I Spent 48 Hours in Da Nang, Vietnam 🇻🇳 (I Was NOT Expecting This)

I had just 48 hours to explore one of Vietnam's most popular cities and honestly I completely fell in love with Da Nang. From its beautiful coastline and incredibly friendly locals to some seriously good shopping, bargaining included of course, and some of the best food I've had on this entire trip, Da Nang completely surprised me. So let me show you what this city is really like and why I think Da Nang deserves a spot on every Vietnam itinerary. Oh my goodness look at the weather. There's blue skies. It feels so good to see blue skies after Hanoi because there was a lot of pollution there so even though it was so hot you could never see the sun but it's so sunny and I just dropped off my laundry at this little place opposite where I'm staying and it was only 12,000 for a kilo. So for a whole huge bag of washing I just paid 40,000 which is literally like just over a pound. So crazy but anyway now I'm heading to the first stop of this video. I'm gonna go and grab a coffee of course and start the day. So as you can see the streets are so pretty and pretty quiet so it's a definitely a different vibe to Hanoi. So I'm gonna be having my coffee at this little place that I found on Google that has fresh cocoa that's produced in Vietnam so I'm really excited because I love cocoa. Let's see what they've got on the menu. Oh my goodness look at this. Oh that looks so good. I might get one of them to take to the beach and then they have so many good things on this menu. They have so many coffees, juices, coconut blends and then signature coffee milkshakes. Oh my god. Okay so I'm gonna order a iced mocha because this place specializes in chocolate so a chocolate coffee is what we're going to be having. Oh I'm so happy right now. Look at that. Looks so chocolatey and good. So apparently the cocoa in Vietnam is amongst the top 10% in the world. So let's give this a try. Oh oh it's not like a processed sugary chocolate that you get in other mochas. It's like oh it's so rich. It's unreal. Wow when you drink something like this you realize that most of the things that you have are just so full of sugar. It's kind of bitter but it tastes so good. Okay so because the coffee was so good I think I'm gonna try and buy some of their fresh cocoa. They do these little packets. They look like they've got different flavours. This one's natural origin. Oh and it says the percentage. Oh I don't really understand this. I can't lie. Maybe I'll ask them what one they recommend but there's loads of different ones. Are you the owner? Yeah. You own this place? No I'm just manager. Oh okay she's just explained to me. What's your name? Riep. You can call me Riep. Riep. I'm Riep. Yeah. Nice to meet you. So she's just explained to me the differences in these powders. So some of them are pure. So this one's pure and then some of them are already mixed with sugar and milk and one with coconut. So I think I'm gonna grab three packets to try. So excited. That was such a lovely place. I can't believe I just got three packets of cocoa for 128,000. Oh some construction going on here. That was just so nice and so affordable. I really can't believe it. So I've got three different types to try and I'm really excited to try them when I get back home because I absolutely love cocoa. I've got two without sugar and one with sugar. Yeah so definitely recommend checking that out and now it is time to head to the beach. Oh my god I've only been here for like a few hours and I'm absolutely loving it already. I feel like it's just such a vibe. There's palm trees everywhere. It's nice and sunny. Everyone's friendly, smiling and saying good morning. Oh I just love it. We're just taking a walk now along the promenade right next to Miyake Beach. I think that's how you say it. And I cannot believe how beautiful this place is. Like people were telling me, oh no don't go to Da Nang. You know it's really busy and built up which it is. It's kind of like the vibe of Miami. I've never been to Miami but I can imagine it to be like this. But just like the Asian version with this incredible beach that goes on for like 10 kilometers. This lovely walkway. It's very clean. There's loads of palm trees lying in the way and oh my goodness it's just so beautiful. And there's just people kind of doing exercise, going jogging, chilling along the seafront, doing yoga. It's just absolutely beautiful. I can't believe it. So I'm gonna try and grab a sunbed and sit and enjoy the beautiful view of this blue ocean. Oh my goodness. I feel like I'm just more excited because I haven't been near the sea for so long actually. So I've just sat down at this sun lounger which apparently according to the people next door to me cost 40,000 which is literally just over a pound. So I'm gonna settle here for the day and grab a beer and enjoy this beautiful view. Honestly I'm so impressed with Da Nang so far. I'm loving it. It's so cheap and I'm literally obsessed. Hello US and China. Before we continue with today's video let me introduce you to Hover Air. One of my favorite ever products and the sponsor of this video. I travel solo a lot and that's why having a reliable camera is so important to me. If you've ever tried filming yourself whilst traveling alone you'll know it can be a bit of a struggle. You're setting up the camera, running into position and hoping you've got the shot. So this is where the Hover Air X1 Pro comes in. It's essentially a little flying camera that can follow me around which means I get these kind of shots completely by myself. And it's only 191 grams. Folds down small enough so I can easily throw it into my bag and you don't even need a controller to use it. I can just launch it from my hand, select the tracking mode and let it do all the hard work. And apparently I'm not the only one who's obsessed with this product. Even the local farmers wanted to get involved to see what I was flying. This camera shoots in up to 4K at 60 frames per second and with the gimbal, electronic stabilization and horizon leveling the footage comes out extremely smooth. And for me that's the biggest advantage. I can be completely focused on actually experiencing the place I'm in while the X1 Pro takes care of getting the perfect shot. So if you're someone who travels solo or you just really want to capture great cinematic footage I'll leave all the details of the Hover X1 Pro down in the description below. But for now let's get back to the video. So just to give you an idea of how cheap it is in Da Nang, this beer costs 20,000 which is literally like 50p. And then a little bit more of a premium brand this one costs 30,000. So you can drink and drink a lot here for such a low amount. I'm not going to do it. I need to go home soon. But this is why it is such a big digital nomad hub for people here because it is so cheap. Okay the sun is setting. I can't believe how long I was at the beach. I kind of got carried away. It was just so beautiful that I didn't want to leave and I realized that I didn't eat all day. So before we go to the Dragon Bridge and the night market we're gonna go grab a famous pancake that's really good in this area. So this place is really highly rated. I can't wait to try it. I've tried so much Vietnamese food since I've been here and I haven't been disappointed at all. So let's go eat some pancake. Okay here we are. Oh my god I'm so hungry right now and the smell coming out of Oh my goodness it smells so good. Look at this guys. Wow. Wow. Oh look at that. Beautiful. I'm so excited to try this. So I was searching on google for a place that looked local and with some other kind of dishes to what I've tried before. So since been in Vietnam I've tried so many foods but I've not tried anything like this. So I'm very excited. Oh hello. Thank you. Oh she's just brought me over a plate of salad. I haven't actually ordered anything yet but maybe I'll try one of everything. Okay so this dish is called Banh Xao. Maybe I'm pronouncing that wrong but it's a crispy stuffed rice pancake and basically you take this and you wrap it in your rice paper with the salad and there's also this sauce that comes on the side. You wrap it up all together and then eat and it looks and smells so freaking good. So I've ordered two. I think this one is the beef and then this one's prawn. So you also get this bowl of like chilies and garlic and she signaled to me that I need to cut them into the sauce. So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm so excited about this. This looks so good. Oh my god I'm so hungry. Okay let's try this. Oh my god I'm so excited. Oh my god. So the pancake is extremely crispy. You mix it with this salad in the rice paper wrap and there's salt. I don't know what it is but it's absolutely delicious. A little bit spicy because I added a lot of chili. The flavours are kicking right now. That is absolutely unbelievable. That might be one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes. This is quite easily one of the best things I've ever eaten. Like I can't even describe it. The flavours are insane. If anyone knows what's in that sauce please tell me. But all the textures combined. The salad, the crispiness in the rice paper roll. Oh my goodness it is so good and it feels healthy. So in addition to this pancake I've also ordered this meat. Comes on like a skewer. So I'm gonna add this inside the pancake which I think is what you're supposed to do because I'm looking around at everyone else and that's what they're doing. But the pancake on its own was 10 out of 10. So god knows what this is going to be like. And I think from looking at it it was probably pork. This is hands down one of the best things I've ever eaten. I can't recommend it more. And I know I always say that because I'm such a foodie but honestly everything about it is so good. It's all the textures combined and then this sauce. I think they put like turmeric or some kind of curry kind of taste inside. So all of it together. Oh my god. But let's try it with the meat. The 10 out of 10 just upgraded to 100 out of 10. Wow. Why on earth did I not know about this sooner in my life? Okay so I got three pancakes, one pork skewer, all that salad and the rice wraps and it only come to 46 which is just over a pound. And I don't know if this is like a speciality in this area but I'm definitely going to come back tomorrow because it was one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life. Like I'm not lying. It was so good. Anyway let's go to the night market. Thank you. Come on. Back on the bike with a helmet that does absolutely nothing. Look who it is. Melissa and Joe. Hello darling. How are you? It's so nice to see you. My friends from Bali everyone. They're joining me at the night market. So we've all sat down in this night market and it's kind of you have to go upstairs and then downstairs they cook like a barbecue and they give you a huge menu. You can pick all different meats and fishes that you want to barbecue. I am so full from that food so I'm not going to eat but everyone else is going to eat. And I also have a new friend. Hello. Hello. What's your name? Kiet. Nice to meet you. Okay so they ordered some frog, oh my goodness, and pork, some chicken skewers, chicken thighs and octopus. I'm gonna need your reviews guys. Oh my god look at this guys. It's a frog. I've never eaten a frog before but I'm gonna try it. Okay let me try this little bit here. Oh okay. Okay this is interesting. Actually feels like chicken. Oh it's so good. What the hell? It's good. Yeah. Just tastes like chicken. Oh there's a new one to add to my culinary delights. Oh I like that. That's surprising. Oh it does. Okay so we're here to watch the fire show. As you can see it is literally so busy. There are people standing all around on the other side of the road as well. It's pretty crazy because this fire show only happens at the weekend so everyone gathers around to see it. So let's see if it's worth it. So that was a little bit underwhelming. I was expecting like the whole bridge to basically blow fire but it was just the end. But it was still pretty cool and a nice way to end the evening. But anyway I'm gonna head back to the hotel now. I have a really early start tomorrow. I'm gonna do some hiking so I want to do it before it gets too hot. So I shall see you tomorrow. Good morning everyone from the Marble Mountains. So this morning I took a really early grab at like 7am to this incredible place which is about 15 minutes outside of the city centre. And I'm gonna go for a little hike. I am very tired but we're gonna do this. It looks absolutely stunning. There's these big limestone cliffs really really close to the city and apparently at the top you get an incredible view so I'm so excited. Let's go. Look I've made a friend on the way. What's your name? My name is M. Oh you're so cute. So she has a little shop at the bottom. She's gonna show me her bracelets after my walk. So she just explained to me there's five mountains and they represent different elements like fire and water. I'm very excited. Is it difficult? Yeah. Difficult? Very cold. To walk? Ah you walk. I know I know. Ah okay. Okay. Okay. Okay here we go. Let's start the great ascent. Oh it's so empty right now because I decided to come at 7am. So I grabbed my ticket. It was 40,000 and just remember that when you enter the premises like in your grab you have to walk all the way to the left to this ticket office here. The one as soon as you come in is just for the cave which is another 20,000 but this is for everything. So walk to the left. Okay let's go. Oh wow it's stunning. I've made it to the first viewpoint and you can see literally the whole city from up here. It is so beautiful. I'm just walking around and I feel like crying. So this is a Buddhist place. There's like temples and pagodas. Five different spots and it's just so peaceful and beautiful and flowers everywhere and nature thriving and all these butterflies flying. It feels like I'm in a dream. It was so worth the early wake up actually because there's no one here really. Just a few people bopping about but pretty empty and it's just absolutely beautiful. Wow. So right now we are entering a cave. How cool is this? Look at this. This place is so cool and to think it only costs 40,000 and I wasn't going to come because I didn't want to get out of bed. But wow. Oh my goodness this is so cool. Look at this. Oh my goodness. This is absolutely amazing. Look at this cave. Oh it feels like I've entered another world. Whoa. Oh my goodness. It was hands down one of the most impressive and beautiful things I've ever seen. Like literally so amazing and I'm now heading into a second cave. So this whole complex is just absolutely stunning. I can't recommend it more and definitely come early because now people are starting to arrive but I had a peaceful moment for like an hour this morning. It's just really really really impressive. Okay so after two hours exploring I've made it to the end. So here is the elevator that you can take if you pay for that with your ticket but there's also some stairs apparently around the corner so I'm going to go and take them down because it wasn't too far up to be honest. Okay I've made it back to the Myakit area and I've stopped at this little local place that's around the corner to my hotel to try some comfort food breakfast noodles called mee kwak. Now I'm probably saying that completely wrong but I've gone for the beef option and I'm really excited about this. So this dish isn't a broth it's noodles without the sauce and it looks and smells delicious so I can't wait to try it. All right let's give this a taste. I'm not sure if you're supposed to put anything else on it. I'm not gonna. Actually at the bottom looks like there's some kind of a not a broth but a sauce. They look so good. So they're like thick bouncy rice noodles. Oh okay I'm gonna try this. I'm really excited. Oh wow they are so so delicious. So the texture of the noodles are completely different to anything I've tried before. They're really bouncy and there's this flavour on it. I can't explain what it is. It almost tastes like a stock kind of flavour. Oh my god it's so good. These are so delicious. I can see why they're a staple for a Vietnamese breakfast. Let's try them with some salad. I love that you get herbs and salad with every meal. That is a severely good breakfast. Now I remember when I first come to Asia and I didn't understand how people could eat food like this for breakfast because in England we just have like toast. But now I would never eat toast. Like this is so much more fulfilling. The beef is so tender. Wow. Those noodles were so good and the owner here is really friendly. She brought me over this little bowl of fresh peanuts. Now as you know I absolutely love these. They're completely different to the ones that you get in England that are dry roasted. They're like fresh. You can see. And they're almost wet but they're so good and they're so fresh. So it's such a nice place. Definitely recommend you come and check it out. It's right in the centre, right near the beach. Bye bye everyone. Enjoy your vacation. I love that place. The woman was so friendly bless her and there was like a really nice group of boys in there from Hanoi on their vacation and it was nice to be able to talk to them because they spoke a little bit of English which is a first actually. Hello morning. Anyway now I'm going to head back to my hotel for a little while because I'm so tired from that hike this morning and I feel like I need a little rest before we head out for the afternoon. Okay so after a wonderful nap I took a 10-minute taxi which cost around 60,000 to this market called Han Market which is across the river and it's supposed to be one of the best places to get literally everything you can imagine. So I'm not going to spend too long here. I don't need that much after my trip in Hanoi but I'm going to see what they've got, see what the prices are like and yeah see what we can get. Okay so as soon as you walk in it looks like there's so much food and stuff. Oh they've got Vietnamese coffee but as you know my friend from Hanoi already bought me some but he bought me the beans actually so it'd be interesting to see if they have the powder. And here they have all the different types of Vietnamese coffee. They've got cappuccino, coconut coffee. This one, this one looks so good. I don't know what it is but it looks amazing. So many different types if you want to grab your coffee souvenirs even like little sachets. Hello. You have the powder? Yeah not bean. So he's showing me this which is apparently arabica from Vietnam. You have just one? How much is this? Is that good price? 160? Yeah. Okay 150. Oh so you are going down a little. Maybe one this one. 120. Oh 1 million. Will you do this? Oh my god you're calculating hard. 120. Can? No. For one. Okay last. 140. 140. Okay. How about in the middle? 130. Can? Okay. All right I'm gonna get this coffee. I hope it's a good one. It's good. Yeah. Good coffee. Yeah. Let me know guys in the comments if you're Vietnamese if this is a good coffee because I already have the beans but I don't have the grinder so I'm just gonna use this as with my little filter here. Come on. Okay. What's your name? My name is Tong. Tong. Tong. Yeah. Oh you have a card for me. This is my card. Oh thank you. This is my name. Tong. Yeah. Oh Vietnamese is so hard to pronounce. Look it's Tong but it's spelled like this. This is why I can't say any of the words. Okay my friend. Thank you so much. You have change? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh he's really nice and because he was so nice I bought it. I didn't really need it but whatever. When you're in Vietnam you should always buy the coffee. Look he's giving me a little freebie. What is this? Chocolate? Chocolate. Oh yummy. Thank you. I love chocolate. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Have a good day yeah. Bye. Bye. Oh it was so sweet. Bye. It was really sweet. So I got some coffee. That's two lots of coffee that I've got now and it seems like the whole of the bottom of this market is just food to be honest which I don't really need anything of. I've got the coffee. All the rest of the stuff is like dried produce like mangoes, nuts, everything like that as you can see. But I don't really need anything like that so I think I'm going to go upstairs to check out more of the souvenirs and the clothes. Hello. What is this? Oh I wouldn't mind a smoothie. It's very hot. This is the only smoothie. Avocado ice cream. Oh mango ice cream. Another one. Oh okay. Let's try a um this one avocado. Yes avocado. Oh okay. I don't know if I like it. Yeah let's try it. This one. Ice cream yeah. Where are you from? England. You want to say hello? Okay so I've been tempted already by the food stalls. I'm going to try an avocado ice cream which sounds really strange but I did try a avocado shake in Indonesia and I was so pleasantly surprised. It was really delicious so why not try? My new friends subscribe to the channel. I have many Vietnamese friends now from the markets that I've visited. You want to say hello? Hello. What's your name? My name is Hao. Hao. Nice to meet you. I'm Ria. Ria. Oh look at that. Thank you. Okay this looks so interesting. It is so hot in this market so I feel like right now this will go down the tree. So he said to mix it together. It's got like oh crispy bits. What are the crispy bits? Coconut. Coconut oh. So this is really interesting. It's really good. I think the white part is coconut ice cream and then like some avocado. Coconut ice cream yeah. Yeah I like the coconut ice cream a lot. It's really good and then the avocado. It's unusual. It's kind of sweet but not too much so it's really refreshing. Yeah quite pleasantly surprised actually considering I don't usually like avocado. So this guy and his beautiful wife have been making these desserts for 15 years. They were such a sweet couple running that business and they work every single day of the year so make sure that you come inside and support their business and grab avocado ice cream. So it's actually really good. Really different to what I usually eat but worth a try and very refreshing in this heat. I've just seen this little top which is really cute. It looks like the one that I bought in Hanoi. Oh you've got many colour. She said they're 200 but we'll see what we can do. Say hello. Oh wow so many colour. Okay oh here as well. Oh my god so many. You can choose from all of this. Can we do less price? What's your best one? 150? No. No? 150 good I think. No 7. 1 7. 1 5. No. Yeah. 1 6. Okay 1 6. Okay happy? Okay thank you. Now I need to give you more money for the service. It's very hot yeah. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness this woman's so adorable. She's so tiny and sweet. I almost didn't want to bargain with her but actually it's the culture to bargain. They expect you to do that but she's super super cute. Oh my god. Look her little top even says cute but cute but chic. She's so cute. You're so small. Usually I'm the small one. What's your name? Ria. Ria nice to meet you. Thank you yeah. Oh bye-bye. Oh I love her. She's fanning me. Wow look at all of these t-shirts. So crazy and they've even got these Arc'teryx jackets which everyone's going crazy for right now. How much is this uh this one? 550. 550. Okay so 550 which I believe is a lot less than they were quoting in Hanoi because obviously I don't want one. They're mainly bought for if you need a cold jacket but loads of people doing the Ha Giang Luke were buying them and I was listening out in Hanoi and they were a lot more expensive than that and that's without bargaining so this market might be better. Okay so I just stopped at one of the shoe stores. I'm looking at these New Balance trainers. These were the ones that I was looking at in Hanoi and they were quoting me 1 million and here they're 450. My god she's all the way up there. Okay so we're gonna get these ones but in black and the final price was 380. I had to put the camera away because I'm sitting in this little walkway and everyone's coming past but I'm really happy about that. They're really nice actually. Maybe not like top A quality but really good for travelling. So this lovely lady sold me my trainers and she gave me such a good price and she's so cute so thank you. What's your name? My name is Nguyen. Nguyen. Oh hello you want to get involved? So come and see Nguyen. She's on the second floor and you'll see her opposite. How do I describe this shop? 264. 264. There we go. Make sure you come see her. Thank you so much. Bye bye. So I finished my time in the market. It was a really nice experience actually. The people, all the sellers were so friendly as you saw in the video and they were willing to bargain and the prices were really good compared to Hanoi. So I definitely recommend checking that out but it was extremely hot and crowded so I've come back now to Maiki Beach and I couldn't leave Da Nang without seeing a last sunset. So I've come to this little place on the seafront called Karib Bao. It's basically like a little street food van that sells banh mi and drinks. You can get alcohol if you want but I've just got myself a Pepsi because I drank a few too many beers yesterday. But anyway I'm just sitting here watching the ocean. All the families are out. It's super busy but it's really beautiful and I'm just reflecting on my time in Da Nang. It's been a really good 48 hours but I'm very upset that I didn't book longer. I was really not expecting it to be this good. I definitely recommend coming. It's cheap, it's beautiful and there is so much to do so I will definitely be back. But anyway guys I think it is sadly time to end this video. I hope you found it useful and you enjoyed watching me explore Da Nang. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and I will see you in Hoi An.