How's the Serenity!

Church in Dalat
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We decided to go to Da Lat instead of the Mekong because of the heat and our desperate need not to be on another tour debacle. And we are very glad that we did. Da Lat is the playground of the Vietnamese and only 10% of it's tourists are foreigners. I'm not exactly sure why because it was very lovely and peaceful and you don't get harassed like you do in most of the other cities.

It's a quick and easy flight from HCMC (only 50 minutes) by a little plane and then a 30 minute drive up the hill from the airport. You pass through large vegetable growing areas here. They have literally used every possible available space to grow something. They also grow most of the flowers that you see in the markets in South Vietnam. The weather is really nice. A couple of times we even needed to put on long sleeves. It is about 25 during the day and drops down to about 20 overnight. It was even cooler than Sapa is at the moment but it doesn't have the same cold winters.

Mum at the Botanical Gardens in Dalat. Love the deers!
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We had two full days of sight seeing around Da Lat. We didn't go into the surrounding countyside at all. We were told that a lot of the waterfalls aren't great at this time of the year because they haven't had rain for a while. Da Lat has more than enough things to keep you occupied for a couple of days though just within the town. We started with the Flower Gardens which are really impressive. You walk for about 30 minutes around the edge of the lake (the woman at the hotel told us that it was far too far to walk and that we would have to take a taxi!) to get there and it is mostly on the flat. The garden isn't huge but has a really nice collection of local plants including some beautiful orchids. Unfortunately not many of them are flowering at the moment so we couldn't see many flowers but they had many other plants in flower. There is even a large area where you can buy the plants that are growing in the garden. Unfortunately customs would have had something to say about that and an orchid isn't easy to hide in your luggage (not that it would have fitted in ours!)

After the Flower Garden we walked around the golf course and university to get to one of the pagodas. It was really lovely though very small. The monks were having their lunchtime prayers when we arrived so we got to watch that also.

The market in Da Lat is one of the nicest looking markets and cleanest in Vietnam. They have some stalls in the street outside but most of it is inside in a very flash building that was made in the 50s. The whole place even smells nice. Though, that may be to do with all the tea and coffee and candied fruit that they sell rather than the place itself. You can walk through the market without being hassled and look at all the stuff.

On Tuesday we went in the opposite direction to go to Bao Dai's Palace which is on the top of one of the hills overlooking Da Lat. Bao Dai was the son of Khao Dinh (the guy whose tomb we visited in Hue) and was the final king of Vietnam. He liked the colder weather in Da Lat and spent many years living there. The palace is Art Deco in Style and very simple given he was the king while he was living there. Inside is much of the original furniture and art work and it's very interesting to walk around. The Vietnamese of course ignore all the signs and barriers and have their photos taken sitting on the furniture, so in 10 years time there won't be much left that is original. The gardens are a bit bizarre and there are statues of elephants,giraffes and a very frightening looking bunny. You can even dress up in ceremonial clothes and sit on the elephant and have your photo taken (very Vietnamese).

We wanted to go to another pagoda and see the crazy artist monk who lives there but when we finally found it (it is marked in the wrong place on both the maps that we have), it was closed and there was no sign of any art around. We wonder whether he has finally saved the money and gone on the world trip talked about in the Lonely Planet. We then headed to the Crazy House. It is very much in the style of Hundertwasser and looks completely out of place in a conformist place like Vietnam. You can wander around the buildings and get lost really easily. This is not the place to stay if you plan on coming back late at night after having been out drinking. It is very twisty and windy and has a lot of steep stairs. They are currently doing lots of renovations and making the place even bigger than it is already. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Da Lat.

The rest of the day we just wandered around the market again for a bit and rested as I've been unwell with a virus of some sort.

Wednesday we had to catch the bus back to HCMC. There is only one small plane a day so it rapidly fills up leaving everyone else to catch the bus. It took about 7 hours and was a reminder why you shouldn't do long bus journeys in Asia if you can avoid it. It didn't help that I had a terrible headache and sore back but I think that it would have been bad enough had I been feeling okay. We got a bus that was Vietnamese tourists because it leaves at a far more reasonable time. Unfortunately this meant that they brought all the things that they had bought in Da Lat onto the bus. LIke durians. Despite the sign at the bus station saying that you couldn't. The guide did find them and put them under the bus but it was too late. The entire bus smelt like rotting garbage and we didn't have windows that opened to get rid of the smell. So we just had to put up with it for 6 hours. If I'd known who had done it, I think that I would have had some choice words for them. We didn't have to stop for as long for lunch on the Vietnamese bus and the place had good cheap food as long as you know how to order in Vietnamese.

We got back to HCMC in the late afternoon and went to have some dinner quickly before going back to the hotel to pack yet again. Thankfully this time I got everything into the pack. Mum was impressed at how much actually fitted in the end. She thought that I would have to take the larger day pack with me for the rest of the stuff.

Thursday morning I said goodbye to Vietnam and headed onto Bangkok for my brief stopover on the way to China. Strangely enough I think that I'm going to miss Vietnam.