Hoi An 2018

Since I do not have new travels to write about obviously due to Covid 19 wreaking havoc in 2020, I will take it as an opportunity to do throwback blogs about our previous travels. I will try to write as much as I can remember :)

Back in 2018 before I moved to Australia, Joel and I went for a South East Asian trip and visited parts of my country: Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. In Vietnam, we went to Ho Chi Minh and Hoi An and Da Nang. In this blog, I'll focus on what we did at Hoi An. Hoi An has always been a part of my travel bucket list because of it being one of the Unesco World Heritage Sites.

The nearest airport from Hoi An is Da Nang International Airport. Our hotel from Hoi An offered us a taxi pick up from the airport to the hotel which was great because we could not be bothered to look for the bus or pick out a taxi that might charge us an exorbitant amount. The ride was about 40 minutes for the distance of about 29 kilometres.

The check in was quick and we just headed out for a quick dinner outside. The next morning they offered us their complementary breakfast before we headed out. Yum!

Aside from eating, these were the things we did in Hoi An:

1. Marble Mountain- This is a cluster of five mountains including Kim Son (metal), Moc Son (wood), Thuy Son (water), Hoa Son (fire) and Tho Son (earth). According to the flyer we have received, this popular place of domestic and international attraction was classified as a national historical and cultural relic by the Ministy of Culture in 1980.

We bought a ticket to get to the caves

We climbed up  the very steep steps in this mountain/cave

The crowd on the way to the top.

Finally got to the top and this was the view.

Now time to go back down, bit scary!

Next, we bought another ticket to get to the water mountain.

Another set of stairs!! No crowd this time.

Found a map of the place. Did not know it was huge!

Walking around, we found pagodas of different kinds.

and caves in this mountain as well but we were lazy to really go inside, having seen a cave earlier

and of course,  the view point

There are 2 ways to go back down from the mountain. One was obviously to walk back down and the other one was to take the elevator. This is really helpful to those that have sore legs from all the steps in and around the mountain.

Down below, you can't miss to shop at the many stalls mainly selling emerald statues.

2. My Son Holy Land 1/2 day tour - 99,000VND

The temples built here were from the 4th to 13th century. We booked our ticket through the Sinh Tourist shop in Hoi An. We could have easily bought it online but we chose to physically get it from the shop the day before the tour. We originally planned to have the sunrise tour but it was not available. We then decided to just do the half day bus tour for 99,000 VND or 5 USD. You can read more about it here.

3. Walk around the Hoi An old town

We did this for 2 nights out of 3 that we were in Hoi An. Upon walking towards the old town, a number of stalls can be seen selling merchandise and souvenirs.

Slowly the lights of the lanterns can be clearly seen while walking towards the town. They were enchanting!

Lots of food places to choose from ranging from fancy to midrange restaurants in the old town to street food.

Tried out the fried ice cream :)

It was relaxing just to walk around the town while eating (and window shopping).

Thank you for reading and 'til next throwback blog :)

Ba Na Hills 2018

I have never heard of Ba Na Hills before until I was researching for things to do in Hoi An. It has piqued my interest as it looks like somewhere in Europe and not in Asia. In addition, it has a long cable car to take guests up to the resort. It looks very lovely and since Joel agreed, we went there after our short stint in Hoi An.

Ba Na Hills was discovered in 1901 by Paul Doumer, the General Governor of Indochina. With its lovely weather, the French built it to become one of the most luxurious resorts in Vietnam. However, time and war devastation made it lost its beauty. Thanks to Sun Group, Ba Na has been restored and  and is now called the "Europe in the middle of Central Area". Now it has a 4 star hotel, restaurants, a modern entertainment park and much more.

Our hotel in Hoi An was very kind to help us arrange a taxi towards the cable car station in Ba Na Hills. Since it was about an hour ride, the price was 500,000VND (22 USD) for the car. Excitement started to come to us right after we stepped off the taxi. Who wouldn't be with this view?

The counter for cable car wasn't hard to find.We mentioned that we are staying at Grand Mercure and the lady at the counter called a butler to assist us. We rode what seemed like a golf car towards another building where the hotel reception was. Joel asked if that was already the hotel. I was confused as well but the receptionist assured us that the hotel is at the top :) She gave us a map of what we should expect over there.

Check in was very fast and we had to pay 18 USD for the cable car. This cable car is one of 10 most impressive cable car systems all over the world as voted by CNN. It was so exciting and when we finally queued up for the cable car, we were overjoyed that we had one to ourselves!

With soothing music, good weather and spectacular views, me and Joel were so impressed.

Our hotel, the Mercure Ba Na Hills French Village Hotel, is beautifully designed with European architectural style in the 19th century. We presented ourselves again at their reception which looked lovely!

They also surprised us by upgrading our room!

The room's main colour was purple and which gave it a royal feel.

Loved the hotel's spiral staircase as well. 

I was in doubt why the flyers and maps said that we can experience 4 seasons in a day in Ba Na Hills. Well, I saw it and it made me believe! One second there is sunshine, then fog will envelop the place and then sunshine again just before the rain and winds come. Like this fog just outside our window.

Right in front, or where our hotel was, is the French Village. It represents a classical and romantic France. It really does not feel that you are in Asia if your here at the French Village. There are a lot of tourists so getting a decent photo is a challenge.

It is easy to get hungry from all the walking and picture taking so fret no more. Scattered in the village are street food stalls such as grilled sausage, crepes and pop corns. I saw souvenir shops around as well.

Unfortunately, the clouds descended so fast when we were about to come out of the hotel to explore what's around.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel (because we didn't realize other restaurants close early). The hotel restaurant was grandiose.

Afterwhich, we checked their heated pool with free movie screening.

The next day, we had our buffet breakfast and checked out from the room.

The staff was very kind to let us leave our bags in their storage room while we roam around to see more of the resort.

We then ventured into Fantasy Park. This is the largest indoor entertainment park in Vietnam and it has about 3 levels of fun! Most of the games and rides are for free except for the Wax Museum.

We had fun with the many entertaining games.

There were also live shows of talented artists on a stage.

We looked for the Funicular to get to other interesting places. At first we were not sure if it had an additional fee but there was none! So we reached Le Jardin d'Amour first which included 9 gardens such as Lover's Garden, Secret Garden, Grape Garden, Dream Spring Garden and Legendary Garden.

We also went into Debay Ancient Wine Cellar which was built by the French People in 1923. It was about 100 meter long and the exit lead us to Bar Debay. They are serving wine, BBQ roaster, apple cinnamon tea and Sangria which we tried out.

We also headed to the Buddha Statue and Linh Ung Pagoda.

Restaurants are abundant in Ba Na Hills. Italian, European, Asian and even Russian food is available and some even offer buffet. But, as a resort, these places are really pricey.

I could say we didn't expect how cold it is up there in Bana Hills. But it does make sense because people come up there especially during the summer. 2 days and 1 night is not enough to enjoy the whole place. I've read an update that they had built a long and grand overlooking bridge up there which the guests loved. Not sure if I could come back to Ba Na Hills but it was a good experience to have "Europe feels" while still being in Asia.

Thank you for reading and 'til next blog!