Rare Adventures

Tag: hoi an

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