Beach city, lantern town.
Thirty kilometres of sand between a mountain pass and a five-hundred-year-old port. What each trip along it actually delivers, what it costs, and where to book.
Seven that fill up before you land.
A basket boat spinning through the coconut palms at Cam Thanh, a silk lantern folded by hand in the Ancient Town, the cable car up out of the heat to Ba Na. These are the ones travellers come home talking about.
Hoi An: Vietnamese Coffee Culture and Coffee Making Class
Make and taste iconic Vietnamese coffees in Hoi An using a phin filter. Learn Hanoi egg coffee and take home recipes.
From $14 per person
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Two stone hands hold up the whole day.
The cable car climbs fourteen hundred metres out of the coastal heat and sets you down on the Golden Bridge with the sea behind you. French village, flower gardens, a funfair in the cellar of the hill. Take the first car of the morning and the walkway is nearly yours.
Which way over the Hai Van Pass?
Everything between Da Nang and Hue climbs the same mountain, and how you cross it decides what kind of day you get. Three ways to do it, with every option behind each one already priced.
On two wheels
The Easy Rider run
from $55 · 1,542 reviews
You ride pillion, your luggage rides in the support van, and the rider stops wherever the view earns it: the lagoon at Lang Co, the old French bunkers at the summit, the fishing boats on the far side. Four to six hours from Da Nang to Hue, and the road does all the talking.
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Air-con and space
The private car
from $7 · 732 reviews
The same road with a door you can close. Drivers shape the stops around you, wait while you climb the bunker steps, and carry the cases through to the Hue hotel. The sane choice with children, in July heat, or when you are changing base rather than doing a loop.
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Pass plus palace
The full Hue day
from $50 · 3,156 reviews
Over the pass in the morning, the Imperial Citadel after lunch, a royal tomb or two if the light holds, and back on the beach by evening. One long day that covers the whole imperial story without moving hotels.
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Two rivers light up after nine.
Around nine on a weekend the Dragon Bridge throws fire and then water over the Han, and the cruise boats time their loop to sit underneath it. Half an hour south, the Hoai fills with paper lanterns and the Ancient Town keeps its market open until the last one has floated off.
You cook what you bought that morning.
Class starts at a market stall with a basket over your arm, crosses the water in a coracle, and finishes with five dishes you actually made. Come hungry and leave the good shirt at the hotel.
Fold a lantern, keep the lantern.
Silk stretched over bamboo ribs, glued and trimmed in about ninety minutes, then collapsed flat for your case. The same little workshops teach egg coffee, calligraphy and the tailoring the Ancient Town is famous for.
The Cham towers keep their own hours.
Brick sanctuaries raised to Shiva between the fourth and thirteenth centuries, standing in a bowl of jungle forty kilometres inland from Hoi An. Take the early trip: mist still sitting in the valley, coaches still on the road, and the site more or less yours for an hour.
Three towns, one stretch of coast.
Hoi An for the lanterns and the tailors. Da Nang for the beach and the bridges. Hue for the citadel and the tombs. Ba Na for the day you go up out of the heat.
Bicycle, boat, coracle or cable car.
Twelve ways to spend a morning on this coast, from a bicycle through the rice paddies at Tra Que to a boat out to the Cham Islands. Every option behind each one is already priced.
The good stuff is an hour away.
One road runs north over the pass to the imperial city, another south to the Cham towers, and the cable car goes straight up. All of them get you back for grilled fish on the sand.
Mountain, old town, imperial city.
Nobody sees all of Central Vietnam in one trip. You can see the best of it in three days, and the order matters more than the hours.
Day 1
Land, then go up
First cable car to Ba Na while the jet lag still counts as an early start, the Golden Bridge before the queues form, then down to My Khe for a swim and grilled fish on the sand.
Plan day one →
Day 2
The Ancient Town
Bicycle out through the herb gardens at Tra Que in the cool of the morning, a tailor fitting after lunch, then the Hoai River at dusk when the lanterns go on and the boats begin their loop.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Over the pass
Leave early, take the Hai Van by bike or by car, stop at Lang Co where the lagoon meets the sea, and give the whole afternoon to the Citadel in Hue.
Plan day three →
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