The sound of music

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While Michelle rests in the other room, having been struggling with a cold for the last day and a half brought about by the rapid temperature flux we both continually experienced in Nha Trang (high thirties on the streets and near sub-zero indoors) I am sitting out on our balcony overlooking the country mountainous vista of Dalat; surrounded by flowers of every kind trees and shrub that our local squirrel has been frolicking in, and beyond the mass number of green houses in the distance, indeed beyond the mountains themselves the sound of music floating in the breeze.

The day started early but sluggish, with both of us possibly on the verge of a cold and our pillows too hard, the last few nights sleep in Nha Trang has been a struggle, usually requiring the air conditioning ramped up to numb the senses like putting a crab in ice cold water before cooking it. After breakfast our IndoChina guide, Bi (pronounced Bee) was waiting for us in the lobby, the company not having had a demand for tours to Dalat before were not really sure what to do about our request, so the first part of our 150km (four hour journey) was spent down the road in the old part of Nha Trang viewing some rather lovely Pagodas. Though Michelle and I were both well and truely pagodaed out by this time in our trip, I did find these ones particularly interesting. Like their cousins that we visited less than a week earlier in My Son, this pagoda had had some renovation work done on it in the 12th century, and like the renovations in My Son, the renovations on appearance were more weathered and worse for wear than the original architecture. Our guide Bi admitted, they had no idea how to reproduce the original walls which dated back to the 8th century.

The road to Dalat was a long and windy one, as we got closer to the top of the mountain range you could see the toll the wet season had on the roads; in some sections the roads had been washed away, leaving our 4x4 transfer to make its own path, clinging to the cliff wall, making as much room between us and the cliff edge as possible. In other instances recent land and mud slides had now crept onto the road way, again making navigating them difficult for anything other than a motorbike or four wheel drive, my Lancer would of had no hope.

Looking deceptionally close to Nha Trang, Dalat was only a 130km drive, but with a average speed of 40kmph, our lowest being when the speed limit changed to 30, the drive was long and arduous. The panoramic mountainous view though were second to none, you could only possibly top it off if the mountains were snow capped, which in Sapa, during the winter, they are.

We arrived at our accommodation around noon, our butler, a young Vietnamese woman named Hong was there to greet us. Unlike all the other accommodation on this trip through Vietnam which had all been hotel based, this place was a conglomeration of villas, all connected by a medieval styled cobblestoned path. We are nestled high in the mountain range of Dalat, looking straight ahead from out on the balcony, below in the distance is the Dalat township, to the left of me, irrigated farmland, growing cabbages, beyond this and array of green houses responsible for providing the vegetables and extensive range of flowers that Dalat exports, along with its coffee, and on the cusp of the horizon, mountain range. Best of all, the weather here is a cool, refreshing 19 to 22 degrees Celsius, incredibly welcoming from the scorching near arid climate of coastal Vietnam.

The locals would say that this was nearing their quiet season as the weather between now and September simply gets too hot for most western tourists to comfortably tolerate. Between September and October travel, especially to coastal town sites such as Hoi An are not recommended with flooding easily reaching as high as three or four meters. The rest of the year is the typical western tourist season, with the usual quick influxes of tropical rainfall lasting an hour at most, with clear skies thereafter. Although the intense but short rain cycle can be somewhat irritating when unprepared, since you do get soaked to the bone before you can even pull out an umbrella, I think our next return to Vietnam may be a tad earlier than May, the rain is a small price to pay to avoid the scorching summer months. Whilst on the roll for travel advice, sunscreen is a rare commodity in Vietnam. Only taking a very small tube over with us, we didn’t come across sun screen until discovering the shopping mall in Nha Trang. So as far as tips go, here are the footnotes: make sure you bring some Agent Orange strength mozzie repellent, plenty of sunscreen, comfortable cotton long pants and long sleeve shirt, leather shoes, a hat and a satchel; not only will you look hip and cool like Indiana Jones but you’ll be ready for anything.

Having checked into our villa accommodation, our priorities shifted to the next urgent thing, food. Taking a cab into town, and feeling rather like old salts at navigating our way through the mayhem of Vietnamese cities we dropped ourselves right in the middle of the Chinatown markets and fanned out from there becoming acquainted with our surroundings until spotting a small cafe tucked away between two streets and deciding to plant our flag there for lunch. Michelle ordered the cautionary fries, and forgetting my surroundings lunged straight in and ordered the stirfry noodles and seafood. It wasn’t until the order was placed and our waitress had gone that it dawned on me; hang on, I am in the middle of the god damned mountains, where the hell is the seafood coming from? Knowing the answer was by car, very unlikely a refrigerated car at that, my heart sank. I had been too used to fine seafood the past week and a half as we travelled along Vietnams coast, I hope I haven’t blundered the experience by ordering it from the mountain top. Our food came out, my careful eye scanning the seafood for any sign of unrest; it was fine and tasted delicious. Counting my blessings I enjoyed what I decided was to be my last Dalat seafood dish, with intention to order the specialties of Dalat for future meals.

The markets were enjoyable, but after a while the markets of Vietnam all start to blur, and distinction between them becomes hazy at best; it was your typical Chinatown of a market, novelty tourist items as you entered in with the scenery slowly changing to more of a food market, with fresh produce splayed out left right and centre; the market for the locals. Having acquired a few cans of Pepsi for mixing, and knowing that tomorrows tour involved a city orientation, which we were dangerously close to making redundant we decided to head back to our villa to relax and enjoy the tranquillity of our surroundings.

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Comments

[Karen]

I am so jealous, You have no idea!!!!!!