Da Lat

Intro - Saigon - Vung Tau - Da Lat - Nha Trang - Road to Ha Long Bay - Ha Long Bay - Ha Noi


	The town of Da Lat

From Ba Ria and Vung Tau, we drove through many towns as we wound our way upwards into the mountains.

On the way, we saw many rubber and coffee plantations and everyone was drying their coffee beans in any way possible. Many people had a spread of fresh beans on the side of the road, where people rode their bikes on it and even livestock was walking over it.

There were many large villas throughout the countryside interspersed with old wooden shacks. The prosperity of the people was not consistent. I had brought a book to read along the 6 hour drive, but I ended up looking out the window most of the time at the beauty of the hillside. The soil was a bright orange. There were buffalo in the road and many small children who looked like they would walk a mile to school and back. Someone had even parked their motorcycle in the middle of the road.

The whole time, the driver continued to honk at anything that moved and at some things that didn’t. He honked at a cow once, just to make sure he was seen.

When we arrived in the city, we found a nice hotel and settled in.

Tired from the 6 hour car ride, we took a cab to and from lunch, rested in our room and had room service for dinner, not really wanting to go out quite yet to explore.

The next morning, Hoa and I got up early and walked around the lake, which was about three and a half miles. It was pleasant and we realized that the great weather is one of the reasons why the locals enjoy Da Lat. It was also about 10-15 degrees cooler than elsewhere, and that was a break to us, even though the locals said that it was freezing. In reality, it was about 70-75 degrees, which was nice.

After the walk around the lake, we hired a driver that was recommended to us by the hotel and he drove us around Da Lat. He showed us why this place was a popular honeymoon destination for the locals.

We went to the Crazy House, which was an unfinished, bizarre Disney-esque hotel with rooms such as the ant room and the bear room. The rooms were mostly made to look like they were carved from a giant tree or were from the town of Bedrock. It was odd to me that this was a popular tourist destination for the locals and a woman was overheard on a cell phone saying how amazing this place was. We didn’t get it. An interesting experience.

We visited another one of Bao Dai’s palaces. We looked out over the beautifully manicured grounds among the trees and felt the cool breezes. It was a beautiful day.

While there, we met a woman who worked wood by hand with a small hand-held saw. We sat by her booth for a while as she made some plaques for us. We were impressed by her craftsmanship.

After that, we took a scenic gondola ride through a valley that looked like a patchwork quilt from all the farming.

We visited a Buddhist Temple that was next to a beautiful lake. At the temple, we placed incense at the altar. Cuong and I got separated from the girls and we waited on the steps, overlooking the lake and breathing in the aromatic country air.

We saw suspicious-looking plants (see picture near bottom of page) on the way to a waterfall in the forest. We could swear we smelled this plant burning every where we went.

We climbed to the top of the falls and relaxed in the shade. It was not the endless jungle that I expected from Viet Nam. There were actually pine trees. We saw some of the Lat people cleaning clothes in the stream. The Lat people are what we would call Native Americans. They live in traditional villages and speak different dialects.

We visited the University of Da Lat, which was a nice campus next to farmland. People tried their English out on us as we walked by, smiling and laughing.

For lunch, we had the best meal yet. It was more seafood, but this time with rabbit. It was delicious and it was a good recommendation from the driver and probably tasted good because all of the walking we did during the day.

At this time, we pretty much decided that we wanted this driver to drive us to Nha Trang. He was a nice guy who wanted us to enjoy ourselves.

That night at around midnight, we heard a baby shrieking and then evil laughter. It repeated several times and then it was gone. It ended up being a drunken man being mean to a baby, but at the time, we thought the worst.

The next morning, we left for Nha Trang.


Valley farmlands


More farms	Tree row


Palace Grounds	The mountain lake


Incense at the temple


Basket ladies


Suspicious-looking plants


The path to the lake	No climbing, dangerous, kills people


Statue by the lake


The wood artist

<- Back - Next ->

Feel free to contact me.