AspiringNomad

The tour started just like any other. Bundelled into the air conditioned bus, the guide introduced herself and explained the itinerary for the day!

Our first stop was a waterfall in a national park. I must admit, this stop was a little underwhelming but it was nice to take in the waterfall and snap a few pictures. Our next stop was the Paradise Cave. It’s one of the 4 biggest caves in SE Asia and it was beautiful inside. The top of the cave reached the same height as about 5 houses on top of each other! After exploring the area we were shipped off to another cave named the Dark Cave. To get to this cave you could choose to kayak across the river or zip line. Of course, I chose to zipline. The scenery was unbelievable, mountains that continued on for miles, luscious green vegetation with a river running through that has turquoise blue water. We entered the cave in only our swimwear and helmets with a light on. It was a classic ‘what silly thing could we get the tourists to do for money?’ But we willingly entered the dark cave and wandered through the damp tunnels to an opening that had a mud pool. We proceeded to, again, willingly get in and cover ourselves with mud! All at once, we switched our lights out on the helmets, and it was so dark you couldn’t tell if you had your eyes open or not! Dispite feeling like a complete fool, it was actually a really cool experience but the mud was a little unnecessary and I didn’t get as covered as much as some of the others!

Once we were back to the river, we swam back across to the starting point to mess around in the water. There were slides and ziplines allowing you to swing off the platform, let go, and drop into the river! We had an hour here before being dropped back off at our Tuan Garden Hostel. Despite not having a bed on the first night, this has actually been my favourite hostel. The rooms were well decorated with a huge bathroom. There was a pool with pretty lighting across the restaurant area at night. They encouraged the guests to sit down at 7pm together for a home cooked dinner. Tom and I joined 8 others at the table and were served a delicious mix of home cooked Vietnamese food but not before they gave us a shot of a local rice wine which you have to take after chanting Mot-Hai-Ba-Dzo 3 times! Can’t say I am a fan of the rice wine, but I handled the shot like a pro to show appreciation. It was a really nice way to meet people and the group were really chilled.

After facetime with the family that was only slightly disrupted by bad signal! I went back down to the common area of the hostel. Most people had started to head off to bed, but I got talking to Bavo. A lovely Belgium guy who was in my room and fortunate enough to witness me falling off my hammock earlier that day!
We chatted late into the evening until I decided I needed to get some sleep.

The following day, I boarded a day bus to Da Nang. I had booked a hostel in Da Nang that was fairly close to the beach and seemed to have good reviews but it’s not every day that your greeted to a drink and cold towel on arrival and then upgraded to a private room! I am aware my standards may have dropped a little but this Hostel was luxurious. The decor was really cool, beds were spotless, the bathroom was spacious with terrazzo floors and they had a bath big enough that you could have probably drowned in it! After settling down we headed off to the beach to see the city at night and grab a cocktail and some food. The next day we had planned to go see the hand bridge at a place called Ba Na Hills on the outside of the city. Now, I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what I experienced! I’m not sure who funded this project, but the whole thing was rather excessive and extravagant! I can only describe it as a cross between Disney world and a theme park on the top of a mountain with no rollercoasters!

There were multiple eateries, a random book store and a couple of hotels. Extremely well-kept gardens and huge buildings that were nicely decorated but had nothing in them. There was even weirdly a 3D cinema. It was a strange place but it was made even more strange with how absolutely packed it was of tourists. Hundreds and hundreds of tourists about 95% Asians and I honestly wondered what they went there for. Having seen the bridge, we walked a round in the blistering heat for much longer than we needed to, then decided to head back down to Da Nang away from the dream land of Ba Na Hills. After receiving a job offer that morning, we felt it only right to go out and have a few cocktails to celebrate, then headed to bed for a good night sleep!

The whole reason we decided to stop off in Da Nang was so we could experience the Hai Van Pass made famous by Top Gear. The Hai Van Pass is a 21km stretch of road along one of Vietnams coastal roads that connects Da Nang to Hue. Upon booking the day tour we sheepishly requested to ride our own mopeds to get the full experience. Some might say riding 160km along a windy mountain road in a foreign country on a moped without any experience is pretty stupid. However, that’s exactly what I was planning on doing. The guide said he would let us practice first before we set off which I was pleased to hear. Unfortunately this ‘practice’ consisted of me riding at about 5kmh on a pavement for about 10 meters before being asked to turn around again. However, I obviously executed it excellently as I was given the thumbs up and before we knew it, I was 10 mopeds deep on a main rode through the center of a busy city with lorries, carts, cars, cyclists and various other random obstacles! It was a surreal experience, I think I smiled the whole way to the Marble Mountains which was our first stop. Just like on Top Gear, we looked around a marble shop and explored the top of the Marble Mountains which consisted of pagodas, a small cave and a view point.

From here we set off on our long Journey to Lang Co beach. Back across the city and onto the Hai Van Pass. It was so much fun winding around the roads with the sea to our right, the sun was shining, the wind was in my hair and despite my lack of experience I felt confident even on the hair pin bends! Our guide stopped us at a beautiful cafe surrounded my flowers and a waterfall that we had to drive through a small village that passed buffalo on a dirt track! I swam in the fresh water to cool off and we continued on to our final stop for lunch by the sea at Lang Co. At this point it has clouded over which meant the riding wasn’t quite as enjoyable and the views were invisible, but coming back through the city in the busier afternoon was an experience I’ll never forget. Imagine pulling up to traffic lights but rather than queing, everyone lines up as though you’re in a race. That’s what it was like, navigating through that, trying not to lose my guide or crash was one hell of an challenge. Red lights apparently don’t mean ‘stop’ here, oh, and you can drive down the wrong side of the road and no one blinks an eyelid (which we had do to as our guide had made a wrong turn)! It was by far one of the best tours I have done and definitely the most fun I have had in Vietnam!