Central Highlands

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Arrived in Dalat after a bit of a mad bus journey. Was a smallish bus and full, (although not as packed as they were in Africa) and the roads were surfaced but with loads of potholes as we were winding up the mountain. Weren't that many cars on the road, but some had broken down or stopped for whatever reason, and our driver always stopped and hopped out to have a chat!

Dalat is a bit of a random town, kitsch is the best way to describe it (the guidebook says so and does Helen, I've never heard of that word before). And the weather is very English, we walked around a lake yesterday and it started to rain - cold rain!! I'd forgotten how miserable cold rain is! It's like England towards the end of September, so been wrapping up warm.

Been walking around Dalat, and some young Vietnamese guys came up to us and asked to have a photo taken with us, random but not as random as when we arrived at the airport in Saigon - I don't think I put this story up here. Either way we were waiting for our transfer to bring his car round (we were the only western people there) and next to us was a Vietnamese family who had moved back from the US, they had boxes and boxes of stuff and all their family had gathered to greet them. Obviously they were all really happy, and they were taking photos of it, next thing we know, we're looking the other way and they're taking photos of themselves with us. I guess maybe it added to the excitement of moving home, seeing 2 incredibly tall white people!? They're quite funny about photos here actually! When we've been doing touristy things, the guides insist that you take photos, so you end up taking them so as not offend!!

So today we went for a day trip around the local area with 2 of the local 'easy rider' guides. It was fantastic!! The scenery around here is quite unique, rolling hills, terraced farming, forest. Went into a few of the touristy things, a silk factory which was interesting, various farms, pagodas etc. It's been great to have locals to talk to, and they can take you to places that the regular tourist trail misses - is nice to see that side of Vietnam. I'd missed that, living with Africans was like having permanent tour guides and means you can see a fascinating side to the country.

We've decided to hire our guides for the next few days to take us to our next destination and I cannot wait, getting off the tourist trail and having a bit of an adventurer riding up through the middle of Vietnam! Certainly beats taking the bus with all the drunk beach-bums who Helen named 'crap-packers', we've met some lovely backpackers, but we've found there's a big difference between people who get into the cities and countryside and people who beach hop, often one of the first questions when you meet someone is often are you a beach or city person. But the bus and the route sometimes makes you feel like a sheep and I'm glad that we're going to be doing something different.

I'm in the reception of our hotel, and the young guy behind the desk is almost bursting with excitement!! Apparently the 'most' famous Vietnamese film star, Diem My has just checked in and asked him to watch her bags, he's singing so loudly and dancing around with excitement! Ooo she just walked through, she's quite pretty, very tall for a Vietnamese! He looks like his eyes might pop out, he's had to sit down to recover, oh back to dancing, he's recovered fast.

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