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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: hangchoi on 22 May 2019, 11:53:54
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My company went to Da Nang for a few days. From HK it takes about two hour flight to Da Nang Airport, which is rather a short flight.
The immigration process is interesting. Only a few countries have visa free to Vietnam, i.e. most of us have to get a visa to enter. People may get visa from consulate in HK by paying HK$6xx for a single visit tourist visa, or getting a pre-approved visa before arrival.
We took the second route because it is cheaper overall. You have to first get a travel agent (mostly in vietnam) to obtain an approval letter. The cost of it is about US$8 per head. Then upon arrival, you have to pay US$25 per head to get the visa at the visa counter just before the immigration as shown on below picture. Hence the overall cost is about USD33 per head, i.e. HK$3xx.
The story is not ended here. The approval letter is a PDF file with a list of visitors on the attachment page and the list shows a number of visitors (who are unknown to you) with the name and passport information. That means you are holding the same approval letter with tens of different visitors and you know their nationality and passport number, no privacy at all.
Well, service level is related to the price. Some travel agents offer you some special service. The one I used has these:
a) pay US$8 more, you can have a private letter for your own group, i.e. the attachment page only shows your group of people
b) pay US$20 per head, you can have their staff to help you get the visa, so that you need not to line up. Their staff will help you get the visa at the counter
c) pay US$30 per head, you can have the service in b) PLUS a separate custom officer to check you passport, i.e. express immigration service so that you need not to line up at custom.
Isn't it amazing??? :D :D :D
At last, we pay USD8 more to get a private letter.
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Our trip is 5D4N, so we would not switch our hotel. We stayed at Banyan Tree Da Nang which is about 1 hour drive from the airport or Da Nang City. The resort is in fact in the middle between Da Nang and Hue.
The resort is run by Laguna so the setup is like the one in Phuket. Angsana hotel is next to Banyan Tree and they share the same facility. The location is rather remote and isolate so the environment is quite
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Our room, 3 bedrooms suite was booked as it can cater up to 6 people and the cost per head is lower than booking three one-bedroom suite. The suite is huge with lots of common space for the guests.
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The bedrooms. All bedrooms have its own bathroom and toilet. Two of them facing the balcony with double bed and one twin bed bedroom. Quite spacious and you can jump to the pool when you wake up, even nude..... ;D ;D
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You need to call buggy to move from one place to other. Breakfast is served at the same restaurant every morning. It is in buffet form with an interesting juice bar and a cocktail bar where you can make your own bloody mary every morning.
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We arrived at Da Nang in the evening so our activity started on the next day. In the morning we went to visit Inter-Continental Hotel. The main reason was not for the hotel but for the restaurant. If you google Inter-Continental, you will find a restaurant Maison 1888 immediately before the hotel search, i.e. people searching this restaurant more than the hotel itself.
Maison 1888 may be the most famous restaurant in Da Nang. It was once rated as the best restaurant in Asia by some medias. They mainly serves dinner but they have lunch on Friday and Saturday, so we went there for lunch.
The location is a bit far from Da Nang city. The hotel is nicely built on hill side slope and you have to take the cable car down to the restaurant.
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The restaurant is nicely decorated. Foods are good but not excellent. Service is wonderful. The price is expensive for the local but it is cheap if you compare it with that in HK. The lunch menu is limited but you may negotiate the main course with the chef in advance. Some of us did not want to have lamb for main dish so they served chicken instead.
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More foods.......
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Sightseeing after lunch. There is not many sightseeing spots in Da Nang indeed. Pink Church is one of them and it is also recommended by most of the medias. Other than the colour of the facade, there is not much to see. When I walked around it, I found something more interesting. There is a joss stick mug for worshiping Mary???
And a nice pieta too.
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Opposite to the pink church is the Han Market, a local market but lots of tourists, maybe due to its location which attracts the tourists after visiting the pink church.
A lot of different stuff to sell, foods and snack, etc. There are a lot of shops for tailored clothing and the price is cheap, about HK$120 for a traditional 越南長襖（Áo dài)
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After that, we walked to the dragon bridge to have a look. Not too special but a bridge with dragon shape. At night the colour of the dragon will be changed.
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Then it comes to another amazing part. We went to My Khe Beach, 美溪沙灘, a 35km in total long beach but the main part is just 5km, still long. I recalled that this may be the longest beach in Asia.
You can enter the beach at various locations of course. But the strange thing is that someone will ask you to pay entrance fees at some locations. We were asked for three times and we turned away every time. Until we found the forth entrance, we can enter the beach for free. Maybe those guys will provide additional service if you enter from their guarded entrance.....
The beach is long, facing east, with lots of people. Some one provides coconut boat ride there but it was not available on our day of visit. Someone rode motorbike along the beach, someone were swimming under a red flag, etc. I found walking along the beach was already a great enjoyment.
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Along the coast line there are a lot of seafood restaurant. Price is cheap and food is fresh. However the food ordering is quite chaotic.
You have to first get a seat and a table number. Then you need to pick the seafood for yourself and sometime you need to CATCH the seafood for yourself. There is a series of fish tanks, shell fish tanks with different types of seafood. You have to get a tray to pick whatever your want, and use a handy net to catch the fish in the tank you want too. After that you take all your picks to the scale and ask the staff to weigh them, then you can tell them the way to cook.
Bearing in mind that a lot of customer there and there is not any people lining up, you have to fight your place to the scale.
When you completed the above process, you can go back to your table and wait, and I am quite sure that you will miss some of your orders.........
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Central Vietnam has three world heritages and we went to all of them in this trip. They are Hoi An, My Son and Hue Palace.
The next day morning we went to My Son Sanctuary. Someone may call it little Angkor Wat. Indian Hinduism structures scattered in various sites and they are still undergoing maintenance and excavation. Some of them are quite intact but some of the maintenance work are a bit artificial. You can see they insert some new brick inside the old structures which makes it quite weird on appearance.
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In the afternoon we went for a coconut boat ride. Coconut boat is a traditional transportation vehicle in Vietnam but now a tourist activity. A lot of so called ECO tour are now arranged for tourists to see the life of Vietnamese. We picked one close to Hoi An as we planned to go there in the evening. It turns out that a lot of ECO tours there and we enjoyed the ride with a lot of other tourists, Korean especially.
The ride included a boat trip, a show of their boat manoeuvring skill, fishing show, etc. Because of the Korean, we had to hearing a lot of Korean singing........
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Two surprises in the tour. The first one was that host cut a fresh 海底椰 to us. This is the first time that I saw the original shape of it.
The second one was the souvenir from the tour host's daughter. Before the tour, her daughter asked if she can take a picture of us. We were reluctant but finally agreed to it, and we thought that they would use it for marketing purposes. After we were back from tour, she handed us the souvenir shown at the last picture. She drew it so detailed that even the pattern of the pants of my friend.
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In the evening we went to Hoi An, an ancient city. Sunset at Hoi An is beautiful. To add its prettiness, they hanged a lot of lanterns at night along the street. Some boats offer boat trip with full of lanterns too
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If you search any information about Hoi An, you will find a lot of pictures showing lanterns. There are a lot of shops selling them and their display is very nice and fantastic.
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In Vietnam, do try the egg coffee. It is a Vietnam coffee with an egg added during brewing. The result is that the coffee is very creamy and full bodied, with a trace of egg white flavour, smooth and heavy.
The next picture is a landmark structure in Hoi An, Japan Bridge, a bridge with old structure and fittings, built by Japanese and you have to pay for passing the bridge.
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Walking around the street corner at Hoi An, there are a lot of coffee shop opened at night. The feeling is a bit like in France, no wonder it was its colony for years.
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We went to Hue on the next day. Hue once was the capital of Vietnam and there is palace there. The setting is like the one in Bejing but the scale is much smaller.
In front of the main entrance of the palace, there is a square with the flag of Vietname. Hmmmm like China, right?
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The entrance is called 午門. 3 main gates with a moat, perfect setting of Chinese type palace.
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The inner part is also similar with Chinese palace. Government department in front and royal family at the back. Main hall for assembly of official with their ranking plate on the waiting square.
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The corridors are still intact and well maintained but most of the open areas are lack of maintenance, due to shortage of resources and war in 70s. Only a few buildings are well kept.
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After we left the palace, next to it is a place showing a lot of US army equipment which were captured during the Vietnam war.
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We had a in-house pool side BBQ for our last dinner in Da Nang. This was the first time we had BBQ in our resort room. Very comfortable and casual, we enjoyed it very much.
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Before we headed to airport, we spent the last morning in the resort. My wife went to the Banyan Tree Spa to experience how good it is. The spa house is quite and nice.
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After that, we took an evening flight back to Hong Kong.
I find that Da Nang is a nice place to hang out or hide away. Good resort and nice tour spots, with reasonable or even cheap price level. People are friendly and speak good English. Transportation is easy by using Grab or Uber. It is close to Hong Kong as well. With this setup, I should have brought my golf club to play a round there......maybe next time.
I heard that Vietnam government is going to waive the visa application procedure and I think this will attract more tourists to come. I anticipate that it will be a strong competitor to Thailand in term of tourism.