Ba Na Hills in Vietnam

Hoi An

This is small town about 30 minutes south of Da Nang.

Very old, and very pretty and has lots of tourists for that reason.

This is a corner that I chose to sit down to wait while certain people got measured up for blouses etc. These were very well put together and quite a reasonable price.

This a typical coffee bar, where we had coffee:

Typical street scenes:

It even has lakes and canals:

You can ride in a rickshaw:

Ba Na Hills

In simple terms, a copy of a French village, built on a very high hill, around 1487m above sea level, ie around 4800 feet. 

The reality is a breathtaking undertaking by someone with a huge imagination. 

First you have a cable car system, amazingly fast, but still takes about 15 mins to get up the mountain. 

They say village, think more like large chateaus and castles. The scale is enormous, and so are the crowds. This in the Vietnamese winter too, so heaven knows what it is like in summer time. 

This is the view you get approaching in the cable car:

There were at least 30 tour buses in the carpark. Lots and lots of themed restaurants, even a hotel or two. A kids amusement arcade that even had a dinosaur collection with moving arms, jaws and dinosaur noises. 

Some nice gardens to visit, even a maze to get lost in. 

At to top, there is a large communal area:

There is even a bridge held up with giant hands:

This is probably one of the hotels you can stay at:

We did not cover every last little thing, as legs and energy were starting to go. You could spend a whole day there easily. It is fairly costly to get in, at 750,000 dong, which is around NZ50.00. The money here is a bit 

While I was there, I suddenly realised most of the people there were asian (!), and that there were no heads with grey hair.  Bald persons were almost non existent!

Not only that, but most were not overweight.  It seems the New Zealand diet could be due for an overhaul?

A Vietnamese Shopping Mall

Today, running out of proper touristy things to do we went to a mall. These look distressingly like the ones in New Zealand. Clothing was cheaper than New Zealand. A turn up and down the supermarket aisle revealed all the same crap we have in New Zealand , just different brands. 

A stop at the coffee shop was a wait of 3/4 of a hour for an iced coffee. 

We go home tomorrow, and although our flight is at 6pm, we have to check out at 12.00 midday. So maybe just a walk around the block one last time in the morning will be in order.

Previous walks have had the definite feeling you were somewhere strange: all the kerbs are sloped, so people can drive their scooters on to the footpath. All good, except all pedestrians are dodging back out on the road all the time.

 The shops and businesses were all strange as well, which adds to the interest.