Dining in Delat

Dalat was a strange place and didnt quite match up with our expectations, this wasn't helped by the fact we arrived in the pouring rain and were dropped by our bus in the deadend part of town.

Renowned for its fresh produce all year round and fertile beautiful scenery it left us a little.... flat. Maybe we still wanted to be in Saigon. Also as we don't have much time in Vietnam we are forced to get on the guided tour routes with their fixed itineries and ideas of what tourists want to do. Its difficult for us to try to adapt to travelling like this rather than doing our own thing as for so long.

Still, for the things it is famous for Dalat delivered.... that has a nice ring to it..... Dalat delivered...blah. After an extensive bimble around Dalats extensive lake we viewed a few impressive nurseries - one with flowering Cycad Revolutai, gripping stuff I'm sure you'll agree. The central market in Dalat was just fantastic though, everything you want in a food market, every type of vegetable, herb or rice laid out or stacked in a filthy hall, light dimly falling in through dirty windows and tiny doorways, a scene that can not of changed for many years. A balcony above the market reveals a host of vegetable (com chay) restaurants where we eat with the local monks, gorging on every vegetable on earth, all fresh from the field. Over-gorging on Dalat's other famous export, it's wine, fills the evening and the next morning we leave on a ridiculously cramped bus to make the long trip up to Hoi An where we will spend our belated first anniversary. Our actual anniversary is spent whining about being ripped off for a bus without seats, we change at a truckstop at midnight and bribe our way onto a sleeper bus. Romantic it is not!

Photos to follow when we can.