Brief Encounters | What to do in Da Nang – from fireworks to food, Vietnamese coastal city is ideal weekend break
- Make a break for sun, sea, sand, scuba, shopping and more, just a short flight from Hong Kong
- Accommodation options are diverse, from beachfront luxury to a Gothic-inspired hilltop retreat
Da Nang’s summer fireworks festival (DIFF for short) started on June 1 and will continue to light up the sky on various evenings over the next month until it goes out in the obligatory blaze of glory on the first weekend of July.
Putting on a show like this (eight international teams, including one from China, headed by Wang Qiuhai from Hunan Jingtai Co, who must be conscious that coming from the country that invented fireworks, he needs to do more than spin a couple of Catherine wheels) apparently costs in the region of 180 billion dong, which adds up to a lot of bang for your dong in anybody’s money (US$7.6 million, to be precise).
Pyrophiles will need no second bidding to head to Da Nang, especially as the city stages an all-singing and dancing street carnival every Sunday night while DIFF rumbles along. Better still, especially if aerial explosions make you jump out of your skin, Da Nang is pretty spectacular all year round.
Where to stay
Da Nang’s lengthy, sandy beach made it a prime target for developers when the country started to wake up to the attractions of tourism. Furama was one of the earliest arrivals, plonking its 248 rooms, suites and villas a biodegradable straw’s toss from the water’s edge, which may be one reason a one-night stay plus breakfast is priced around US$255.
There’s always one bonkers eccentric in any accommodation roster, and in Da Nang – actually some way outside, looking down on the city – it’s the French Village Bana Hills (managed by Mercure). Curiously modelled in 19th century Gothic style, and spreading 470 rooms across the mountainside rather in the manner of a survivalist commune, at US$90 a night it’s eminently comfortable and likewise photogenic.
What to buy
One of the excursions from Da Nang leads to Ngu Hanh Son, aka the Marble Mountains, which until recently were a prime source for the handicraft industry. Statues and other objets d’art large and small are still carved here, but from marble trucked in from neighbouring Quang Nam province. Marble being marble, and baggage allowances rarely exceeding 30 kilos, all shops are all too happy to arrange shipping.