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Published: August 28th 2009
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We arrived in Nha Trang early in the morning, and had a 2 hour wait for our connecting bus up to Da Lat. The journey took about 5 hours, and the last 3 were very steep and windy, and rather nerve wracking if you looked at how close we were to the steep cliffs on either side! We arrived mid afternoon, and decided not to stay at the hotel we had been dropped off at, despite their best efforts. Jen and Tor headed off to look for accommodation, and after about an hour and many hotels, managed to find us a nice room close to the centre of the town, for $10 a night. It was the first time we didn't have air conditioning or a fan, but the weather in Dalat is so cool you actually don't need it! Da Lat itself was a bit of a surprise after the description in the guide books ("Swiss Alps in the spring time") and visiting Sapa which looked much more like that description! We all started to wonder if we had made the right decision leaving Hoi An.
Our main reason for going to Da Lat was the Notorious 'Easy riders',
a gang of local motorbike riders who give you a tour round the local area, or further afield if you wish, and seem to be one of the main reasons for most tourists going to Da Lat, and the thing that everyone recommends to do on a trip to Vietnam. From the moment we stepped off the bus we had a couple of Easy Riders following our every step, splitting up so they could follow Tor and Jen on their walk, and then following our taxi back to the hotel. Even though it was our main reason for gong, we were a bit suspicious at being constantly harassed. Eventually we gave in and agreed to meet them at our hotel at 8:30 the next morning. That evening we spent a bit of time wandering around the town, including to the markets with all the seafood swimming around in bowls, baskets of frogs, and amazing varieties of fruit, which Da Lat is famous for. The more we wandered around the town, the more it grew on us, and it was such a nice change to walk around without sweating, we were even wearing long pants and jumpers which justified our decision
to bring them, and lug them around for the rest of our trip.
The next morning at 8:30 the Easy Riders met us as promised, and we set off on the backs of their motorbikes with Buffalo, Turtle, Monkey, and An the man who can, a.k.a. King of the Road. As you can probably tell, these guys had a great sense of humour, and took turns at explaining to us the sites we were visiting, and pointed out local landmarks as we rode past. We first visited a Buddhist temple, then walked up a hill for a great view over Da Lat and the surrounding fields (although this could have been because our guides wanted to play their favourite card game - "attack"). We then stopped off at a flower growers, and a coffee plantation, where we discovered that Vietnam is the second biggest coffee exporter in the world, and it is their biggest industry by far (even bigger than tourism). Form there, we went to the "elephant waterfall" and another pagoda, while our guides enjoyed another game of Attack!
We were taken to their local for a lunch of Pho (noodle soup) while they sucked the marrow
from some stewing bones, and we all enjoyed a shot of rice wine - maybe not the best idea considering our life was in their hands! Once we finished lunch, we headed back towards Da Lat, with the guides trying to overtake each other the whole way - we think maybe it was something to do with the rice wine. We got dropped off at the "Crazy house" - a guest house designed by a Russian trained Vietnamese architect, which is so crazy it can't be explained, you'll have to look at the pictures. We had a lazy rest of the evening, playing pool, drinking a few beers, and a rather average dinner.
The next morning we flew back to Saigon, for one last day with Simon and Tor before we flew out the next morning. Jake wasn't feeling too good so we had a fairly quiet day, just visiting the Ben Than market for some last minute purchases, and playing cards on Simon and Tor's huge balcony.
The next morning we flew to KL where we had an 8 hour stop, and as Jake still was feeling poorly, we decided to get a room at the airport
for 6 hours, and it ended up cheaper than storing our bags and getting a bus into the City. We flew overnight to Gold Coast, for the final leg of our holiday.
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