Blogs from Central Highlands, Vietnam, Asia - page 15

Dalet here, saying xin chao Up early in Da Lat, this frenchy-feeling village out of the coast. It's cold here - by which i mean I can wear trousers. I went out with the aforementioned easy-riders today. Mine was a bloke called "Windy". He had no flatulence (sp) trouble as far as I could see/smell so the name apparantly came from his speed. That was not the case, but his ability to receive a phone call up a windy mountain road was impressive - negotiating mental drivers (and mental driving) one handed in perilous circs. Have to praise the easy-riders though - it was great to see the Vietnam highlands countryside from the back of a cruising motorbike - some beautiful landscapes and a great way to see Vietnam unseen by us stinking westerners! With these ... read more

One of our favourite places so far. Cool, calm and charming, Dalat is like no where else we have been. As it is in the Central Highlands, it has completely different scenery. Conifers replace palm trees, mountains replace long stretches of sand, and cool evenings replace the hot, humid ones. The air temperature here was much cooler yet the sun was still as hot as ever, but just that slight difference made walking around a lot easier. The hills however did not, and we spent ages walking up and down them. The town is situated around a beautiful lake (which looked smaller than it was), and we spent the afternoon wandering around it, stopping off at a well kept flower park along the way. The park had some lovely views as well as cheap yummy ice-cream ... read more

Easyriders: Lorsqu'on part en voyage, on a toujours des idées préconçues sur le pays visité. Des clichés. Si vous prenez quelques secondes pour penser au Vietnam, vous aurez des images qui vous apparaîtront en tête selon ce que vous avez vu dans les encyclopédies ou sur Discovery Channel. Des clichés. C'est ce qu'on à tendance à rechercher, c'est ce qu'on s'attend à voir lors d'un voyage: on recherche la confirmation de nos clichés. Souvent, on s'aperçoit que ce que nous nous faisions comme idée d'un pays s'avère être totalement différent de la réalité. Choc de culture. Le Vietnam n'est certainement pas que des rizières, et le Vietnam n'est pas que Saigon. Si on demeure sur la route touristique, on aura peut-être tendance à être déçu. Je n'ai jamais vu autant de surfers trop cool qu'à Mui ... read more

What to stay about Dalat? Well, it’s cold, it’s made from concrete and if it really is the prime honeymoon destination of Vietnam I’ll eat my hat. We only stayed two nights in the end and then all decided to hit the beach instead. The one good thing about Dalat was discovering Dalat wine. The climate up in the mountains isn’t too dissimilar to parts of northern Italy or chilie or somewhere that makes good wine. And thus you could get a pretty pleasant bottle of plonk for about £2. It was with sore heads we got on he bus to Muine the next morning, because who wouldn’t want to go careering down the side of a mountain in a bus with a hangover??? Note to all: you can get Dalat wine elsewhere in Vietnam, don’t ... read more

We left Mui Ne to head for the central highlands of Vietnam into a rural town called Dalat. The bus journey up was a bit crazy, a long windy journey up through the mountains that was making us feel a bit sick. Dalat is inland and is quite high above sea level so we were in for a bit of a chilly surprise when we arrived as it was freeeeezing!!! (The first time we experienced cold weather since leaving bonnie Scotland!). Dalat was built under a lot of French influence when Vietnam was a French colony, the town looks like it belongs in the Alps. It was like a little Paris with its own 'Eiffel Tower' replica. We really liked the look it had, and it was very different to anywhere we’d seen so far. We ... read more