Mountains and Beaches (Again)

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April 23rd 2011

Published: April 23rd 2011

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Chris and Lisa

The joys of Dalat

on a backpackers budget

There is always a danger of coming back to someplace you really like, in case the old rose tinted glasses have been taking effect. This is pretty much the case with the whole of Vietnam for us but especially the delightful mountain city of Delat. Again, after the humid heat of Saigon the cool mountain air was most welcomed and as we came into the city the first thing that struck us was the amount of building work going on. It was lovely before but the improvements are really enhancing the city. It’s not just hotels and homes, when we were here last year the famous Xuon Huong lake had been drained and resembled the Mongolian mud pits rather than the ‘go to’ destination for Vietnamese love birds.

After the bus dropped us off we quickly determined that we wouldn’t get lost like last time and so we checked good old Google maps and set off for our hotel, we didn’t repeat our mistake, we made a completely new detour instead. When we arrived at Dreams 1, a lovely hotel in the middle of the backpacker district, we were reminded why booking is advised at trip advisor recommended places, even

Contrasts

You can see the improvements and the tasks still to do

here, as a number of couples were being turned away. Cherry the owner’s granddaughter greeted us in excellent English followed by a few words of welcome in Vietnamese, followed by an explanation of all the shapes and colours in the painting she was finishing. Extraordinary language skills for a 23 month old little girl, she’ll go far.

The following day it was time to explore, take a familiar walk and breathe some fresh air so off we set heading for the tranquil paradise lake and the nearby temple & meditation centre. It’s a lovely walk and taking a different route this time we got to see a bit more of the city away from the tourist hotspots and were able to watch people just getting on with life, children joyously heading home from morning school session and then on into the field & hills beyond the city. We headed out through endless miles of small holdings, cress farms, garlic fields and the myriad of people breaking their backs to try to eke out a living. As we got to Paradise Lake it again struck us how much money is arriving in Vietnam, where once was pristine wood & forest

Hard at it

The ladies, obviously

on all of the lakeside and on the islands, there is now muddy tracks and land being cleared for development. It’s only a guess but we suspect that affordable housing isn’t being built here, it’s a fair guess that lakeside luxury is beckoning Saigon’s millionaire socialists. Can’t say we blame them though, it is an incredibly beautiful spot and we would if we could.

We were going to head back via the cable car but as we had a bit of life still left in the lungs we decided to continue on to the nearby Datania Waterfalls. When we got there we discovered that there are 2 ways down, walking or a rollercoaster/toboggan/sled type of contraption. Lisa, being the intrepid adventurer, immediately insisted that a freefall ride was the only way to go. The coaster was great fun actually, or it would have been had an obese Australian woman not decided to put forward the theory that the slower you go the more fun this was. It wasn’t and she should be ashamed .

The waterfall was lovely, and in keeping with every other Asian falls, probably better in the wet season. There is also the option of

Love in Dalat

Do we look romantic in Vietnams' Love Capital?

going down in a cable car to see the rest of the falls but the others leaving that particular experience didn’t have looks of unbounded joy, so we gave it a miss. The rollercoaster/toboggan/sled ride back up the hill was somewhat slower than going down – yes we did go back up in it!! We then walked back to the monastery and rode the cable car back to town and finished with a stroll around the now refilled and exceedingly beautiful lake. A 15 mile stroll in the sunshine with lakes and temples, waterfalls and strawberry ice-cream, a bit like a Skeggy daytrip then. There are a lot of new high end hotels and housing projects along with a large amount of infrastructure development going on here, the people are smiling, the excitement for the future is showing through. Good times for Vietnam.

Another of Dalat’s claims to fame is a magnificent golf course, walking around the outside it was definitely better than any Chris has ever played on but at $100 a round (and this in Vietnam) it was going to remain unplayed on. But to make up for the lack of sporting fulfilment Dalat does provide another

Not on our Budget

at a hundred bucks a round

incredibly pleasurable pastime much closer to a back packer’s budget and that is the delicious Dalat wine. And starting at 80p per bottle, rising to £2.50 for “Excellence” we were determined to enjoy this delight to the full.

All too soon it was time to move on, we were off to the beach, what again, I hear you ask, well yes, it’s been at least 4 weeks since we last sunk our feet into some soft white sand and it will be the last time this trip. Nooooooooo.

So Nha Trang, nothing much has changed since we were last here. The beach is still magnificent, the sea is a bit rough still but the upside of that is an all day breeze from the East which lets you soak up the sun for as long as you want. We arrived from Dalat and had booked a room at the Ha Van hotel, highly recommended by all, but after a few minutes we realised that they must have all been smoking some illegal substances or had negotiated a better rate than ours. While we have stayed in worse it was, well, a bit rubbish and at $25, not great

Lovely Nha Trang

a corking place to relax

value either. Luckily that night we bumped into a young Aussie couple we met on the bus who put us onto a new hotel, just around the corner so we decided to take a look. Huge rooms, 2 double beds, big bathrooms, flat screen TV with HBO and free Wifi and at $15 a night needless to say, we moved hotels.

There really isn’t much more to write about our week in Nha Trang, we got up, had brekkie, walked to the Louisiane Brewhouse on the beach where, for a quid, you got a sun lounger on the beach, sunshade, an uninterrupted view of the East China Sea and the islands and also free access to their clear cool pool. The tough decision of fresh lobster or fresh fruit on the beach for lunch was the week’s most taxing problem and having discovered the delightful Cyclo Café on our last trip, evening entertainment decisions were easy. What a tough life this backpacking is.

We did resist the lure of the beach for one day because just off the coast there is Vinpearl Island, home to a very upmarket resort and a few temples but the reason we wanted

Awesome

Neptunes garden delights

to visit was the water park, one of the top 10 in the world apparently and the longest cable car over water in the world to get there.
A bit of a tip for any travelblog readers thinking of visiting, if you are staying in the city look for the bus stops saying number 4 and catch the bus out there. It drops you right outside the cable car, runs every 20 minutes or so, takes about 15 minutes to get there and costs about 15 cents. Taxis will try to charge you $8-$10.
We bought our ticket from the hotel which, surprisingly, turned out to be the same price as at the Island but when we got there our first disappointment; the cable car was closed for maintenance. While waiting with and watching a bunch of Asians trying to get 1.3m kids to innocuously squeeze under the 1.0m “Kids go Free” barrier was amusing, the rusty old ferry ride wasn’t much of a substitute. But that annoyance was short lived as soon as we entered the aquarium on the island. One of the best that we’ve seen with large tanks, underwater tunnels, plenty of educational as well as fun

She looks relaxed

now the terror is over

exhibits and some of the hugest, ugliest, most incredible sea creatures that we have ever laid eyes on. Even the nearly naked Asian girl with a dodgy mermaids costume on couldn’t distract Chris from the giant eels and magnificent stingrays. This is a corking exhibit, missed by a lot of visitors, which is a shame.

Onwards to the changing area, swimmers on and ready for fun. The water park lived up to all expectations, some great rides, a few nervy moments when you think you are going to fly out of the tube only for gravity (and some clever engineering) to save you. The Tsunami was a bit of a damp squib but after recent events in Asia, a name change might be appropriate, but the tubes and body slides were great fun. Some nicely nerve wracking, others a pleasant drift through a well sculpted park. The wave pool was Lisa’s particular favourite, but we were not sure how the locals felt about her enthusiastic attempts to get into the inflatable ring as every time she did she managed to do a moony. The poor unfortunates who happened to be in the near vicinity really needed sunglasses as the

It's not that bad

what a wuss

newly worked on tan left a few parts glowing white – not nice. The park entrance fee is quite high for a local or a backpacker at $15 but once inside everything is free, and it does make a great days entertainment. The one omission was bravery, the biggest slide is called Kamikaze and we didn’t see anyone attempt it all day, and despite his best intentions, Chris decided that discretion (not losing one’s swimmers up ones bum) was definitely the better part of valour. There were only two negative points on the water park. The first was that, at various times during the day the rides were closed for cleaning/maintenance/ afternoon nap (who knows) and so you had to schedule your enjoyment round opening times. The second was that the steep steps up to the slides were metal grills which tended to be not only hot in the sunny weather but really painful on the soles of your feet. They did have flip flop things you could hire, but we didn’t realise why until we got into the park!

After a brief stroll through the very quiet, but quite pleasant, shopping street we came across the fairground, the

Just in time

the day is complete

outside games were all fairly innocuous, mainly kids rides, there was a very unfortunate animal show with performing monkeys and dogs that we quickly passed by and we entered the 1980’s. We walked into a building that was a British amusement arcade from those heady days of Live Aid and Toni Basil, where Space Invaders were at the forefront of technology. Hundreds of gaming machines lined the walls, driving games, horse riding games, air hockey, street basketball, Pacman, it was all there and all free. Awesome. So our plan to catch the 4pm ferry went right out of the window as we indulged in some mindless reminiscences, we could almost have been in the Alexandra Gardens for a few short minutes. What a great way to end the day, well almost, because as we had delayed ourselves an hour or so suddenly the cable car was running again and topped the trip in fine style.

The next day we got up, had brekky, went to the beach, jumped in the pool …….. I’m sure you’ve got the picture by now. But all too soon we were sufficiently toasted and it was time to move on and start the shopping.