Rare Adventures

Tag: rod sowden

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
Unforgettable Moments at Angkor Wat Temple

Most people arrive in Cambodia planning a visit to one of the most famous temples in the world, namely Anker Wat. Located on the outskirts of Siem Reip, located on a site measuring 162.6 hectares (1.6 km²; 401.8 acres) within the ancient capital of Angkor, it was constructed between 1113 and 1150 CE during the reign of the Khmer king Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu.

When you plan your trip, you normally have a choice of watching the sunrise or sunset, and bearing in mind the searing heat, we opted for the sunrise trip before the heat kicks in, the downside of that is you have to get out of bed a 3.30am to get to the site in the dark. I spoke to people who did the sunset tour as well, and apparently the heat drop off.

The coach picked us up and we headed off in pitch darkness off ready to for the sunrise, and there was no time to spare because daybreak broke very quickly after our arrival. Sunrise was the big show of the day and as the light increased the temple became visible across the lake and the cameras were clicking from to get their money shot.

Sunrise was a particularly tranquil experience, sat on the lawn watching the brighten over the temple and the monks pottering around chatting to tourists. It was then that it sunk in that one of my all time bucket list items had been ticked off. The various types of Wonders of the World can be an anticlimax or much better than expected, Anker Wat was almost exactly what I expected, which I guess is a consequence of so much information online.

Once the photos were done it was time to do the tour of the temple, which was getting hotter by the minute as the sun came up. It is made up of various towers and inner chambers that have incredibly carvings in the stone walls that record stories of history.

The temple was originally discovered by the Portuguese in the 16^th century, then it was forgotten about and rediscovered by the French in the 18^th century, when it became overgrown again and restored in the 20^th century, it is surprisingly similar to the Inca temples in Peru like Machu Picchu.

The other intriguing issue is that the temple looks truly ancient, but it is less than 1000 years old, the problem is that the stone is eroding through being weathered. It struck me that in another 500 years it will have lost even more shape and just be lumps of stone. A lot of the temples has modern buttress supports and scaffolding to make it safe for tourists.

Climbing to the top of the biggest tower really did bring the history and scales to life and an opportunity to just absorb the atmosphere, which was getting hotter and hotter so we were ready for a b it of aircon bus and the next trip.

To be honest, most of the other temples were smaller versions of the Anker Wat, so the other temples were interesting in their own right, once we had seen the main event if did feel that the other temples were a bit of an anticlimax, so when we arrived at the café for breakfast and coffee it was a welcome relief.

My enduring memory of this tour, apart from the Anker Wat temple, was undoubtedly the Frankenstein type trees that have taken over the temples. These trees had grown up over hundreds of years and managed to creep their roots through the buildings to the point where the temples seemed to be dependent on these the huge roots to maintain their stability.

We did also see the odd monkey running around, but the power of nature through these trees, to exist within, around and over the buildings apparently existing outside of soil. Looking at the photos, they are still amazing.

When we had completed our tour of the temples it was some relief, as the heat was intense and there is only so many temples that you can walk through before boredom starts to creep in, however good the guide is and by midday it felt like we had been up all day, which of course we had.

The hotel pool beckoned and an afternoon trying out the monster cocktails became our mission for the rest of the day, before, heading to Pub Street for dinner again that evening.

12/08/2026
Petrolhead tour: Wild Atlantic Way adventure in Ireland, Part 5

From Blarney Castle to Dublin

Day 5 and the final day of driving was another big one, all the way to Dublin and another 250 miles. At this point the novelty of the long drives was beginning to wear off, Wooksie had been doing very well in the passenger seat but her back was starting to complain so our mindset would be best categorised as lets get this done with the minimal hassle.

The first section of the drive was the countryside to Blarney Castle, which was our main event of the day, after that it was head for Dublin and every man, woman and child for himself.

Blarney Castle is a major tourist attraction and was full of coaches of Americans from Dublin and other tours who had come to kiss the Blarney Stone. The convoy arrived mostly together so we had a chance to line the cars up and a photo opportunity, as normal I missed the memo and was parked around the corner, but it made for a good video.

To be honest, there isn’t much to Blarney Castle, an interesting bit of history and the legend of being blessed by fairies if you kissed the Blarney Stone was one of the more ridiculous fables I’ve come across in my time, but we still queued for nearly an hour, to kiss the almost completely inaccessible Blarney Stone, which requires you to hang upside down with a bloke holding your ankle, quite a good way to get Covid as well I would imagine with the dozens of people before you doing the same thing.

After a pleasant hour wandering the grounds we bumped into Yaris GR Simon and had a much more interesting hour listening to his world when he was a Formula 1 Team Principal and eating ice cream.

We then spent the next few hours on back roads and motorways heading to Dublin and we ended up at the spectacular 5* St Helens hotel, great choice OTR guys. Which was fabulous, but where the staff were not too bright,

For some reason the entire hotel was designed to have nowhere to sit in the sun and enjoy our last night beers. So the Plymouth (me and Blowey) and the Pompey boys had to reorganise the furniture on the lawn so we could sit in the sun, and that worked very well.

We had our last night dinner together, which was fabulous chatting with our new friends despite the hotel’s best efforts to sabotage the event with slow service. However, the fun was not completely over, as the ferry back to the UK did not leave till 2pm.

There was time for one last high speed drive across the amazing Sally Pass, a mountain range that seemed to start almost within the city limits of Dublin. Wooksie wisely opted out with some of the other wives and went on a walking tour of Dublin, so the boys were left to their toys.

This was one of the most fun drives of the trip as the convoy stayed close together, Kevin out front was being an excellent pace man and alterted us to oncoming danger, whilst the rest of us had a high speed tour of the mountains – a great way to end.

We all headed back to the ferry for the 4 hour crossing and the long trip home to all corners of the British Isles, literally, from Scotland down to Plymouth and even over to Kent.

Though in my case it wasn’t quite so straight forward, I went back via the hotel to settle the bill, and my satnav gave me a different and much slower route to the ferry port, and as I sat in mile upon mile of queues I have to admit to having a bit of squeaky bum time as the clock ticked on, but I got there on time, to find a flustered Wooksie at the gate waiting for me, I didn’t bother mentioning that I’d gone up the wrong side of the motorway and was faced by a mass ot traffic that I just managed to duck away from down the slip road, but that is a story for another time. So, a wonderful week with the OTR boys, some of my besties and a whole bunch of great new people that sincerely hope I will get to meet again on a future adventures or chance meeting somewhere I very much hope.

12/08/2026
Hidden Treasures of Seim Reip

Visiting Anker Wat had been one my ambitions for many years, so we detoured from Vietnam for a short stay in Siem Reip to take in the temples. We weren’t’ the only ones, as everyone who comes here is heading for Anker Wat, which is a shame but Siem Reip is a really nice place and Cambodia has a lot to offer.

The city leaders are a clever lot, and to keep us hanging around the created Pub Street, which is another good reason to come here. They have created a long street full of bars, that keeps the rowdy tourists in one place, having fun while the citizens carry on with their lives uninterrupted.

The highlight of this trip was the HeroRats that are covered later in the blog, they were incredible and, in many ways, the highlight of the trip. A creature that the whole world regards as vermin is at the core of saving lives and removing the landmines that still remain from the war with the US.

To be honest, Pub Street is overhyped, all the bars are doing beer deals and food, there is the odd night club or live music venue scattered around but the best bit, is most of the bars are airconditioned. As with many things in this part of the world, Pub Street gives you great Instagram photos to share, which of course makes it even more popular.

Everything was geared towards the travellers so we ended up eating there every night because it was nice and easy, and the beer and food was cheap, but by the 3^rd night it we definitely time for a change of scenery.

To get a better perspective of town, we found a tuk tuk tour called Hidden Treasures and had a great guide called Lux, (you can find him on Facebook as Lux Lux). He had great knowledge of the history and spoke fantastic English, he also had a real passion for his country and he made the tour extra special for us.

Psar Chaa – Old Market. Local food market was the first stop and it was jaw dropping. The region is full of markets and things but this one had the most incredible variety of fresh food. Most of it was fish from a giant lake the size of a small sea a few miles away that seem to feed the entire region. All the farmers carted their products into this central area and the place was packed with locals doing their daily shop from the amazing it display of vegetables and meat; it makes our weekly trip to Lidl look particularly dull!

Wat Preah Prom Rath. Everyone comes here Anker Wat, but there are temples spread around the whole city. The temples are unique as they blend Buddhism with Hinduism, historically the religion is Buddhism but one of their kings changed the religion to Hindu and this lasted for a couple of centuries, before another king changed it back, so this means the temples have artifacts from both religions.

It isn’t a visit to a temple unless they have a sleeping Buddhu, and this one had a beauty.

Satcha – Cambodian Handicraft Cente. Another really interesting place where the locals maintain ancient crafts, it was a bit like an apprentice college. This isn’t really my sort of thing, I couldn’t help but be intrigued watching the delicacy of the stone or wood engraving, and how the pottery and painting studios. After 30 minutes we got on to the good bit, they make cracking coffee.

APOPO Visitor Center, otherwise known as the HeroRats. This was absolutely incredible. Rats are trained to sniff out landmines. APOPO is the charity that trains the rats in Cambodia and in parts of Africa as well. Apparently, rats are intelligent and sensitive creatures and watching the affection that the staff at the visitor centre show them is quite moving. They take years to domestic and train to do the minesweeping, but they have saving hundreds of lives.

I hadn’t realised that their rural countryside is still littered with landmines and children are still being killed and maimed, they rats are not only saving lives, but they also open up more land for cultivation as there are vast areas that are still too dangerous to inhabit, which is an incredible tragedy.

We took in another temple where there was some celebration going on, with people having a good time but it was all getting a bit hot by then and we could feel the swimming pool and cocktails calling.

Lux had rather impressively taken us on a route that actually left outside our hotel, so the call of the pool was even louder.

Thanks again to Lux for a great day.

06/08/2026
Petrolhead tour: Wild Atlantic Way adventure in Ireland, Part 2

From Bushmills to Donegal

Screenshot

Refreshed and exciting from the previous day’s events we were up early for a day which started with bright sunshine and a lovely breakfast. So, we were up and ready to go for the next stage of our journey to from Donegal via Londonderry.

Getting out of the small car park was no straightforward task, and as he had managed to find a spot that meant we needed a 3 point turn and by the time the opportunity arrived the procession of cars had already gone – last again and it the day has only just started.

We did catch the group up when they stopped for petrol, and we flew straight past them as we didn’t need fuel – aha we are out in front at last. We didn’t see them again for an hour, which was when we stopped for coffee and they all went flying past us again, the routine of the day was taking shape.

The drive towards Londonderry was pretty busy and not much fun, and it was only when we came out the other side, entered Eire and started to enjoy the empty roads over the mountains and along the coast that things really improved.

We joined the Wild Atlantic Coast that was to be our route for the next 5 days. Luckily, we didn’t follow all the signs or we would have been there for a month as the route follows every coast road, but the OTR guys had done a good job of planning.

A highlight of the first day was travelling a national park that is dedicated to being Bog , so that was a bit of surprise as we travelled through the remote moors. We had our first experiences of the wide open spaces as we travelled over the mountains between Carrickart and Dungloe and the boy racer in our heads in us took over as the cars were put through their paces, driving like a joy rider was a good description.

The OTR guys had another cool safety strategy, one of the cars acts as a pace car and warns the other cars of any oncoming traffic (there wasn’t much) or other things to be aware of. In fact I started to get a feel for the ability of our car that you would never discover on normal driving, the Porsche Cayman is reputed to be the best balanced sports car ever made, and we learned we could handle pretty much any bend at speed, we just lost out when it came to straight line speed. Somehow we managed to pass them all again somehow lose the convoy.

After long day of scenery that took in the stunning cliffs at Sliabh Liag, where once again we bumped into the main body of the group as they hiked up to the cliffs as we were wandering back – but the ice creams were worth it and the cloud formations rolling over the cliffs were totally unique.

The route back into Donegal took is through a place called Kellybegs which had a fleet of monster deep sea trawlers that were clearly geared for long trips out into the Atlantic, they were quite a site moored up around the quays and the smell of fish was everywhere.

Before our arrival at the hotel in Donegal, on the way down the main road we noticed an odd thing that was quite disturbing, there seemed to be a national cull of cuddly toys. Teddy bears were hanging from fences, nailed to telegraph poles and hanging from lamp posts. Whatever the cuddly toys had down wrong the kids were clearly after revenge. Further research identified that this was a tradition linked to a motorbike fund raising charity convoy of bikers, which I have to say did not make some of the scenes any less disturbing.

Mr Blowey arrived and his car developed a new fault, the roof on the convertible wouldn’t go down, which added to a long list of issue. The Mercedes roof is a horribly complicated affair and my technical skills with a hammer were not much use.

Pulling and pushing a range of fuses did little to help the situation. however, help was at hand when Stuart, the Aston Martin owner, appeared with an incredible tool kit. He explained that if you want to own an Aston Martin you needed a lot of tools, which promptly knocked the Aston Martin off my bucket list. After much time in the car park a solution was found, sit on the boot lid to force the electrical connection, and happily it worked and the roof went up, and even down again the next day.

To make matters worse, when Mr Blowey checked in, he had a view of the car park again whilst mine was out over the main entrance, he wasn’t happy but he had had enough stress for one day and we decided beer was the best antidote.

Meanwhile, the ladies decided they had had enough of male company during the day and had an evening to themselves drinking as much Prosecco as they could get their hands on, so us chaps downed red wine, learned a lot more about the intricacies of beef farming near Loch Lomond from Sandy, and hit the pillows.

04/08/2026