Blogs from Da Lat, Lam Dong, Central Highlands, Vietnam, Asia - page 35

After Hoi An I was a bit tired of cities, having not seen anything but since Laos. So I took an overnight bus that eventually dropped me off at Da Lat, a city further inland that is set amongst the southern highlands, which along with wonderful scenery, provided a welcome respite from the heat. The city itself is not all that exciting, and as the number one tourist destination for Vietnamese, it is quite touristy, but my main enticement was the surrounding countryside, which is pleasantly rugged and on top of being quite scenic. I arrived in the afternoon and did nothing exceptional for the rest of the day because I am always a bit wiped after an all night bus ride. Went to bed early after indulging in some mindless entertainment (MTV Asia of all ... read more

Finally some cooler weather! In Da Lat we even had to drag out the jumpers as we wandered past the lake and mini Eiffel Tower in the evening. Lonely Planet described Da Lat as very kitsch and they weren't kidding. We hired motorcycle guides and zoomed our way around the city and beyond, seeing all sorts of tacky sights and stunning vistas in between. There was one awesome pagoda (the Linh Phouc I think) where giant dragon sculptures were made from pieces of beer bottles and decorated with mosaics of broken crockery. The views from the top weren't too shabby there eithere. The strawberry shakes and lollies were great (so much better and more addictive that the coconut lollies), as were the vegetarian noodles from the friendly guy at the market. Sadly the over-the-top tacky, the ... read more

On Feb 14, we are still in Mui Ne. we revisited the Red Canyon, the Red Sand dunes. We also visited the "Fairy Stream" and its nearby waterfall. The Fairy Stream is a stream, with red sand bottom. On one side, there is white sandstone, or a little higher, red sand. On the other side of the stream, there is a lot of coconut trees. We visited this stream three times, with different daylight. The pictures turned out wonderfully. We will post a picture whenever we get a chance. We really enjoyed the hospitality of the family who run the guesthouse (Kim Loan Guest House). Their son, who is 14 years old, acts more like an 18 year old. He speaks excellent English, and he learned it from speaking to the tourist. He reminded us so ... read more

Well, since our morotbiking escapades, we headed for the central highlands of vietnam. This sounded liek a great way to hop of the tourist coveyor belt, which seems to drop to drop backpakcers off in every major beach up and dnwon the coast of vietnam. Our bus ride was wprhte the 5 dollars it cosst us to get here. We had front row seats to the countryside - viewing moutnains, rice farms, and capsized pop trucks. Halfway through we traded in our loively rickety small bus for a larger more....comfy one. As the southeast asaias travellers bible (lonely planet) says, Dalat is roughly 1480 meters above sea level...and belive us, the drive up the windy road on the side of mountian made this very clear. Dalat, though in asia, is verrry european-looking... colourful buildings everywhere, and ... read more

Yo yo yo! So a couple of weeks ago I went on a trip to Dalat, which is 8 hours on the coach but a 40 minute flight (we flew!) and it is in the Central Highlands so Moira and I were quite excited about the prospect of wearing sweatshirts!!! We had been warned that the weather would be cold and quite possibly raining so a beal from the sweat patches of Ho Chi Minh sounded ike paradise! We flew out on the early Monday morning and we got to our hotel where we dropped off our rucksacks and headed back out for breakfast. We were actually surprised at how cold we were! The wind was quite strong and it was constantly drizzling. My jeans were soaking and I had about 4 layers on yet I ... read more