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Published: October 22nd 2008
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Linda is taking a break, so I, Chris, will be continuing with the blog.
The night before we booked a tour of Dalat, so we woke up early today to eat and get ready for the day ahead. The car picked us up at 8.30am from the hotel. There were 3 other people on the tour with us, a Israeli couple from Telavive and a Canadian from Montreal.
So first stop was a cable car ride, 2.7km long across a valley to Truc Lam Meditation Centre. It is a centre for Zen Buddhists so the whole building and garden was designed around the Zen way of thinking. The temples were very simple but in a Chinese way and the gardens were full of flowers and bonsai’s. A brief stroll down a path leads you to Tuyen Lam Lake. Some amazing views of the lake and mountains on the way down.
Next stop was Bao Dai's Summer Palace. A bit of a waste of time to be honest. It's a building that doesn't look like a palace for the King and Queen, more like a small hotel. The interior was still the same as it was when the King and Queen used
it, so it was pretty much like walking through your gran and gramps house, old furniture, old cups, plates, tables etc. And everything smells old. Not the highlight of the trip so far!
After that, we went to Datanla Waterfalls. Now this was something we were looking forward to. So we walk through a gate where you pay and inside is small shops selling the usual rubbish for tourists. Now, we had two options to get to the bottom of the cliff to see the waterfall. First was to walk down a steep hill then back up or we could go down and then back up by a go cart sort of thing on rails. Mmm... Think we will go by go cart. Was a pretty sweet ride down, a bit short but sweet none the less. You sit in a cart which is on rails and all you have is a brake, gravity takes care of the rest! Once at the bottom, you are greeted by a Vietnamese guy dressed as a cowboy and his horse... This is the craziest thing I have seen. Since when did the Vietnamese have cowboys roaming the Mekong? Anyway, the locals love it
and pay to stand next to the horse and have a photo taken. The falls are very nice, high and full of water. While looking at the falls with 100 other tourists, I notice a bear on the side of the path. This is another favorite of theirs; a photo of a guy dressed in a bear suit next to ones self. So, click click, photos done we head back to the go cart for the ride up. Pretty sad, it's a one way trip straight up, pulled by a cable. At least we never walked up!
Next up was the Dragon Pagoda. This is a temple which is covered in Dragons. The temple its self is pretty amazing, then there is a tower across the road which is about 6 stories up. Each level has a different Buddha and as you go up the floor area gets smaller. Amazing views from each level.
Now was time for lunch and as usual, the guide takes you to his mates place where the prices are well above the average because the restaurant has to give kick backs to the tour guide for bringing people to his restaurant.
Now was my best
place ever. The Valley Of Love. God only knows what the hell they were thinking when they decided to put this place on the tourist map. It should be called The Valley Of Junk. This place is full of lame statues depicting love. There are lame funfair rides and a horse, of course. The whole place is a joke. The guide tells us that locals come here for honeymoon, for the day. When you walk down there is a lake with paddle boats shaped like swans, when we watched people loving this ride, there was such a noise coming from the boat because the whole thing is rusted. I could imagine this sort of thing working well in Durban, South Africa at Blue Lagoon, the Indians would love it!
Next stop was Crazy House. This is one crazy house, it is sort of like something from one of Dali's paintings. Each room is different with some weird interior finishes. The out side is a maze of stairs that look like dinosaurs bones. There is a huge spider web in the garden, a huge giraffe built into the side of one wall where you can sit inside the stomach of it,
and so it goes on.
The last stop was The Hand Embroidery Picture Gallery. Yay, all my life I wanted to go to a embroidery gallery, not! Boy was I surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The work done here is so amazing, they look like paintings. Not much to say but amazing and worth the trip. Also, while walking around, there was a section with photos of world leaders and famous people who had been there and receiving embroidery with a hand shake. Now, Linda noticed one with the King and Queen of Sweden, so we thought. When reading the plaque with the photo, it reads, ' King and Queen of Swissden'. Swissden? Is there such a place? Who proof reads these things before going to print? So funny to see, clearly they were not sure if the King and Queen were from Switzerland or Sweden, so to be safe they put Swissden, had to be one or the other!
As in life, all good things come to an end some time and so we made our way back to the hotel.
That night we decided to walk to the town centre for dinner. Very nice, we get
there and the whole town is without power. So we make our way back to the hotel and find a place across the road and were joined by our Israeli friends who had the same idea as us and also realized there was no power.
Early bed then as we are off to Nah Trang in the morning.
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