We’ve always heard about how beautiful Vietnam is, and I must say it truly is as beautiful as advertised. Pristine beaches, scenic temples, and mountain views await you in Da Nang, Vietnam. However, traveling through Vietnam was not always smooth sailing, so in this article, we will detail the good, the bad and the ugly from our time in Da Nang Vietnam.
Da Nang Beachfront
Da Nang has a lovely beachfront, and I recommend taking full advantage of it by getting a beachfront hotel. You won’t regret having views of the hills and the ocean.
Lady Buddha
From the beach, you can even see Lady Buddha in the distance. We took a Grab there which is an Uber-like taxi, and we really enjoyed seeing the beautiful Linh Ugh Pagoda, the perfectly manicured gardens with statues, the scenic views, and the tallest Lady Buddha in all of Vietnam!
There were no Grabs available when we wanted to leave Lady Buddha so we had to take a taxi to the our next location the Marble Mountain.
Vietnamese taxis are not my favorite as the drivers will often scam the tourists charging double and triple the correct rate. So, our taxi driver started the fare negotiation at 500,000 dong. Luckily because I had the Grab app fare estimate, I was able to see that the ride should cost 200,000. Because of that I was able to get the taxi driver down to 250,000 as the flat rate. More than Grab, but also faster than waiting for a Grab to become available.
The Marble Mountains
The Marble Mountains are cluster of 5 limestone hills, each named after a different element. It’s known as a pilgrimage site, so you can go inside the mountain to see the many altars for prayer. You can also climb the stairs to the top of the mountain or you can be lazy bums like us and pay to take the elevator to the top to see amazing sea views, mountain views and even more temples.
Da Nang Cathedral
Next, we also took a Grab in to see the Da Nang, Cathedral. It was closed due to the coronavirus when we went, but it was still nice to see the lovely architecture from the outside.
Dragon Bridge
From the cathedral, we walked to the riverfront to see the beautiful city landscape and the famous dragon brige. We arrived at the riverfront in the evening and waited for the sun to go down and the city to light up. It was definitely worth the wait!
Sunworld
Another fun activity is going to SunWorld in the Ba Na Hills. You will need a full day for this theme park, but it’s well worth your time. For convenience sake, we booked a tour through Klook, which included our admission, transportation, guide, and lunch. It was super foggy when we went making the golden hands bridge look truly mystical. I could have seriously spent all our time on the Golden bridge. It was that cool, but the theme park also has colorful gardens, lovely temples, entertaining shows, games and rides and so much more to see and do. I can highly recommend it as a must see attraction good for all ages.
The Bad & the Ugly
I’m not going to lie though. We also had a very bad experience at our first hotel in Da Nang. We were supposed to stay 4 nights at the Nhu Minh Plaza Hotel, but decided to leave early because of consistent lost in translation moments at check-in which was especially scary because they documented our coronavirus health screening incorrectly. They wanted to quarantine us for 14 days because they literally could not understand what we were saying.
Also ordering room service was the worst. They couldn’t take a room service order by phone cause they didn’t understand me. A staff member had to come to our room to see what I was pointing at on the menu to take our order. I had an upset stomach at the time, so I ordered the chicken noodle soup to take it easy on myself. I wound up getting chicken organ meat soup instead of regular chicken meat soup. Organ meat was not at all comforting in that situation.
In addition, the staff were yelling at one another in the hallways, and David insisted that we get out of that negative environment for the rest of our stay.
Although our room at Nhu Minh Plaza was definitely the nicest of our tour so far, the hotel staff’s service was so bad that we felt the need to leave. We packed up and left and wound up having a wonderful experience at the second hotel Minh Toan Hotel that was right across from the beach and had a roof-top pool. We can highly recommend Minh Toan Hotel and a nice, relaxing place to stay for your trip to Da Nang.
The last negative thing about traveling through Vietnam is the taxi scams. It’s such a regular problem that we did our best to avoid taxis all together. We did not know how to ride motorbikes at the time, but I honestly think renting a motorbike while in Vietnam might be the best way to avoid the taxi scams. Using the Grab app was also very useful for getting honest and reliable transportation.
Final Thoughts on Da Nang Vietnam
Despite the negatives, we still enjoyed Da Nang very much. It’s a gorgeous city with a lot to offer the traveler. With a little bit of caution about your hotel and your transportation, you will definitely have a great time!
If you do go to Da Nang, make sure you check out Hoi An as well. It’s only 30 minutes away from Da Nang and may be our favorite city in Vietnam.
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