Serenity above the clouds at Ba Na

      Near the sun and sea of Danang lies a cool mountain retreat with unspoiled forests and the world’s longest and highest non-stop cable car.
More than 100 years ago, the French first identified Ba Na Mountain in central Vietnam as an ideal holiday retreat. Now it’s more popular than ever.
Ba Na Mountain is 1,487 meters above sea level, providing a bird’s eye view of Danang, just 40 kilometers away, the coastline and nearby mountain ranges.
Locals say the mountain experiences four seasons in one day - spring in the morning, summer at noon, autumn in the afternoon and winter at night. The region has an average temperature of between 17 and 25 degrees Celsius.
The cooler weather on the mountain is especially attractive for tourists from May to August when temperatures in lowland areas reach a humid 35 degrees.
The pine-covered mountain is criss-crossed by streams and rivers, including the Mo Stream and the mystical nine-level Toc Tien Waterfall, said to cascade like a fairy’s hair.
Often blanketed by mist, Ba Na Mountain is also known for its fresh air, which can soothe the mind and the body.
Ba Na is a nature reserve that shelters more than 554 species of plants and 256 animals, including 50 endangered plants and animal species.
The origins of the name Ba Na is murky. Some say the French bestowed the name, a derivative of banane (banana), for the plentiful banana trees in the area. Others say the name means “my mountain” in the language of the local Kotu ethnic minority people.
The mountain’s tourism potential was first noted in 1901 by Paul Doumer, Governor General of French Indochina and later the French president. Doumer was searching for a resort area for French citizens in central Vietnam.
By 1930, dozens of bungalows, villas and lodging houses had been built, turning Ba Na into a retreat for French officials posted in Indochina. It was as popular with the French as the famed vacation hubs of Vung Tau in Vietnam’s south and the northern mountain resort town of Sapa.
But many of Ba Na’s colonial buildings were damaged between 1946 and 1975 during Vietnam’s wars with the French and the Americans and the mountain’s tourism appeal fell into obscurity for half a century.
In 1998, Danang’s authorities began working on creating an ecological tourism zone and a nature reserve on the mountain.
The local tourism industry received another boost earlier this year with the opening of a 5,042-meter-long cable car ride linking the foot of Ba Na Mountain with the peak of neighboring Vong Nguyet Mountain in the Ba Na-Suoi Mo Tourism Area.
The cable car earned Ba Na a Guinness World Record as the home of the world’s longest and highest non-stop cable car.
Before the cable car started operating, tourists had to endure a dangerous journey on a winding 16 kilometer road up the mountain to reach Ba Na-Suoi Mo Tourism Area.
Tourists can now zip up the mountain in just 15 minutes on the cable car. The cable cars often pass through the clouds that gather halfway up the mountain.
The cable car station is near the Linh Ung Pagoda, built in 2004, and well-known for its 30-meter outdoor Buddha statue, which is visible on a clear day from Danang.