We arrived in Da Nang after a 3 hour train ride through the countryside and along some beautiful coastline. The coastline reminded us of Cornwall in so many ways, with all of its beautiful coves and white sandy beaches, just a lot more green.

Da Nang is always spoken about in travel guides and online as a hub for onward travel to Hoi An. Most people that we met stayed for a few hours or 1 night at most, but we decided to stay for 2 nights in the hope of experiencing a less touristy destination. Luckily we arrived on a Sunday so we were able to see the famous dragon bridge (made by the same architect as the eiffel tower) breathe fire at 9pm. I have to admit I really wasn’t expecting much from this and thought it would be a bit gimmicky, but we really enjoyed watching the fire being shot out of the dragon and all of the beautiful lights along the water edge. What we didn’t expect was what came after the fire. I won’t ruin it for anyone else, but after the fire breathing just bear in mind it’s not over. After this we found a Thai restaurant, which was a nice change from the Vietnamese food and got an early night.

The next day we took our time before we headed out to explore Da Nang. We were right, Da Nang has been the least touristy city during our time in Vietnam and as we wandered through the streets we didn’t see any other tourists. We were on a bit of a mission to buy a new USB stick, a memory card adaptor and a wireless charger for Simon’s phone as his USB port hasn’t been working. We made the right decision by heading more into the locals area to buy these items as they were really reasonable in price.

We jumped on a local bus later in the day and headed to the Marble Mountains. To call these mountains is a little bit ridiculous, as they are 5 mounds, of reasonable height, but by no means mountains. The 5 mountains are all named after elements; water, fire, metal, wood and earth and are made of limestone and marble. We walked up the only Marble Mountain which you can, My Son (water), and started exploring all of the hidden areas that were on offer.

Our first stop was to a cave carved into the marble. It was so beautiful and everywhere you turned there was something exciting to see. I particularly enjoyed the buddha carved into the rock and also the way the light was flowing down into the cave from the roof.

We climbed to the highest point next for some panoramic views over Da Nang. What surprised me the most was the amount of development in the area. Every patch of land along the coast was being turned into a hotel or villa. It became very clear that Da Nang would be very different in 10 years time.

We spent the rest of the time wandering around some more caves, visiting some pagodas and generally dying from excessive sweatiness. I’m glad we visited, but I wouldn’t say it was an absolute must do if you came to the area. On the way back the bus driver tried to over charge us. He failed to realise that we had already travelled on the bus earlier in the day so knew the cost and his passenger was an obsessive researcher who wouldn’t let herself be scammed on a public bus in any country. We refused to pay the extra and ignored him. Luckily this happened close to our stop anyway and we made a big deal of getting off the bus in protest of his rudeness. Bus conductor 0 – Us 1.

Later in the evening we met up with Annie and Tim who we had met in Halong Bay. We went out for some dinner at a lovely place called Universal Bar. Whilst waiting for our dinner we saw a rat run along the electricity cables outside. It was massive! After dinner we went for a few more drinks and just had a lovely evening looking out over the water.

The next day we were leaving for Hoi An, but decided to organise our transport for later in the day so we could enjoy My Khe beach fo a few hours. It was a gloriously warm and sunny day so we hired some loungers, soaked up the rays and read our books. Tim and Annie joined us later on and Simon went for a swim too. It was a little chilly for me.

Da Nang had been great and so much better than we expected. I would definitely visit again if we return,  but because of all the development i’m not sure it would be the same unfortunately.