Đà Nẵng
Another great city to visit in Vietnam is Đà Nẵng that’s on the coast of the country. It’s a touristic attraction mainly for its beaches and resorts, treasure limestones such as Bà Nà Hills, Marble Mountains, Hái Vân Pass, the Dragon Bridge, and Mỹ Sơn slightly outside of the city.
Ba Na Hills, Da Nang
My family and I hired a driver to get us from Hue to Hoi An. During that 3-hour drive, we decided to spend more time stopping at a few locations and Da Nang for a more active day.
🌦️ | 32˚C
Traffic flow: Busy
Traffic anxiety level: moderate
Hái Vân Pass
This was an interesting route as it’s the only route on land that connects the province of Hue with Da Nang. It’s a pass that goes through the mountain and skirts the coast, which gives a beautiful scenery over Da Nang city. I learned that the city’s name refers to the mist that rise from the sea.
Location: border of Thừa Thiên–Huế and Đà Nẵng
Dragon Bridge
This modern bridge was built in the 21st century. It’s designed to look like a yellow dragon with its curvy back and to spit fire on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 9pm as we were told by the locals. Unfortunately, my folks and I missed it. I’m simply happy enough to be able to record on video the ride on the bridge and the dragon’s head.
Marble Mountains
Known for its mountains that represent the five elements, each one of them is named after the elements: Kim (metal), Thủy (water), Mộc (wood), Hỏa (fire) and Thổ (earth). The marble mountain that’s accessible to tourists is the water element mountain. It has numerous pagodas and caves. It was quite a hike for my family including myself and so, we managed to visit the following:
Huyen Khong Cave, the largest cave in the Marble Mountains
Tam Thai Pagoda
Linh Ứng Pagoda
Thiên Mụ Pagoda
Bà Nà Hills
Have you heard of the Golden Bridge? It looks spectacular in photos on the web especially with those two marble hands holding the bridge. I was looking forward to this attraction, but first, I had to go through a suspenseful ride up to the top of the mountain. Commuting by cable car isn’t a first for me. I was just never on one that took 30min. to reach the summit. It passed through the mist and was higher than the tallest trees of the forest. I was cringed during the entire ride. If I was braver, we could have seen more of that entertainment park because every ride from site to the next inside Sunworld is by cable car.
Mỹ Sơn
Here’s another bucket list item! Mỹ Sơn means beautiful mountain in Vietnamese. Situated a bit farther Southwest from Da Nang, it used to be sacred veneration place for the Cham people. Temples were built in the 4th century estimated to worship their god, Shiva. Today’s ruins only hold a small portion of the original construction. The Cham people is an ethnic group in Vietnam, the first inhabitants of the central coast. I was happy to learn about another culture of Vietnam.
Mì Quảng
This is a dish that originated from central Vietnam, more precisely in Quảng Nam Province, thus its name “noodles from Quảng”. It’s served with rice noodles, meat, fresh herbs and topped with peanuts. It comes with a small bowl of broth on the side and a toasted sesame rice cracker.I love the dish and the fact that I could show all of the unfamiliar Vietnamese dishes like this one to my đẹp trai.
Bếp Xưa
27 Nguyễn Chí Thanh, Thạch Thang, Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam
Seafood
In a city where fishing contributes to the economy, eating seafood was on top of my bucket list here. And what better way than eating fresh and affordable seafood? This experience was an insane lunch. I think my family and I worried our waiter with our long list of orders. It was as if we hadn’t eaten for a long time. We chose our seafood in the water tanks for the cook to prepare our meals.
Hải sản Mộc quán
26 Tô Hiến Thành, Phước Mỹ, Sơn Trà, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam
Their menu was literaly an encyclopedia and this was the best we could cut down our options to:
Fresh oysters
Fried spring rolls
Pomelo salad with seafood
Lemongrass pork skewers
Grilled eggplants
Kimchi
Bbq pork
Steamed crab
Singapore sauce crab
Steamed lobster
Garlic sauce lobster
Thinking about these meals again, I want to go back there so badly!
