The full moon lantern festival happens once a month, and it is essentially a celebration of the moon. As the sun goes down, the streets of Hoi An's old city light up with thousands of lanterns, people come out to celebrate and the moon casts a calm glow over everything. It is magical.
Hai Van Pass encapsulates lush green mountains of emerald and lime green, views of a coastline that is so blue and picturesque it seems impossible, a bright blue sky, and a road that winds through the mountains at angles so crazy it feels like you are on a roller coaster of epic proportions. The road weaves through the mountains, rewarding you with the most beautiful views over the South China Sea.
It takes roughly an hour and thirty minutes to get from Da Nang to the hills. Here's the thing - it might cost a little more than you pay for most other experiences in Da Nang to do this, but it is entirelyworth the money.
The Vietnamese given name for the now-national park is Son Tra Mountain, and the mountain has incredible hiking trails that wind around it . The little road also winds and soars above the ocean with views so beautiful of the ocean and the green cliffs that you know that you will not be able to do them justice in pictures and videos.
Ancient folklore says that thousands of years ago, a dragon rose from the ocean off Non Nuoc Beach (today known more commonly as My Khe Beach) and laid an egg. After a thousand days and a thousand nights, the egg hatched to reveal a beautiful girl. The fragments of the dragon’s egg were left on the coast, and evolved to become the five Marble Mountains.
We boarded four flights to get to Da Nang, starting with leaving our home base of Brisbane, Australia. I know — four flights sounds excessive. ‘Are you insane?’, you ask? Maybe. But there was also a logical reason behind the decision — we wanted to save money.
Over the last few months, we did research on potential places to move to, the pros and cons of each of these locations, visa qualifications, must-see sights, etc. Australia will always be home, but we can have homes away from homes, too.
A dizzying array of colour literally surrounds you as the fish swim with you. The Great Barrier Reef is renowned for a very good reason…and I promise that there is nothing like it. It is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and it more than earns its place.
We had this insanely beautiful view all to ourselves. Moonlight Crag sits in my top five hikes in Queensland for a very good reason: while some hiking trails are lovely the entire way with one hidden gem that draws in the crowds, Moonlight Crag has incredible views the entire way and has no less than four magical spots that are crowd pleasers.
When you drive along this beach with the windows down, the colours of the water and the sand dunes flow together to create a vibrant kaleidoscopic memory that you will not forget. And even on cloudier days, it is still an amazing little spot.
You are surrounded by beautiful little coloured fish. They literally will swim towards you out of curiosity and then stay with you as you swim around, especially next to the wrecks.
The waterfall breaks over a fallen tree, and the result is something that seems out of a fairytale – you’re in a cave, watching a waterfall break and churn into a creek that flows between a rainforest. At night, the entire underside of the cave lights up with hundreds of glow worms.
