Adventuring in Vietnam

Hello all! I hope all is well and your holiday season went wonderfully! I am so excited to share some of the adventures I have done in Vietnam aside from ministry! I had a lot of fun exploring around Da Nang with my friends and experienced a lot of fun things! As some of you know, we get 2 days off a week: one for sabbath and one for adventure day. In Vietnam, our days off were Sundays and Mondays!

Here is a brief list of some of the fun things I did:

• Visit forest cafes
• Explore a mountain with tons of Monkeys! (aka Son Tra Peninsula/Monkey Mountain)
• Hike through and up giant caves at the Marble Mountains
• Surf!
• Night Market
• Ba Na Hills (theme park/land on top of a mountain, accessible by cable car.
• 14 hour sleeper bus
• Real life Mario Kart
• Coconut boat and Lantern boat rides
• Exploring other cities,  Hoi An and Da Lat

One of the things I LOVED about Da Nang was the nature in their coffee shops!! So many had a forest theme with ponds, trees, and tons of greenery like a forest which made it a really neat experience. I went to maybe 3 or 4 cafes like this! These are a fun spot to connect with each other and students that we meet as well.

For almost every adventure day, I was the one that planned different adventures and would ask who wanted to join! Sometimes it was a whole group or maybe 3-4 other girls that would tag along. One of the first things we did was go to Marble Mountains which are these random mountains made of marble in the middle of the city that have big caves on the inside. These were turned into sacred and religious places for Buddhism which was interesting walking around in them seeing people pray to their gods in these spaces. You could also hike up the side of them and go into different temples and pagodas. Addie and I hiked to the very top point of one which was really cool. There was one cave in particular that was very disturbing with a lot of depictions of sacrifices, suffering and killing. It was kind of scary walking into narrower and darker spaces because of that and we all went a heavy and negative presence in that space which was very odd.

We also took a trip to the Son Tra Peninsula (aka Monkey Mountain) to see the 76 meter tall Lady Buddha statue, monkeys, and a greek inspired marina. It was really neat! Addie was about to eat an apple when a monkey saw and jumped on her bag trying to steal it from her. The monkeys were everywhere and were so fun to watch! We walked about 30 mins from the statue to the marina and saw lots of monkey families along the way down. That was a huge highlight for us during our stay in Da Nang!

Another fun little trip we took was to a neighboring city called Hoi a which is known for its old town, coconut boats, and lanterns! We met up with 2 other girl teams and had a fun day catching up and exploring around the city. The coconut boats ride was 45 minutes long through a little river. You could get spun, get on another boat for karaoke, and enjoy the views! This was really awesome!! Got lots of pictures. We went into the old town later and explored the shops, got some street food (which my stomach would later hate me for) and then went on a lantern boat and put little paper lanterns into the water. It was a real life tangled moment! We went into old town at night time which was so beautiful with all the lanterns lit up. This day was probably my favorite in Vietnam!

Ba Na Hills was also a really fun day as well! It was about 45 minutes away from Da Nang and spent the whole day there. Ba Na Hills is a theme park on top of a mountain accessible by a 15 minute cable car ride up. At the top, there was an amusement park with lots of indoor rides and 3 alpine coasters, a French inspired village, multiple castle buildings, and lots of restaurants, hotels, and some Buddhist statue gardens. We did some amusement rides along with the alpine coaster which was AWESOME!! You are entirely in control of your speed and believe it when I say I was pedal to the metal the entire way down! It was a very neat space and was really interesting to walk through! It was HUGE, with lots of different cable car lines, trams, and tons of people too. Since it’s the rainy season, it was very foggy and misty so we couldn’t see the view out but was so worth it. This place also has the famous hand bridge which was awesome to see and walk across. It was a battle figuring out how to get down because multiple cable lines were closed. But we made it down after an hour of aimlessly walking and following the crowds.

Even with these awesome adventures, the biggest adventure of them all came with the new year! The first weekend in January brought an EPIC weekend. Before getting to Vietnam, I had been seeing tons of instagram reels about real life Mario Kart and I was determined to do it. But after realizing it was 14 hours away from where we were, hope was almost lost. Until my handy presentation making skills came in handy and I proposed a plan. We have 2 days in a row off, so I propsed that we leave saturyda night after our ministry is over, take a 14 hour sleeper bus to the town where Mario Kart is (Da Lat), arrive in the morning, explore the city, do Mario Kart, and leave that night on another sleeper bus back to Da Nang. And it actually happened!!! I was SO excited to go. The sleeper bus was actually pretty nice and the time flew by. We arrived in the morning and got some breakfast and headed to Mario Kart but I took us to the wrong place. We ended up staying at this random amusement park thing that had go carts, giant slides, and tons of animals to pet like rabbits, sheep, capybaras, camels, and raccoons. it was a neat space and was unplanned! Then we did Mario Kart which was awesome! I ran into a wall once but got the hang of all of the insane turns eventually. Went back into town for lunch and drove in the countryside a bit which was beautiful. Eventually boarded the bus home, which was nicer than the last bus with more space. Side note- one of the bathroom stops we did only had squatty potties and no toilet paper (most bathrooms didn’t have toilet paper or flushers) and also had a rooster in the bathroom area which was odd. But don’t worry, we took a roll of TP with us specifically for that reason. That whole experience was very neat and was happy to check it off my bucket list! I am so grateful that I had Emma and Abby to go with me on this adventure and that they were so willing to do it!

One of our favorite things to do around Da Nang in our free time was taking walks to the beach. It was so refreshing to dip our feet in or sit against a palm tree and read our bibles. The waves this season were insanely dangerous so we only swam once but did attempt surfing. It was really fun and I was very determined to get it and stayed out there for 2 hours. Ended up getting sucked out pretty far and had quite a scary moment out there when I thought I wasn’t gonna make it back. The waves were huge and crashing on me, flipping me off my board over and over again. I was genuinely scared for my life and was panicking a lot. It was definitely a God thing when a smaller wave came and took me most of the way in after I had a little moment of scream praying. I would definitely try surfing again but now I know the danger of it.

In Vietnam, we had a LOT more freedom than in Colombia to go out and explore. Mainly due to the safety of the city, which made it way easier to plan fun days or just take a stroll in the morning before ministry. It was truly a blessing and a nice change of pace from Medellín. I am so grateful for the opportunities I had to go and explore Vietnam and the beauty here!

Thanks for reading, and I hope the pictures help give a visual of my time 🙂

Lots of love,

Ellie