Dalat

Next morning it was a 7 hour bus ride to Dalat. Our bus made periodic stops, sometimes just bathroom breaks, and sometimes so that our driver could tighten the nuts on the wheel.

Seriously.

Dalat is great. It’s cool up here in the mountains. Even need to wear long sleeves at night. I love it. And it’s just got a great feel to it.. after stocking up with another 2 million dong at the ATM, and a nice dinner in the V Cafe the long bus rides just melted away.

Today we hired bikes from our (Excellent) hostel (Dreams), and headed out to the Lake of Sighs. Dalat is the honeymoon capital of Vietnam, and it certainly has some pretty cheesy sights… at the Lake you can hire paddle boats in the shape of swans. Yes, we would have been so up for that, but seeing as it’s low season there was no one about to open up. *sigh* ;)

After that we cycled back into town to check out the gardens, made it in before being ushered out ‘not open, not open’.. looks like their still working on it.. and then headed to the Crazy House (that’s its name). Run by the daughter of the successor to Ho Chi Minh, the place would *never* be allowed in Vietnam, let alone Dalat, except that she’s the daughter..

I actually really liked it. It’s gross, totally over the top concrete sculptures.

You can hire rooms (kangaroo room, gourd room, tiger room, ant room…) here for about $50 per night. If you want to.. :) Seriously though, it’s worth a look.

Then a quick trip to the Stop and Go Cafe. I actually went here for Artichoke Tea (surprisingly good) yesterday, but went back again with Mhairi (she’d been doing laps of the lake!). This time however the proprietor was about. A guy called Duy Viat. He used to be the mayor of Dalat, now a self proclaimed intellectual and zen kidna guy. He writes nice calligraphy poems though. And makes a mean cup of cherry tea… strums nicely on the guitar, and grows many orchids. I reckon he’s chosen a great place to retire!