Beyond Pho – Ba Na Hills and Danang Proper
We asked for a ride to Ba Na Hills. When we arrived at Ba Na Hills 20 minutes later, only then did we realize that we joined a tour. They tour guide advised us to stick with the tour group until it ended at 3:30. That was not our intention, as we would have liked to take our time there, but so be it.
Reviews of Ba Na Hills on Tripadvisor were half-good and half-bad. I debated and debated but decided to go. It was mainly because, as a former French resort, it does have an interesting history. The French colonists started this hill station in 1919, probably intending it to be an escape from the heat of Vietnam. Of the original French villas there, only a few ruins remain.
All things old are interesting to me, no matter how modern the people dress them up to be in order to attract tourists.
To be fair, Ba Na Hills was a pleasant surprise. The 5km-long cable car ride was scary, and thus very good. It first took us to the first level. We went through some carefully-landscaped and well-tended French gardens, Le Jardin D’amour. We had a nice stroll in the gardens.
Then we sort of detoured and went way passed the temple to a vista point. There was no one there, despite the crowd in the temple area. We were so close to the clear blue sky, as if we could grab the fresh mountainous air with our hands. This temporary seclusion was heavenly.
We missed the 19th century cellar though. It was time to go up to the next level, where the fantasy park was. I thought it would not be interesting, but the second level surprised me too. There we saw the 19th century French Cathedral. Really that alone worthed all the money that we paid to get in Ba Na Hills. Besides the Cathedral, we could not tell which buildings in the French village were original. The atmosphere there was carefully constructed to give a European vibe. It worked, really.
According to the Lonely Planet, until WWII the French were “carried up the last 20km of rough mountain road by sedan chair.” The resort as it was restored certainly conveyed the once-luxurious past. The restoration was purely commercial in purpose, as the buildings host restaurants and hotels now. Certainly, there was a bustling life in the French village.
Having passed the French town, we came to a group of exclusively Asian-themed structures. I liked the secular, zen-themed tea house the most. It did feel like entering a whole different world altogether. The scent of floral fragrance at the entrance seemed to signal to us another sense of being: calm, natural, minimalist, unlike the elaborate effort to “make it French” just a while back.
For lunch, we sat down for a simple pastry and coffee. It was very good.
What probably impressed me the most at Ba Na Hills was the constant interaction with nature. Many tourist advisories said that one must bring a light windbreaker. Surely, the French did choose a very cool location as a resort. The weather there was one minute sunny and another foggy. The weather was surreal. I would notice a descent of a foggy mist, so thorough and in such uniform fashion that it could have come from man-made dispenser tubes. But it came and disappeared. Then it came again. Only then did I accept that it was mother nature working there. I have never seen nature acting that way.
Just a side note for the sake of amusement. My companion on this trip happened to be a handsome young man. During our tour in Ba Na Hills some people said that I was his mother. The truth is I was older than him by 5.5 years.
I could not have looked so old as to be his mother now. But this curiosity into our relationship (there was none) was to be very annoying to me for days to come.
The tour concluded and we asked to get off at the Danang Cathedral, famous for its salmon pink appearance. From there we took a walk around the city. We visited the Cao Dai Temple, then the Phap Lam Pagoda. The Cao Dai Temple was small, and the Phap Lam Pagoda was even less interesting.
As we walked within the city, I noticed that the common people’s life in Danang was very similar to those living in Ho Chi Minh City. The living rooms of their houses were semi-open in the ground floor. The community life was half-way in the home and half-way on the streets, with constant interactions amongst neighbors. They knew that we were tourists, and the curiosity was mutual. For this was a part of town that did not see much of tourists. Some children climbed up the semi-roof to retrieve a slipper. People were relieved when they did find the slipper. There, the humor was in the air. I laughed as the children did.
In passing by these living quarters I noticed that the Vietnamese people tended to keep dogs more so than cats. They also preferred small dogs, it seemed to me. I am quite sure that dog-loving is a part of Vietnamese culture.
Dinner was at Pho Viet Kieu. It was a restaurant ran out of a home kitchen. Some white men were serving as staff. I thought that was interesting as a choice of work for foreigners in Vietnam. The restaurant was close to the beach, so we went there for a short walk. The beautiful beach front properties bespeak a neighborhood of affluence. That was a world away from Danang city proper, which we just visited before dinner.
The first day in Danang was great.