The Golden Hand Bridge in Vietnam
With the completion of the Golden Bridge that’s suspended by giant hand statues at an altitude of 4,500 Feet above sea level, it’s bringing more and more tourists to ‘Sunworld’ as its known as. The Bana Hills is a hot tourist attraction for anyone travelling to Vietnam. Here are some of the costs behind a visit there and a video tour with photography of the new main Golden Bridge attraction.
Pricing:
To reach the top of Bana Hills French Village where the Golden Bridge held up by hands is located, it will cost you 700,000 VND (Vietnamise Dong). This is approximately $42.00 Australian. Although still cheap for a foreign tourists, 700k VND could also provide you with 5 nights accommodation with meals provided in a home stay in Tam Coc. Depending on your budget, this may or may not be for you.
The 700K VND that you pay is for a gondola ride. That ticket also grants access to all other gondola systems in which you can get to the beautiful french village with an inbuilt theme park around centre.
What to do at Bana Hills after seeing the Golden Bridge
Upon your visit to the golden hand bridge, around the corner commences a walking track to a big Buddha sitting on the hill and a perfectly kept garden. With somewhat cheesy but relaxing music coming from all angles, this is a nice walk worth the visit. There is also a pagoda and some other majestic walkways nearby in which no other tourists seem to visit. View these in my video below. When you’ve finish with your walk around the Golden Bridge, big Buddha, and garden, head up to the French Village for a beverage and buffet in the beer garden. When I went here, it was 200K VND to get in and upon arrival there were many Chinese and Japanese tourists enjoying a dance show by a primarily Western dance group. It was entertaining. It also turns out that there are far too many beer vouchers laying around, which could be quite a trap for some. I had multiple offers from tourists coming up to me as I ate trying to give me free beer. Having a strong work ethic to capture the bridge at sunrise the next morning deterred me from the idea of getting drunk.
Accommodation on Bana Hills
I ended up ‘splashing out’ to stay on the mountain in order to achieve some sunrise cinematic footage the next morning. Mercure Hotels own all accommodation on Bana Hills, so the price is pretty similar throughout. I ended up paying 2.2M VND ($123.00 AUD) for one room with a double bed. After backpacking Vietnam for 13 days prior riding my motorbike, this was a nice change to relax with good facilities.
Something I’ve noticed around Vietnam is that its much cheaper to just rock up to a hotel and ask for a room price rather than book online. Trivago, Booking.com, and other large websites take a commission that can be saved for your next beer (or 5 beers if you’re in Vietnam!).
Bana Hills ‘Sunworld’ is a Photographers paradise
With landscapes like no other and beautiful lighting throughout the whole village, I was able to capture some pretty spectacular photos. Here are just a handful of what I captured! If you found this post useful, please comment below what other subjects you’d like me to write about.
Tim Whybrow | 📍 Vietnam (@timwhybrow_) * Instagram photos and videos
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Beautiful architecture on Bana Hills in Vietnam
