Blogs from Da Lat, Lam Dong, Central Highlands, Vietnam, Asia - page 33

Dalat Dalat is a small peaceful hill station deep in the mountainous region of Trung Son in the central highlands. Dotted with lakes, waterfalls and evergreen forests makes this town an ideal retreat for some relatively tourist free trekking. Previously named ‘Le Pettit Paris’ when Vietnam was a former French colony this town is unlike any I have previously seen in Asia. Most the buildings have an odd familiar European feel, the older generations of Vietnamese speak fluent French and even to this day there is a miniature replica of the Eiffel tower. (Which if you have a keen eye you can just about see on one pic!) Another first experience for me in Asia was the cold. With the town of Dalat seated at over 1500m high it was no longer shorts and t-shirt time ... read more

LETS OFF ROAD! We've got a 1 in 3 incline with..... Ok, ok so you may all not appreciate the "man chat" but I'm not kidding, we did some extreme sports in Dalat. First day there, in the bizzare, rainy, dated suburb of a German town style place, we signed away our safety to Phat Tyre Adventures. Day 1 - Bike and Hike Firstly we were taken out of town on our bikes, up various inclines and to the ridge above town. There, sweating with fear and lack of fitness we started a true downhill section through the pine forests, skidding behind our guide who kept refering to Charlotte as 'weak'. Which was rather unsupportive given the task ahead and the difficulty of the terain. Then onwards for many miles of track to a lake surrounded ... read more

First things first, I have to apologise for a lot of these photos being blurry. Our crap camera has struck again! After yet another early start of around 7am, we boarded our bus to Da Lat, which is a small town in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The bus was surprisingly empty so we claimed the back seat and assumed the 4 hour journey was going to be a pleasant one. After 4 hours we arrived at an unknown destination where we picked up a number of locals.....and their families......and their pets.....and their motorbikes! Nah it wasn't that bad, but still a squeeze. Although, I have seen buses drive past with mopeds and bicycles attached precariously to the roof! We asked our driver how far we were from Da Lat, who told us that we had ... read more

Ah Dalat! The cool climate, lack of hawkers and relaxed atmosphere in this hill town suit me nicely after the intense humidity and annoying shouts of Saigon. I spent my last day there sending out postcards and taking a walk. And thus I went north to Dalat. The main insustries in Dalat and flowers, art, cheesy tourism (fake Eiffel tower anyone?) and coffee. Most tourists here are middle class Saigonese and western backpackers are comparatively thin on the ground. Last night I went into a cheap local restaurant and, after getting a little absorbed in my food, looked up and found that I'd gathered a large audience of small children. Whether they were staring at my skin tone, bizzare table manners was amystery, though it was probably a mix of both. I grinned and waved and ... read more

Thursday - We checked out of our hotel and waited for our open tour bus to Da Lat. Without access to the pool we became miserable in the un-air conditioned lobby of the hotel and conditions did not improve much on the cramped bus. Piled high with luggage we started out of Mui Ne along the coast before turning inland. About thirty minutes in to the drive the bus driver got a call from a resort in Mui Ne for one of the passengers. As the driver spoke no English a good ten minutes of misunderstanding and comedy preceded the realization that the call was for us and that our hotel had failed to charge us for the very expensive call we made to try and resolve a credit card issue again with Capitol One. The ... read more