What’s up, everybody?
Phil here!
And I’m in Da Nang, Vietnam right now.
It’s a coastal city that is the largest in Central Vietnam and we’ll be taking you
around today showing you what you can do with one day in Da Nang.
Let’s go!!!
One of the most popular places for bargain hunting in Da Nang is Han Market.
Whether or not you consider yourself a big shopper, it’s still a fun place to come
and see if you can score any amazing deals.
It’s a bustling market with two levels, the bottom level being mostly foods, gifts,
and trinkets, and the upstairs having a wide variety of “brand name” clothes and shoes.
And although I cannot attest to the authenticity of everything in here, there’s definitely
some very high-quality North Faces that we just got.
We got 2 really, really nice thick windbreaker jackets for 700.000VND.
We’ve left Han Market, gotten some stuff here, some pretty good, real-seeming North
Faces and Nike shoes and now we’re heading just west of here to a more local market called
Con Market and we’ll see what they have there.
After coming into Con Market, we started walking through and it was a lot of the same that
we had seen before where it’s like gifts and dried goods and stuff, not super interesting,
but we saw someone walking by with food and then when we stared at the person with food,
we actually got led by someone who left her stall, took us into the food court and sat
us down right now.
Right now we’re eating banh beo, it’s basically like a small little rice cake, everything
goes really well together with a little bit of fish sauce, a little bit of spice, the
dried squid, mushroom, it just all comes together really well in this.
This is definitely a very, very local spot.
Pretty much no one here is speaking English to us so we’re trying to get by with a lot
of pointing and hand gestures, but the food has been absolutely delicious.
And also the smoothies were really, really good!
We got an avocado smoothie, if you’ve never tried it before, it’s like ice cream here,
it’s amazing!
We wandered around for a little bit and I do definitely recommend coming here just for
the food.
Unless you’re looking for some small trinkets, it definitely is a locals-only market, but
the food here is delicious, check out the food court!
Anyway, we’re heading back to our driver now and we’re gonna head south to a very
popular tourist attraction, Marble Mountain.
And after being in the car for about 30-40 minutes and actually going over that beautiful
Dragon Bridge in the center of Da Nang, we’ve made it now to Marble Mountain.
It’s a very, very popular tourist attraction and I see here that there’s these large
groups of tourists from around the world that are here visiting, but it’s still super
beautiful!
Once you get here, you buy a ticket that’s 40.000VND to be able to come in and we also
bought a 15.000VND elevator ticket, which was worth it because it brings you up pretty
high and saves you a lot of time.
Once you get here, you have beautiful pagoda-like structures all over the place and once you’re
up here you have a really, really nice view of Da Nang in the background and you also
have the Marble Mountains and the beach.
And in addition to there being a lot of natural beauty and nice architecture and the fact
that it’s just really pleasant and seems like it’s a little bit cooler up here than
it is in the city-proper, there’s also the adventure factor out here because you’re
doing some low-key rock climbing at times to get through these areas and through these
caves.
So, a very different experience!
It’s really windy up here, but this view is very gorgeous, you can see all 3 sides
from here and ultimately when you visit Marble Mountain, allot maybe an hour and a half to
two hours, more if you really wanna explore it.
Along with the natural beauty outside and the adventure factor from rock climbing, there
are also some really, really beautifully decorated caves in here.
This is Huyen Khong Cave, you have to see it to believe it.
It’s just totally carved out, giant with a super high ceiling showing the sky.
There’re little areas of worship throughout this cave and it’s just really, really nicely
decorated in here.
Marble Mountain was really beautiful, we’ve made our way now north to where all the resorts
and hotels are along the beach that you can see behind me.
We’re gonna go now into a restaurant that has a beautiful view of the beach that was
recommended to us, called A La Carte.
So after coming up 23 floors, we’re now on top of A La Carte, the building here, with
the nice view of the beach both ways, way off in the distance north that way you can
actually see the peninsula where we’re gonna be going later, Monkey Mountain.
So it was really nice to chill out for a little bit, get some coffee and hang out with the
nice view.
Unfortunately, it’s the rainy season here, so the weather wasn’t super nice and it’s
pretty gray out, but I’m sure during the summer months when it’s very sunny, that
is a very, very beautiful view!
And you don’t need to come specifically to this hotel, A La Carte, but just being
able to come along the beach and enjoying what Da Nang has to offer here, especially
on the way from Marble Mountain to Monkey Mountain, definitely worth it!
And conveniently located only 15 minutes or so from where we had just come, near the beach
area, this is Linh Ung Pagoda on Monkey Mountain, and this is another area to walk around enjoy
the really beautiful buildings and architecture and statues and also really, really nice bonsai
trees here, too.
There was no entry fee to get in here, and, in my opinion, compared to Marble Mountain,
I’d say this is more developed and also very, very beautiful and polished.
You don’t have as much of that adventure factor where you’re climbing through rocks
and going through caves, but it is a little bit more crowded here so you have to deal
with more people, but at the same time, it’s still really beautiful and a nice place
to just wander around.
It got dark really quickly because it’s about 5:30PM now.
Again, we came during the rainy season, right now it’s November and the sky was a little
gray.
But if you come during the dry season, maybe around February, March or April, you should
have blue skies and that view of Da Nang in the back should be really, really beautiful!
Well we really enjoyed visiting Linh Ung Pagoda on Monkey Mountain right now and we’re gonna
go back to our driver and head back to the city.
Bridges in Da Nang are one of the attractions because there are many bridges that run through
the city and all of them, honestly, are really coolly designed.
After this, we’re gonna head to one of the most popular bridges to visit, that’s the
Dragon Bridge that’s in the center of Da Nang, but before that we’re just stopping
in right now for dinner at a really popular restaurant called Madame Lan’s.
We got a bunch of different dishes here including some Central Vietnamese specialties like the
Mi Quang noodle.
OK let’s go!
Slow, predictable movements…
That’s how you cross the street in Vietnam, OK, so it’s 8:59PM right now, we’re hurrying
to catch the 9PM fire show at the Dragon Bridge, definitely one of the most popular things
to do and it’s only on Saturdays and Sunday, I believe, but it should be really cool.
Aw it’s burning :(
It’s like 9:02 actually right now and we’re learning the hard way
that the fire show happens on the east side of the bridge, we’re on the west side.
We’re literally running across this, we got some people in front us running, too,
everyone wants to see the fire show!
Is the road closed?
Oh we’re running in the middle of the road!
Ends promptly at 9:06 and that’s about how long it took for us to get across the bridge,
so wish we could have shown you that, wish we could have seen it ourselves, too, but
it seemed like it was a really cool show and this sidewalk is packed right now, but everyone
is leaving on their motorbikes.
Now that we crossed the bridge and we’re now on the east side, it’s back to being
super busy, super chaotic.
It’s Saturday night out here in Da Nang and everyone is out.
Well, in any case, whether you’re able to watch the fire show on the Dragon Bridge or
not, you can still come nearby to Son Tra Night Market.
All kinds of stuff from games, food, clothes, gifts, it’s a really, really big night market!
So this night market is really busy, a lot of fun, but if you’re looking for some nightlife
and maybe some bars or clubs to go out to, Da Nang has a lot and I’d recommend doing
some research before you come so you can find whatever club or bar fits your vibe.
As a reminder, we had a private driver that we had all day today that we arranged through
our hotel.
We paid him 1.500.000VND for the whole day, which is about $60-something and it was really
worth it given the convenience of always having a driver waiting for us.
So you could do this itinerary just by using Grab and taxis all day if you wanted, but
if you want the convenience, you could look into hiring a private driver.
We started off the morning at Han Market, which is really good for shopping and has
a lot of tourists there.
And we went to a more local market, Con Market, which had really, really delicious food.
And from there we made our way south to Marble Mountain where we were able to enjoy some
natural beauty and also some beautiful architecture, made our way up the coast and hung out for
a little bit at beach hotel and then from there went all the way up to Monkey Mountain
and then got dinner, tried to watch the Dragon Bridge fire show and then we’re ending our
night here at Son Tra Night Market.
All in all, hope this video’s informative!
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See ya next time :)