Vietnam

Happy Monday! I wanted to recap our Vietnam trip while it's still fresh in my mind. We flew to Da Nang, Vietnam from Chiang Mai, Thailand (link to that post here). Our flights were pretty cheap, about $300 for all five of us. I didn't hire a driver for this part of the trip. We used the grab app (Uber for Asia) for everywhere we wanted to go. Before I start, you will need a visa in addition to your passport to enter Vietnam. This was the most stressful part of our trip for me. Each person no matter what age, will need their own visa. I did this online and did the e-visa option. It took about 3 business days to get back. My trip at the time was about two weeks out (when we got our flights) but I would suggest at least 3+ weeks in advance if you can incase you have to fix errors. In the end, it was a breeze getting through the airport.

Where we stayed

We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton Da Nang. It was a perfect location since it is a beachfront property. We are also Marriott Bonvoy members. I swear by the Bonvoy app. The prices are sometimes less than you would pay elsewhere and you can't beat the benefits associated with your membership. They practically treat you like royalty lol and no this is not a sponsored post, I wish!

We loved this hotel. We spent Christmas here and it was great. The hotel was decorated really cute. There were activities every night for the kids like a movie night, a hotel scavenger hunt with a little passport, hot chocolate, free ice cream everyday in the lobby, afternoon tea, etc. The staff was great. Our room was spacious and the beds were huge.

We went upstairs the bar to grab some lunch which was also decorated.

They have a really good peach iced tea btw and the meatball Bahn Mi is good too :)

Rain was forecasted for our entire trip so we grabbed some ponchos from the local z-mart (convienience store) and headed out. We went out to grab coconut coffee, which is very popular here in Vietnam, and some food. We went to Kong Ca Phe. This was amazing. It reminds me of a coconut frapucchino.

Spoiler alert- we had several of these on our trip, lol.

By the way, if you've never been to Vietnam, be prepared for a live version of Frogger. It can be difficult to cross the roads because of the amount of bikes. After coffee we ventured out to grab some food and to see the dragon bridge. We also discovered a local night market which reminded me of the one in Thailand. Lots of food stands, souvenirs, and lanterns.

After the night market we went back to the room and relaxed in preparation for tomorrow's trip to Hoi An.

Next day... Hoi An!

The ride here from the hotel was about 30 minutes.

Quick stop to Phuc Kien Assembly Hall

I love seeing all the details inside these temples.

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.... and now more Bahn mi :)

Anytime we go on a trip I use google maps and I save every location I want to see and map out the distance. For this place, Madam Khan, I just looked on the map and went by reviews and it did not disappoint. The line was out the door but the food was worth it.

Next day - off to Ba Na Hills - Golden hands bridge

If you’ve ever googled Vietnam, chances are you’ve seen this bridge. The bridge is actually located inside of a theme park, Sun World. We used the grab app to get us there. Grab is uber here in Asia. From our hotel, the ride was about an hour. Our grab driver was really nice. As he was driving us there he asked if we already had tickets, we didn’t, and he pulled over on the way up to help my husband buy them at a local ticket stand. I think our tickets were maybe $150 for all 5 of us since the baby was free. Our driver dropped us off and told us to contact him when we were ready to leave and he would come back to get us.

Tip- bring a sweater/jacket if you go in the cooler months. We went in December and the weather in Da Nang was in the 80's but it was freezing up there (like 50's) since the park is located on a mountain. There was a huge difference in temperature at the entrance of the park vs at the top.

So, the day we went it was pouring yet again. It sucked because we got robbed out of fully experiencing the park. You can see videos of the theme park on tik tok and it’s amazing. We didn’t get to enjoy some rides but a majority of rides were located inside thankfully. However, the fog up there in the mountains was VERY thick. Even just walking around the park it was really hard to see. This made me sad because from the videos and photos i’ve seen of this park i really hoped we could explore more than we did and try some of the restaurants too. If you’ve never seen or heard of Sun World, it reminds me of a renaissance theme park. There are characters dressed up, and the village surrounding the park is french themed. I hope we have another chance to explore this park one day with hopefully no rain lol. The main point of coming to this park was for the bridge though which is another story… lol

So we initially got to the park around 10 am, and headed straight for the bridge. So to start, when you arrive to the park you have to take a long cable car ride up the mountain which is 18 minutes long. This part had me very nauseous, and the clouds and fog didn’t make it any better. FYI there are barf bags located in the cable cars if you need it. When you get off the first cable car you have to take another cable car to the bridge. When we finally reached the bridge it was one of those funny expectations vs reality moment for me. It was JAM packed with tours, and hard to move to times. I still never even got to take a photo of the entire bridge because it was so crowded and not to mention the pouring rain. At this point, i just called this day a fail. We left the bridge area and took the kids to enjoy the rides in the park. We had a great time.

A majority of the rides are for older kids but there were a few toddler areas which was perfect for us.

A few hours went by and we were ready to start heading back down to leave (two cable car rides back). When we reached the cable car station it was down for some reason. The staff told us we would have to take the cable car back to the bridge and use the other cable car which made no sense. So we made our way back and my husband says "I bet you could get some really good pics right now, all of the tours are gone, do you wanna go back?" At that point I was exhausted, and already over it so I said no let's just go back to the hotel. He knew deep down I would regret not trying to get a good pic so he took us out of line (we were next for the cable car too) and we walk back to the bridge and low and behold, it was EMPTY and the rain was gone.

There were a few people taking pics too but we were all courteous to one another as we took our pics. I could not believe it. This bridge is what made me want to come to Vietnam and deep down I was bummed I didn't at least get one picture of the bridge itself. I still didn't lol but I did get a few good photos.

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After this, we went back to our hotel and watched a movie until it was time for Christmas Eve dinner.

Hoi An round two

We loved Hoi An so much we actually went back twice on this trip. We started with this cute coffee shop.

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...and then we found the lanterns! I wish I had more room in my luggage because I would have taken about ten lanterns home lol. There are several lantern stands that have a display set up for photos and they will charge you. This place (name is at the top of the lanterns) charged 10,000 Vietnamese dong (about $0.41 USD).