It was an extremely stressful time selling all of our stuff in Japan and preparing for our move to Thailand, not knowing if everything was going to work out. Fortunately, we made it through immigration without any problems and got negative results on all of our PCR tests. Now we’re free to go cycling and bike riding in Thailand 🙂 The bike riding here in Bangkok though is… something else

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Both of these facilities are very nearby each other in the same mountain area as the Ba Na Hills Resort, which is directly west of Da Nang City. We rented some scooters and it took us about 30 minutes to drive over. If you book with a tour agency, they generally should be able to arrange group pickup services. (More information listed below).

Once we arrived, we had to wait a while for other people to show up since they send everyone out in a group together. If there is a larger number of people, then they will do more runs, but I guess they were not busy while we were there.

One nice thing is that they have free lockers to use on sight, so you can lock up your valuables while you go rafting.

The location where you sign up and pay is actually the end of the run, so first we loaded up onto a shuttle bus and went upstream to the start of the rafting course.

The boats are stored out of the water and the first step is to get on and go down a pretty steep ramp straight into the river. Pretty intense way to start things off! 🙂

The course was a blast, and we had a lot of fun. Especially Thuong! Definitely a strong recommendation if you’re looking for fun things to do around Da Nang.

After finishing up rafting, we went to the nearby Hot Springs Park for some relaxing pool time. They even had a water slide, which was a cool sight to see in the middle of the mountains.

After finishing up at the hot spring park, we drove back into the city to watch the night show with the dragon bridge, which would shoot fire and water from it’s mouth, which was also a really cool sight to see (watch the video).

Overall, another great day in Vietnam and Da Nang is really solidifying itself as possibly our favorite city in Vietnam.

How to get to Hoa Phu Thanh Rafting Tourist Site?

Hoa Phu Thanh is located on QL 14, Hoa Phu Village, Hoa Vang Ward. It is very far from the city center. Therefore, you can get there by motorbike, car, or taxi is recommended.

From airport: 30km away, taxi recommended

From train station: 32km away, go by taxi, motorbike

From Hoi An ancient town: 45km away, taxi recommended

More information at website

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It takes about 30/45 minutes from Da Nang city to get to the resort and there are a bunch of bus options, but we decided to rent a scooter and head out there ourselves so we weren’t stuck following a specific time schedule.

Once we arrived, we were already really impressed with the entrance / parking lot, which was massive. The crazy part was, we hadn’t even entered the park yet.

To enter, you need to ride a cable car which was over a 20 minute ride. Apparently, it is one of the longest cable car systems in the world.

Once in the park, there are countless beautiful attractions and things to see.

I especially liked how clean and how well maintained everything was. Everywhere we went, we would see cleaning staff making sure the park was in perfect shape. This was completely different to everywhere else we had been in Vietnam so far.

There were tons of places for photo opportunities, so the wife and I took full advantage of that and took a bunch of selfies. But seriously, this garden area was really beautiful, and I’m not one to care about gardens..

We also were sporting the couples look with our recently purchased Banana Shirts 🙂 Easily my favorite souvenir from our Vietnam Trip.

At the top of the mountain there is the main castle area, which is built as a french village with a bunch of french architecture.

After climbing all the way to the top, this was the amazing view we were greeted with. Literally a castle in the sky! Not something I was expecting to see in Vietnam..

There were a lot of other awesome things that we saw/did, including a roller coaster in the mountain.

As well as an indoor amusement park with rides, arcade games, a rock climbing wall, and more.. Unfortunately, we did not find this until the end of the day, but we still were able to get a few rides in 🙂

There were a ton of other cool things that we saw, and they’re all included in our video (VLOG) for today.

Da Nang is such an amazing city, and is easily becoming our favorite city in Vietnam.

Ba Na Hills VLOG

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Join along and see what it’s like to travel in a sleeping bus to the Vietnamese countryside and how Christmas is celebrated. I was quite surprised by the number of Christian churches as I did not know much about the French colonization before this trip.

Vietnam TRAVEL VLOG Playlist

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This is day 1 of that trip, where I arrived in Hanoi and we spent the day driving around on scooters with some of Thuong’s family to some local attractions, stopping along the way to eat some delicious foods like nem (spring rolls) and che (sweet desserts).

You can see the entire Vietnam Travel VLOG series here.

Vietnam TRAVEL VLOG Playlist

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The entire time, I stayed at the Meander Hostel in Ximen, Taipei, which had reasonable rates, a nice open public space for working, and space for me to store my bicycle.

I ended up making videos for most every day of the trip. While most of them are cycling focused, some of them are not since I did want to experience some regular tourist attractions as well. Here they are in order.

#1: Arrival in Taipei, build bike & ride to Tamsui (台北 – 淡水）

#2: Taipei to Fulong, pepper bun & bubble tea (台北、福隆、胡椒餅、波霸奶茶)

#3: GoPro chest mount test on Taipei river paths to southern mountains

#4: Taipei to Shiding, two peaks ride & beef noodles (台北、石碇、牛肉麵)

#5: Mini “velodrome” in Taipei? (likely speed skating track)

#6: Workout at Taipei Wanhua Sports Center (台北市萬華運動中心)

#7: Yangmingshan national park & Tian Yuan Temple (陽明山國家公園,天元宮)

#8: Hiking Elephant Mountain 象山 + New Logo!

#9: Exploring Taipei’s Attractions + Din Tai Fung & Oolong Tea

#10: Spirited Away in Jiufen

#11: Taipei Grand Hotel + Bento + Portable Toilets

#12: Ride to Wulai Falls From Taipei (烏來瀑布)

#13: My Favorite Bubble Tea + Street Art in Ximen

#14: Last Day in Taipei | Ride to Dongyanshan 東眼山

Final Thoughts – Taiwan Cycling Trip

This trip is easily one of the most memorable trips I’ve taken throughout all of my travels. Taiwan is a paradise for cycling, and dare I say I enjoyed the cycling here more than I do living here in Japan (minus the scooter exhaust in the city).

If you are considering traveling to Taiwan for some cycling, I strongly recommend it! Even though I have not really been outside of Taipei area yet, I hear the other areas are also really great and have some big cycling communities.

One of the things that I really enjoyed the most about cycling in Taiwan was seeing the large number of people cycling all over the place. From large group rides of regular cyclists to regular pedestrians riding on their commuter bikes, it was great to see a country full of people using bikes. Another great thing to see was all of the female rides in Taiwan, which is a bit of a rare sight in Japan in comparison.

I’m definitely planning on going back sometime for Taiwan Cycling Trip Part II so I can ride in and experience the cycling in other parts of Taiwan. Heck, if I can get enough vacation time, I might even try and cycling around the whole country 🙂 One day…..

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