Two of the biggest tourist sites in Da Nang are Ba Na Hills and the Marble Mountains. The first is relatively new, the other is more ancient, and both are super popular places to visit while in Da Nang.
Our taxi driver around Da Nang, Tony, picked us up for an evening visit to Ba Na Hills, which was built fairly recently, finished in 2013. Tony asked if we had our tickets already, we said, “no, can’t we buy them there?” He was a little worried, as it is a popular place that does sell out, so I pulled up the trip.com app and they had tickets (about $35/per person), so I bought them on the way. Tony dropped us off at the entry gates and we had to take a shuttle bus to the actual entrance. He said he would be waiting for us at the entrance when we were ready to leave later, and we went inside.
Once inside, there is a Chinese temple design and we proceeded across bridges, up escalators, and down hallways. This is all just a precursor to the cable car ride.
Ba Na Hills really begins with the cable car ride, that is advertised as the “longest non-stop single track cable car in the world,” at 19,032 feet (or 5,801 meters) in length.” The cable car ride was pretty steep to take us to the top of the mountain.
As you can see above, there is a castle (and an entire medieval village) at the top, but we were not there yet. The first stop of the cable car is the Golden Bridge, which has two huge hands appearing to hold the bridge up (one you can see above). It is quite popular for pictures, and we were no different in wanting our own, on the bridge.
At this level, we could have visited the massive Buddha statue, but we passed, as we wanted to reach the European medieval castle and village.
We went back to the cable car station and took it up to the highest level, where the medieval village is. We were promised two beers with our ticket purchase, and we were ready for them, after navigating the cable car and all the people. The courtyard is full of Greek/Roman statues and includes a glass pyramid reminiscent of the Louvre pyramid. Note, that the below pictures are just outside the cable car entrance and are before entering the medieval village (this place is kind of bananas, in a good way).
We entered the medieval village (look at how excited Jessica is below):
…and made it to the 3-story beer garden building at 6:01. The beer garden hostess told us that the beers included with our tickets were not served after 6pm, and she was firm in her resolution to not let us in and have our free beers.
We were definitely disheartened, and wandered a bit through the town, coming upon a garden with steps leading up. The whole place is a mish-mash of Eastern and Western buildings and architecture. We spied a large pagoda and didn’t see too many people, so went up the stairs.
As we climbed, we saw the multiple temples, bonsai trees, and statues; eventually reaching the summit of Ba Na Hills, which is conveniently marked at 4,780 feet (1,487 meters).
As dusk set in, we were the only people at the top, and the views were truly incredible.
The village has multiple restaurants, hotels (and you can see in the pictures above they are building more), so many food stalls, and even a gothic church!
We ate a dinner of pizza and salad at one of the restaurants, a 1920s themed one (because, why not?), and finally had our beers (but we had to pay for them). This place seriously was bonkers, but in a well done, theme park kind of way. We made our way back to the cable car. The ride down is much faster than the ride up and our ears popped (the quick pressure change hurt Jessica’s ears a bit too). We spoke with a Vietnamese family in our cable car, and it was their third trip to Ba Na Hills, as they were from Hanoi in the north.
We went past the same Chinese style bridge we had seen hours earlier, a bit in a daze, and met Tony back at the car, who took us back to the hotel. What an experience!
Another day, Tony took us to the Marble Mountains, which are mountains where marble and limestone were mined. Though not any more, as they are prohibited to be mined by the government we were told a couple times. There are pagodas and Buddhist temples there as well, dating back hundreds of years. There are also caves that can be explored and small temples inside them. There is an elevator (below, left) that we took up to the exterior temples, statues, and pagodas, which has its own ticket, and there is a ticket to enter that area, and a separate one to enter the caves, too. At least with the normal entry ticket they provide a nice map and a dozen postcards, which is a bonus.
However, before we could enter, Tony asked if we wanted to visit one of the many marble statue sellers. We had said no, as we can’t take any souvenirs, especially not massive marble statues, with us…but he either didn’t hear us or didn’t want to, because he took us anyway.
The saleswoman showed us around, and took us to some of the men carving the marble, told told us the shipping rates (not unreasonable for shipping heavy marble statues), and then led us inside, to see the smaller carvings.
We looked but didn’t see anything we wanted; she told Jessica, who was looking at a ring, that it might not be here if we waited and came back later (hard to believe). Once we said we weren’t interested, she changed in an instant to cold and rude, and said some things in Vietnamese, which could not have been kind (and the google reviews confirmed we weren’t the first people to have this experience at this place). We left, a bit miffed, but realized later than Tony most likely received a cut if we bought something, or, at worst, didn’t have to pay for parking at their place, while he waited for us to explore. Certainly not the first, nor the last time, a driver/tour guide has or will take us to buy things as part of the “tour.”
From there, we paid the entry fee and took the elevator up to explore the temple grounds. There were a lot of fellow tourists, and it was so hot, that we didn’t linger too long; there is a lot to explore, and lots of steps to climb, but we didn’t have it in us to see too much. The coolest statue was definitely the many dragons heads that Jessica is standing in front of, below.
We walked back down (there is a separate charge to take the elevator down as well) and entered the caves. It was a little cooler in the caves, but not much, so we found the coolest spot and rested.
We made our way back out of the caves, and back to Tony, but not before other sellers of marble tried to get us to look at their wares. They were much nicer about us saying no than the saleswoman we had encountered originally. If ever in Da Nang, and you want to buy some marble statues for your grotto, Marble Mountains is the place to shop.
After visiting the two biggest tourist sites in Da Nang, it is easy to recommend both. We would have enjoyed Marble Mountains more if it was not so hot and so populated with fellow tourists, and our initial sales pitch, but it was still a cool place to visit. Ba Na Hills is truly a theme park that should be experienced as it is so dang interesting to see the mash up of cultures. Next up: visiting the Da Nang museums!
Phil's WayPastCool 