The Golden Bridge, Da Nang, Vietnam

One of the most frequently visited tourist locations in the entire country, the Ba Na Hills feature a wide variety of eco-friendly attractions that are truly amazing, one of which is featured very heavily on advertisements all over the country and perhaps the world.

The only way to get to this majestic 150 meter long bridge is to take a cable car ride up the mountain, which is an adventure on it's own. You will feel the temperature change dramatically from start to finish. The cars themselves are not temperature controlled, and it honestly isn't necessary for them to be.

Once you arrive at the top, you still need to take a small and quite interesting "train ride" over to the gardens and Golden Bridge area, this only takes a few minutes.

The gardens are wonderfully-maintained and the entire area was extremely clean. It does have a bit of an amusement park feel to it, and can be very crowded during peak times of year but that is to be expected when something this extravagant is created.

The clear main attraction up here is the Golden Bridge itself, which has incredible views all the way to the Da Nang and Hoi An beaches, as well as the islands beyond

We were there mid-week during the Covid times, so there was almost no one else in the area at all yet there were still delays as people sought to get that perfect couples' photo and if you are like me, you are courteous enough to not walk into their shot.

One of the things I appreciated the most was actually one of the least noticed.

This rather unimpressive-looking structure is actually the only authentic building that exists in the entire area. In the early 20th century, the Ba Na Hills are was being developed as a vacation getaway for French settlers in Vietnam, this building here is one of the few that remain. You'll actually walk right past it without even noticing it unless you are super-curious like I am.

To me, the gardens were actually more impressive than the bridge itself because all of the people were flocking to the bridge while the gardens were quiet, cool, and had plenty of water features and that works better for me as I personally tend to like to avoid these areas where people are simply trying to get a great Instagram post and therefore hold up the "line" for everyone else in attendance.

Unfortunately, due to the popularity of this area and the fact that the Ba Na Resorts own all access to the attractions in the hills, there is no budget way to arrive at this attraction. At least not one that I discovered. A discounted ticket to the top (which isn't actually the top, there is more further up the hills) will cost at least 500,000 VND or around $25. However, if you plan on taking your time and exploring while you are at the bridge, you can easily spend 5 hours or more exploring the extensive gardens. They currently close the garden area at 5:30 PM so we actually missed out on a lot of the attractions including the hedgerow maze that we never actually even saw.

It is a bit out of the way, and I wouldn't say it is a location that anyone would really ever visit twice, but it is unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere else in the world and therefore, I think it is worth the $25.