A Golden Bridge Held by Giant Hands Opens Above Da Nang
The 150-metre footbridge opened in June 2018 at the Ba Na Hills resort, 1,400 metres up in the mountains west of Da Nang. Within weeks it was among the most photographed structures in Asia.
A footbridge that appears to be held up by two enormous hands opened in June 2018 in the mountains west of Da Nang, in central Vietnam. It is called Cau Vang, the Golden Bridge. Photographs of it spread round the world within weeks, and it has since become one of the country’s best known sights.
The bridge
The bridge is 150 metres long and five metres wide, and stands about 1,400 metres above sea level. It curves out from the hillside in an arc that almost returns on itself. The handrails are of gilded steel, and beds of purple flowers run along the edge. Two hands rise from the slope below as if to lift the deck, weathered, cracked and patched with moss, like the remains of a colossal ancient statue.
The hands are not stone. They are made of steel mesh covered with fibreglass and finished to look old. The bridge was designed by TA Landscape Architecture of Ho Chi Minh City, under its founder Vu Viet Anh, who has said the idea was of the hands of a mountain god drawing a strip of gold out of the earth. Construction took less than a year, from July 2017 to April 2018.
The setting
The bridge belongs to Ba Na Hills, a resort owned by the Vietnamese company Sun Group. The French established a hill station on this ridge in 1919 to escape the heat of the coast. It was abandoned after 1945 and overgrown. The modern resort includes a replica French village, gardens, a wine cellar left by the colonists, pagodas and an indoor amusement park. Visitors reach it by one of the longest cable cars in the world, which climbs more than five kilometres from the foot of the mountain.
The bridge has a practical function. It links one of the cable car stations with the gardens, across a slope too steep for an easy path. It also gives a view over the forest to the coast.
For travellers
Ba Na Hills is about 40 minutes by road from Da Nang and a little over an hour from Hoi An. One ticket covers the cable car and most attractions. The bridge is crowded from mid-morning until late afternoon, and at busy times it is hard to stop for a photograph. Take the first cable car of the day, at around seven, and go to the bridge first. The summit is often in cloud, which can hide the view and can also make the hands more striking. It is ten degrees cooler than the coast, and a jacket is useful.
The resort is a theme park, and travellers who dislike them should plan a short visit for the bridge and the ride alone. It combines with the beaches south of Da Nang, where Four Seasons The Nam Hai stands near Hoi An, and with the coastal railway, on which The Vietage runs south to Quy Nhon.