Dalat - (meaning land of the minority)

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As usual the bus left HCMC an hour late & arrived in Dalat 2 hours later than we expected, I didn't mind though as it was still light when we arrived & managed to find a hotel to stay in with a double bed each, cable TV & a private bathroom, all for on 1 pound 25p each per night. It was a lot colder than I expected but we put on some warmer clothes & had a walk around, eating dinner in a French Restaurant with some home-made strawberry wine, (not the best I have ever tasted!) We just spent the evening watching TV then caught up on the sleep we had missed in HCMC because of the noise.

We had a lie in on Friday & grabbed some pastries from a local bakery & ate them on a bench overlooking Xuan Huong Lake. We were pestered by motorbike drivers to see if we wanted a ride but instead of saying "Motorbike Miss?" (like they normally do), they said "Easy Rider lady?", they even had jackets on with "Easy Rider" on the back, although Claire & I could sing was Phil Collins "Easy Lover" but changed the lyrics, (what a pair of idiots!)

We then walked around the lake to witness a naked man doing something he shouldn't be on the banks of the lake, (a number 2); I saw him first & had to check with Claire as to whether I was hallucinating! We walked on rather quickly to Dalat Flower Gardens which wasn't very impressive & it spotted with rainy. We walked back round the lake to try & find a Pagoda which seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. We walked on to Cam Ly waterfalls, (which smelt of sewage) and took some photos. We had lunch which turned out to be nasty so all in all I wasn't really feeling the love for Dalat!

We headed back to the hotel & booked a trip for Saturday, hoping to see all the better parts of Dalat & its surrounding areas & also a bus to Nha Trang for Sunday morning.

On Saturday we did the Natural Waterfalls & Countryside Landscape Discovery tour. It was a good day although we didn't stop for a second so I was tired by the end of it. Firstly we headed to Truc Lam Meditation Centre which was right on Tuyen Lam Lake, right on top of the hills, it was very picturesque. From there we headed to the Chicken Minority village, (there is a story behind the name although it’s not that interesting so I won't bore you). It is a very poor village which has a Matriarchal society, which means the women make all the decisions & the man takes the woman's name in marriage, as do the children. BRILLIANT!

We carried on to Pongour waterfalls where we walked down a big hill & got to walk across the bottom of the falls, it is the biggest waterfall in Vietnam & we got some great photos, it also didn't smell of sewage - bonus! We had lunch & then went to Elephant waterfalls, (Thac Vol), which we had to climb down the side of. It was in the middle of what looked like a jungle so I was constantly looking for spiders & snakes.

Next was a silk factory where you got to see how they turned the silk worms cocoon into silk; (they boil the cocoon, then the thread comes lose & it gets spun on to a wheel to be turned into garments, ties & tablecloths, amongst other things). We went to a coffee plantation where we saw the coffee trees, the beans drying on the floor & how they turned them into beans to be roasted. Strangely we got taken to a magic mushroom plantation, lots of flowers, fruit & vegetable farms.

Our last stop was the crazy house; this was an art gallery & a guesthouse in a sort of Alice in Wonderland theme. People who stayed in the guesthouse slept in rooms shaped like mushrooms & mad trees, it was all a bit mental but good to have a look at.

I am hoping Nha Trang will be a bit warmer or at least a bit more exciting than Dalat & we are hoping to catch up with our friend Adam. Roll on the sunshine!

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