Bana Hills is a theme park up in the mountains just outside Da Nang. It is unique in that one part is an amusement park with rides, one part is a recreated medieval French town with restaurants and one part of it is a flower garden. The worlds longest continuous cable car system brings visitors up to the mountain top where Bana Hills is located. One of its famous landmarks is the golden bridge. It is a 490 foot long bridge held up by two oversized hands. The hands are fiberglass but made to look like weathered stone. Since it is so renown, many folks seem to have come here just to see the bridge. We must have arrived at peak time because it was wall to wall people. So many people were on the bridge that a modest shuffle is all that we could manage as every few feet we had to stop for a selfie in progress. The clouds on the top of the mountain began as a light fog, they developed into a pea soup level fog and finally it ended up as a light rain. The gardens were found at the end of the golden bridge and we wandered in and amongst the blooms. There were some fun displays; a large dancer, a peacock and a gibbon. At the end of the gardens was a huge Buddha. We had to take another cable car over to the French Village and the precipitation managed to make it into the car. We had to close the windows to stay as "dry" as we currently were. The French Village looked very quaint shrouded in the thick fog. We visited the church and saw the fine stained glass windows. We passed the swing ride that we had hoped to ride, but it was not running. The Alpine Toboggan was also shut down. This was a two person cart that rode on rails, much like a luge run or a personal roller coaster. With no rides to ride we went into the Beer Garden for some lunch. The three menus we saw at the entrance became two menus as we were seated. We were left to choose from the combo meals that ranged from platters that could feed eight that cost 1,000,000 Dong to the smallest platter which could feed three. I had a hankering for sausage and Leslie wanted pizza so we both ended up with our own platter. Satiated with good food we walked a bit more through the deteriorating weather and then got back into a cable car and rode it down. The fog had indeed gotten works and the ride down was mostly through the clouds. Our ride back revealed overloaded scooters and a variety of drive by Valentines Day pop up shops.
This pedicab has seen much better days
Roses being delivered on Valentines Day
Suspension bridge without a river below it. Instead it takes this road over a highway
Buddha and Pagoda combo
We had to stop for the herd
Our hopes for a clear day have not materialized
Bana Hills!
Tires placed as a barrier to the ditch are painted as minions
The base of all the cable cars
Piled into a bus to get to the ticket sales area
The escalators begin
A covered walkway
Nicely decorated hats
Koi fish
At least the walkways are painted and decorated
The boat is on the roof
We have made it to the worlds longest continuous cable car ride
So far that we cant see the end
A sweet waterfall in the distance
We are way up in the air
Some vary large boulders
And a bare rock face
A very large rock face
A thick cloud layer ahead
The end point is perhaps behind the clouds
Penetrating the moisture layer
Still more to go
We are finally there, that was 20 minutes in the cable car
Terraces
The golden bridge is most busy
The mist is a bit thick
the crowd is even thicker
Beep beep, coming through
It gets all bunched up as folks like the selfie spot
Looks like these fingers have been gardening
A break in the weather
A break in the crowd at the second hand
Four fingers and
The thumb
We are off the golden bridge
Static electricity
Gibbon me a high five
Tunnel of fog
Half a dome
The jungle is not far away
The gardens were bright and colorful
The fog is now a thick mist
Tulips!
The Love Garden
Almost spooky
Two beautiful dancers
More tulips
Most of the folks taking pictures adopted this pose
A sea of yellow tulips
the umbrellas are out!
A big honking peacock
The flowers represent the feathers
It is very big
Mr. Porker
Dragon
Buddha
We got to speak with this photographer. She is from the Ukraine, was working with a German tour, lives in Split Croatia and has a unique apparatus that allowed her to attach her phone to her camera
A golden dragon
Dragon with fog in the distance
Two primates
A crazy look in his eyes!
Another escalator to another cable car
Landing in the French Village
Knights
Art Nouveau
This is a replica of a French church
Looks pretty legit
We did not get to hear the organ play
We did get to enjoy the stained glass windows
More tulips
Folks getting a photo on the side of the church
Plant art
Dancers wearing bushes
It is pea soup level fog
Beer hall here we come
Sobriety is not being encouraged
Oversized license plates
Woof!
Help! So much food!
So many beers!
Don't worry they have more
This place is immense
Three floors of seating, an entire floor devoted to beer making
There is another building next door where they kept sending customers
No worries indeed
We have survived
A fine fountain in the Romanesque style
More French Village Architecture
Too foggy to run the ride
Good weather for a pair of geese
Beer Festival
A Monk party and monkey themed decorations
This windmill was not generating any power
Time to head back down
Construction continues unabated
Some of the larger trees peek out of the fog
Very foggy
The cloud level followed us down almost to the bottom of the mountain
Eerily beautiful
Steep!
Very steep
A series of waterfalls
Another set of cars to the side
The waterfalls meet the river
Splish splash
The best part
Many levels to the falls
The cable cars fit eight people but on this scale they seem tiny
Swoosh, up the hill they go
Since we rode a different cable car down we came to a different station
Hippie cows
Peace Love and Mooing
This light looks like a flower
Cannons at the ready
A very fancy gate
Cyclops demons!
A giant Mount Trashmore
When you really want to carry a huge load
High fashion orange wear
This is too much!
We have hit Valentines Day Central
Drive by Valentines Day shop
Beer delivery.... not ours
The football stadium
Plushies for Valentines Day gifts
Heavy load
Bare feet are not advised while riding a scooter
