Geetings, and welcome to my blog! Today, I have a story to share, and it’s about my trip to Ba Na Hills, Vietnam! This was my first time in Vietnam, and my family really loved it there. Vietnam is definitely a place that we would go back to. We arrived at the Da Nang airport at 10pm, and we were picked up by a car service from the airport as well. We got to see the lovely Da Nang skyline and see the golden Dragon Bridge at night. It was so pretty, and you can imagine my excitement when I saw a giant dragon snaking across the bridge.

I woke up and I had to do the “Good morning Vietnam” voice over from the movie. Obviously 🙄. You know, cuz it was morning, and I was in Vietnam? No? Okay. You can see it on my Instagram reels on my page @arielaonthego *shameless self-promotion 😌*

We took another car service to go to Bà Na Hills, but we asked the driver to make a stop at the Dragon bridge because I need my Instagram pictures. Obviously 🙄. Bà Na to Da Nang is a 45min—1hr drive. Luckily I had a book. Not one that I really enjoyed to be completely honest, but still, a book! We took a nice little drive around the city and along the river, and there were lots of people selling freshly caught fish on the side of the road. Y’know, just chilling on the side of the road with a little fish basket.

One of the things that surprised me the most was that Vietnam was settled by the French. Ba Na hills was a vacation resort for wealthy French colonists in 1919, and it really makes a lovely resort. To be honest, I thought it was like some sort of ancient village that was founded on the top of the hill decades and decades ago, but… 1919? Not exactly that old. This place was pretty much built especially for tourists. The entire village is 1500 meters above sea level so it cool even in the summer months.

By the late 1880s, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were all controlled by France and collectively referred to as Indochine Français, or in English, French Indochina. Vietnam declared independence in September 2, 1945. It led to the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, replacing the Nguyen Dynasty. But the France did not leave Vietnam, they still want to control Vietnam. In July 1954, French and Vietnam Mien agreed for a temporary cease-fire and divide the country to North and South Vietnam. But we’re going to get into that on my next post about Vietnam, so just you wait 🙂

My parents booked Mercure Hotel in French Village for two nights. Advantage – you can visit the Golden bridge early. Purchase a cable car ride and that includes an entrance to Fantasy Park, Alpine Coaster, 3D rides at the Moon Castle. Cable car is the longest single track in the world. The capacity may hit 6500/hour. It has five routes and adding one more.

You can take a cable car to Ba Na hills everyday once they are open, so we saw lots of people riding the cable cars up later in the morning. Ba Na Hills would make a great little day trip, buuuut if you want the premium views you have to get up earlier, and if you stay at the resort you can beat the crowds and get the best photo opportunities at 6:00 in the morning for the sunrise 😀

After waking up at 6:00 in the morning 😀 we went to Fantasy Park which is Ba Na Hills’ indoor amusement park! Super duper fun fact: once you pay the cable car fee to ride up, all rides are included! You can go on as many rides as you want for as long as you want. (Well, maybe until the park is open.) We stayed there for a long time because it was a bit foggy outside and visibility wasn’t all that good. It’s a village wayyyyy above the clouds.

Remember how I said Vietnam was settled by the French? Yeah, well that means that Vietnamese know how to make all of the fancy French pastries and treats! I don’t know what French magic the French put into their food, but it’s good! We had pastries and desserts for dinner at a lovely cafe before going swimming. Yes, Mercure Hotel has an indoor pool. The pool was very warm and had basketball, volleyball, and water polo set up as well. Fun 😀

Fantasy Park

^ Yeah, so like I said we woke up at 6 am 😀 and went to the Golden Bridge. Afterwards we went for breakfast at the buffet. There are so many yummy foods to try, and you can have more traditional Vietnamese dishes for breakfast as well.

The one drawback from all of the fog was that the Alpine coaster was closed. It’s a coaster that goes around the mountains, and it’s less like an actual roller coaster and more like a singular cart that goes on a track. I’m sure it would be great to go on, but we couldn’t 😖. Oh well. There’s always next time 🌝 It’s actually the same ride that I rode in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee USA. The funicular was also closed due to the weather so we couldn’t go on that either. However, there’s another one that WAS open so we rode that to the Moon Castle. 🌛🌜. Then we visited the wine cellar, where we found out the real reason for why this village is a french village and why they even came to Bà Na Hill at all. Bà Na is their party spot, their business deal making spot. The rich French would come all the way up the mountains to party, stay at the resort, and enjoy themselves. Don’t forget to watch my YouTube video.

We were looking at some sort of Medieval Fair behind our hotel building, but that was closed so we kept walking and found stairs leading up a mountain. We found a lovely tea house there and warmed up over a cup of tea. The tea was very good, and perfect for a cold wet day.

The next day the rain stopped and the fog cleared so there was better visibility. It was even a little sunny. That was the best day for us to take pictures, but it was checkout time and we had to leave the resort. But not before we took some good pictures 😉 The staff took our bags for us and brought them to the cable cars for us, and the car service took us to the airport.

We will definitely be back in Vietnam, we really enjoyed our visit to Ba Na Hills, and there’s still lots more to explore there! Plus, we saw that they’re building a lot of new attractions, and I still need to ride that alpine mountain coaster :p

We will definite be back again probably in the summer so the weather will be better. That’s all for this post, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you consider visiting Ba Na Hills if you haven’t already! Stay tune for another city in Vietnam that I visited. Bye!