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Published: September 17th 2008
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Hello again. Since our last message we got a overnight bus to Dalat. We arrived at 5.45 before any of the guest houses seemed to be open and roamed the streets until a lady in curlers finally ran out of one asking if we wanted a room. After a short nap we hired a bike and explored what Dalat had to offer including some local villages, a mountain and some lovely waterfalls surrounded by utter weirdness. It was like walking into another world with all the horses and Vietnamese men dressed as cowboys, random plastic animal dotted around and domestic tourists who felt the need to stop Sam and ask to have photos taken with her...When we returned into Dalat itself we were shocked to pass by a lady laying in the road, yet being unable to speak Vietnamese and the masses of traffic passing her we thought it was best to stay out of it. That was until we returned on the same road 15 minutes later when she was still laying in the road with traffic dodging her. We pulled over and tried to stir her, seeing this some more Vietnamese ladies came over to help. After lifting her
off the road a man appeared with Panadol which she was given for a sore head. We were both confused as the lady offering assistance kept pointing to her head, until another lady speaking English came over and told us not to worry she was crazy...thats ok then...Thinking we could offer no more help we left to get some food at a place where we could watch what happened. After around 10 minutes the 'injured' lady was left to stumble down the street alone again. We watched as she soon sat on the road for a minute or two before carefully placing here head back on the road in the 'injured' position and so the process continued...That evening we went to find an authentic restaurant where we sat down to wait for a menu to suddenly have food put in front of us. It appears the restaurant was perhaps a little too authentic for us and the sign outside (in Vietnamese) indicated one kind of food only. At least it was edible (basically Chicken and rice with a random soup) and came to a grand total of $2.50 for the both of us.
The following morning we caught an early
bus to Nha Trang. Unfortunately the company was pretty tragic and we had an awful journey. Once here we found a nice place to stay and had a wander down the beach (Nha Trang is meant to be 'the beach resort' of Vietnam. It is no where near as the Thai beaches which hasn't been helped by the fact it is still overcast). We then took a taxi out to a nearby thermal mud bath for a chill afternoon. We started by wallowing like pigs in a jacuzzi like thing full of slimy mud along with two Vietnamese men (one quite elderly one who insisted on sliding around putting his feet in our face and suggested Sam should put the mud all over her head). After getting sufficiently filthy we had a hot mineral shower before stewing in a hot mineral bath. It was very relaxing but we both came out exhausted. We went for a little dip to finish in the swimming pool. Sam was in for all of 30 seconds before she noticed the Vietnamese men even spit in the Swimming pool and was out like a rocket. On a side note we should mention spitting seems to
be somewhat of a craze in Asia, with people doing it outside, inside, in restaurants (dropping any food they don't like out of their mouths onto the floor) and now apparently in the pool.
Today we planned to have a long awaited lie in with an alarm set for 9am. However we were less than impressed when we were woken at about 7 to music which sounded like the Islam call to prayer. We had to give in and leave the room it was so irritatingly. We gave a good glare to the people who were responsible for the music on the way out. On our return it was still going to we asked the lady in our Hotel what it was about...turns out somebody died yesterday. Oops...Just our luck. We are just glad we refrained from screaming out of the window this morning. We then planned to hire a bike and get the ferry over to one of the nearby islands. We went down to the dock where we were told that the public ferry was not good looking and could not be used by tourists (were guessing this has something to do with the little man standing near
her who wanted us to rent a boat from him). In a grump we did a change of plan. We drove up North of the city to see a Hindu Temple. Drove to see a Buddhist Pagoda and then to the Oceanographic Insititute for a look around. Tonight we have booked a night bus to Hoi An which is meant to be lovely so we are looking forward to it as we don't really think much to here. We are also planning to treat ourself to a hotel with working appliances, no holes in the walls and no leaking sink and if we are lucky even a pool...although are not willing to spend more than 10 pounds...
Will send updates again soon.
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