Odds n' Ends

Sun World - Not!

Yesterday the 4 "Vietnam Vagrants" (our group What's App handle) ventured to Sun World, a mountaintop theme park about 30 minutes west of Da Nang in the Ba Na Hills. I met Russ (Rusty) who has joined Carl and Iman for a week during his travels in SE Asia. He is a blogger/content creator whose main work is a real estate trade newsletter that has subscribers in Canada, the US and Central America. An interesting fellow. 

The weather was supposed to be sunny when we booked, but as the Mr or Ms Fickle Weather here can turn on a dime, it did. The locals tell me that this Jan-Feb has been onee of the coolest and wettest in recent memory. We set out in cloudy conditions with occasional sprinkles of rain. Picture taking was a lost cause as the fog was so thick. Even trying to capture buildings was usually a no go. So some of these pics I grabbed from the Internet. 

The park is a 4 level complex, the topmost being at 1500 m above sea level at the very top. Ba Na translates as "old" and on this mountain centuries ago the Cham people made pilgrimages to worship their main goddess. 

SunWorld is accessible by 6 cable car systems. Our ride up took 23 minutes. That specific cable is 

5 771.61 metres long. It covers an elevation span of 1410 m from departure to arrival. Both those stand as the number 1 position in the world for a single line cable car system according to Guiness records.

The "top" you see here is about one-fifth of the total way. 

Before we got to the top, as Van Morrison sang "We sailed into the mystic"...

Here's what can be seen on a sunny day:

When we got to the top after going through the fog it was sunny and the first pic in today's post, the dancers and this one were not fogged out. Then within minutes, the fog enveloped everything like a dry ice machine running on steroids. 

There are a few pretty tame rides and Germany-, France- and Holland- scapes are reproduced. The dancers might have been Cossack or Ukranian or.... 💁

 

Some foggy day pictures

Almost couldn't find this castle.  We almost bumped into it. The cameras do not show the pea soup fog. 

We purchased buffet tix with our admission. There were 6 huge buffet areas in the huge restaurant which was good, as between our plates we sure got some steps in. Every kind of Vietnamese dish was there. Some delicious, some not to my taste. 

We ended our tour with two free Sun Kraft beer at the Ba Na BrewHouse. They are trying to promote this new venture. They brew it up top. We had bumped into a young lady several times in our "blind wandering" and then again on the funicular tram on our way for a cold two. So we invited her along. Her name is Jasmine from not far south of LA. She works in a Vietnamese restaurant there and is travelling solo - Japan and Vietnam. She is either side of 20 we figure. Lucky for Jasmine that she pubbed with us. She just got her first ever credit card and was going to withdraw $ using it. Iman and Carl both work for TD Bank and were able to explain to her clearly that credit card withdrawals are charged interest immediately. She may have used it in the US before starting her trip to finance part of her travels. OUCH!

 So yes disappointing because of the fog, but the engineering aspect of the cable cars, the Golden Bridge and the brewery equipment and the buildings way up there was impressive. Luckily the 4 of us are laid back and go with the flow so we were glad to see as much as we did. Great travelling companions. 

This morning I walked the 4k round trip to the small grocery store. On the way back, upstairs Mark was coming out of a small coffee shop that I have enjoyed. He recommended I try the salt coffee. The flower was handmade without a template. I hated destroying it as one adds ice and then stirs. Man, that is one tasty coffee, and not very salty. I'll learn how to make in in my coffee culture/making course coming up. But just be aware that my flower may look more like ragweed. 😵