The day had come to finally pick up our motorbike and try our hand at driving in Vietnam. We packed our daypack for Ba Na Hills and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading to Tigit Motorbikes for our rental.

Our entire rental fee for the rest of the week was originally $44 and that included a damage waiver. Crazy how cheap it was! That’s cheaper than most car rental places for just one day. They not once checked an ID or asked if we knew how to ride a bike – they just made sure to collect a $400 refundable deposit which you get back basically as long as the bike shows back up in whatever condition. We paid our fees and grabbed our helmets before Grant went out to test drive the bike. He had previously motorbiked in Thailand years ago so felt comfortable driving, though he would later say this was probably the most stressed driving situation he’s ever been in.

Then it was off to Ba Na Hills to visit the Golden Bridge. Grant had seen this on his research of places to visit in Vietnam and that was one of the main reasons of visiting Da Nang. However, we didn’t realize this was part of an amusement park so had to purchase tickets to view it. We later read that the Vietnamese government felt their own citizens were spending their tourism money in other Asian countries so decided to build this as one of their first major theme parks to attract Vietnamese and other foreign tourists to spend money in country. They had an impressive amount of construction ongoing even while we were there.

Once we left the city of Da Nang and were driving through the countryside, I became more relaxed on the back of the bike to enjoy the scenery and take some videos. I only got onto Grant a couple times about using his horn as we went through intersections. We learned during our time in Southeast Asia that they use their horns as more of a signal that they were approaching or to move over and let them pass. That’s unlike in America where we use our horns in a more rude/aggressive manner (I’m definitely guilty of that…).

Once we arrived at Ba Na Hills after about an hour of driving, we parked our motorbike and headed for the entrance. We ran into a group from France who were also motorbiking through Vietnam. One of them said, “The one rule about driving in Vietnam is there are none.” And it’s so true. We realized the whole goal of their driving was to just keep moving no matter how slow you go.

Once you entered after purchasing tickets, you had to take a cable car up to the actual park. We learned that this was built in 2009 and is the world’s longest single track cable car (almost 3-4 miles long). It took 16 minutes to get to the top! The amusement park is themed to represent an easy connection between Europe and Asia with various European sections including a medieval area and a replica of the Notre Dame and various Asian areas including a real temple that people were praying at. It was funny because this was the first amusement park that we spent more time taking pictures of the area instead of riding rides.

We did enjoy a couple rides on the alpine slide along with their version of a drop tower. We even did a 5D Western themed ride where we rode “horses” and helped the cowboys shoot the bad guys. Grant ended up being the big winner and his photo popped up at the end showing he got the most points.

We ended the day there grabbing pictures of what we initially came for, The Golden Bridge. It was pretty cool to see though it was hard to get a good shot since it was still pretty crowded. I think my favorite part was the cable car ride back down as we rode through the clouds for about 4-5 minutes.

Our drive back was fairly easy until we got closer to the city when we realized it was rush hour and had to go straight through the middle of downtown in a 1 million person city. Going through the roundabout was stressful as it felt like cars were going to crash into you. I knew better to say anything to Grant since he was focused on making it through the horde of motorbikes to get us safely back to our place. And he did great! But it did feel nice to finally get off the motorbike as I’m was not used to sitting on a bike for that long.

We went and grabbed dinner at the burger place that Mark had recommended for their pulled pork sandwich. However, when I ordered it they said they were out so had to settle for a chicken sandwich which was still pretty good. It was still crazy for us to see all of these restaurants so empty with a smattering of guests here and there.