The Hills are alive ( and full of surprise)

by Yulia Suraatmadja (Indonesia)

I didn't expect to find Vietnam

It was nearly end of 2018, and we didn’t have any plan to go on a trip. Our 9 year old daughter had been staying home for 2 weeks and still had 2 more weeks of school holidays. Most of her friends were out thus she had been occupying herself with books and watching cartoons. I started to feel bad for her and decided to find a quick trip that was not overpriced - which was a challenge during the peak season. Surprisingly I came across a good deal to Da Nang, a city in Vietnam. Had heard about the French Village there - but nothing more - yet without too much thinking, I booked the trip. We went on the first day of 2019 with low expectation of the destination and minimum research. The main objective was to spend family time together and to have a little adventure to a place we had no idea about. Arriving at Da Nang, we had many surprises. First of all, we didn’t expect it to be cool. Coming from Indonesia where summer is a full year season, we thought Vietnam would be the same - since it is still ASEAN. When we told the hotel bell-boy that we’re going to French Village at Ba Na hills, he said the place is 6 Celsius in average. That’s cold for a tropical family that only brought light shirts for the trip! We went to a mall there and bought a jacket, though still not fully believing it would be that cold. And boy were we wrong. It took us an hour drive to get to the cable car station that would bring us to Ba Na hills. I read that this is one of the longest cable car in the world, so we thought, “OK. It’s going to take time to get there.” What we didn’t know, was how beautiful the view was during that cable car ride. From the start, we saw this green landscape with natural stones everywhere and creeks with clear fresh water flowing. As we went up, the view is getting more beautiful with waterfall coming out nearly touching our cable car. And when reaching the hill, it felt like we’re climbing to heaven as the fog started to thicken, disabling us to see what’s out there and instead just seeing white clouds, as if it were preparing us for something behind it. To be honest, we were worried with the fog and started to wonder,”Is this normal?” But when we finally got out from the fog to arrive at the station, we were speechless. The first thing appeared was a castle tower that looked like a century old castle in the UK. The fog was spread around it, making it even more magical, mystical and enchanting. It was so breathtaking! Our jaws were dropping, truly surprised and not expecting to see so many beautiful views. A few seconds later, we were freezing because the weather was, in fact, cold! The French Village at Ba Na Hill was surely a feast to the eyes. In the old days, it was a place where the French used to stay to avoid the hot weather in other parts of Vietnam. The village was abandoned for some time and a few years ago it was rebuilt and became a tourist attraction. The complex had buildings that were built to give you the atmosphere, look and feel of a village in France. When we were there, the fog was quite thick. Some people may find this irritating because of the fog blocking the view, plus the cold and the rain. But we actually enjoyed it. It gave us that mysterious, gloomy effect as if we’re on a set of a Sherlock Holmes movie. Most of our pics of this trip were dark and foggy, with old chapels and towers peeking out, but really stood out. I have to say, I was proud of this spontaneous trip. We didn’t know that DaNang had so much to offer. Apart from Ba Na hills, we went to other places that also got us with many memorable experience. Thank you Da Nang for the wonderful surprises!