Da Nang and Hoi An with the Parentals

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Following an amazing solo adventure in Da Lat and Nha Trang that can be read about in another blog post, it was time bring the solo travel to a halt and join up with my parents a.k.a. The Parentals. This was the second time mum and dad had come to Asia to see me, the first time being in 2016 when they came to visit me in China. After a taste of the Asian culture and experiences, they were eager to give South East Asia a go.

Fortunately, Da Nang has an international airport so we were all able to fly in from different locations, the parentals from New Zealand and myself, from Ho Chi Minh. It was a glorious meet up in the airport but with all the luggage (particularly my mother) had to carry, they and myself were very keen to hit the road and find our way to our hotel, no way would my parents even consider the hostel life, and for that, I am grateful. We reached our hotel, Jazz Hotel, which was a dream for me after living the hostel life the past few nights, with rooms that overlooked the beach.

After a delightful evening of walking round checking out the local area, we headed to bed as we had Ba Na Hills planned for the next day. Our time at Ba Na Hills completely exceeded all of our expectations. We were lucky enough to find a driver from Grab that drove us all the way out there as it is a fair distance from Da Nang and who waited for us while we explored because we learned very quickly, there's no way home unless you have organised transport beforehand as it is all very fairly isolated and most go in a tour group to Ba Na Hills so would recommend having your way home sorted upon departure for Ba Na Hills.

The purpose of going to Ba Na Hills was to see the golden hand bridge that had famously been shown on Instagram. To get to the bridge you have to take the cable car which is the longest cable car in the world. We thought this would be the highlight, if not the bridge, but it turns out we were so wrong.

It was not the golden hand bridge that had us gobsmacked or the longest cable car in the world but the unexpected European styled castles at the top with various show acts such as people doing the Can-Can and men on stilts. We ended up spending a lot more time here at Ba Na Hills than expected so if you get the chance to go, you should definitely make a full day available to go do this.

A big tip for this area though, is that it is ideal to go in the morning when there is far less crowds because we noticed that it started to get very busy in the afternoon. There is nothing worse than a huge crowd when trying to get great photos for the Insta.

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