any fun. So, we went back to the ship to enjoy our luxury surroundings, we sat on the balcony and were immediately inundated with little boats selling beer and sweets, these Vietnamese know how to make a quick buck, the ocean version of Lidl.

Eventually, the engines started and the ship set off for our cruise, we took up residence on the top deck and ordered cocktails to help enjoy the sunset. 30 minutes later the engines stopped, we’d reached our destination, this came as a bit of a surprise but to be fair, the view was very nice and we concluded that pretty much all the scenery was the same so why waste fuel. The limestone peaks stretch about 50 miles out to the ocean, so it was all going to be the same.

The scenery is absolutely stunning, it is basically the same landscape as the mountains of the Ha Gaing loop further inland, but the deep valleys are flooded so we are just seeing the peaks. Below the ship the water is hundreds of metres deep.

We discovered that the Vietnamese don’t really know how to pour measures into the cocktails, so after a particular weak cocktail, we had to advise them on the size of their measures and we got drunk a lot quicker than we would have done, and spent less money as well.

So, after a smashing lunch it was time for kayaking. Wooksie didn’t want to join me so I boarded the transfer boat. The guide started to pair people off as the canoes were doubles, to my complete alarm I was paired with a crazy South Korean woman who couldn’t apparently swim. I was sat there in shock and decided I wasn’t having any of this nonsense and told the guide I’d forgotten my swimmies and would skip kayaking or go and kidnap Wooksie to ensure I had a sensible partner.

Dinner was very pleasant with fine food, none of the guests talked to each other and the crazy South Koreans continued to make a lot of noise in their part of the ship. Basically, the rest of the day was spent waiting for the sunset, which was very nice, but not as nice as the sunrise that we had to wake up at 4am to see, but it was worth it and was the highlight of the trip.

After sunrise we had a fine breakfast before heading for the coconut boat rides, I think they call it day and night tour, basically a local woman rows you through a cave into an inland stretch of sea which is very pleasant but not particularly exciting.

Once you get back from the coconut boats, the ship cruises very slowly back to its anchorage. I would estimate that you ship moves less that 10 miles at the most, and when they come to sell the cruise ship, it will be categorised as very low mileage.

You can tell that I think we should have gone further than we did. We had a nice time, probably a bit of an anticlimax if I was honest, but you don’t get to spend 24 hours on a luxury yacht very often and I’m sure there were plenty of worst options looking at the state of some of the other ships racing us back to port.

Basically, the Ha Long Bay 2 day trips are 24 hours spent on a ship. There are dozens, probably hundreds of them, in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. They don’t really go anywhere either, Cat Ba Island is vast so they cruise a few miles along it’s coast and that is it. All the tours do roughly the same itinerary and we discovered that you actually do a lot more activities if you do a 1 day trip rather than an overnight. All that said, 1 or 2 day Ha Long Bay is an essential element of any trip to Hanoi. Basically, you get what you pay for with the cruise ships, the cheaper the trip the older and rougher the ship.

22/07/2026