Da Lat (24 - 26 September 2007)
Da Lat is a small town in the mountains between Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City. Most tourists visit Da Lat for its cooler, more European weather. I wasn’t really sure why we were going there, seeing that European weather is not really appealing to me. This little town turned out to be full of surprises!
After checking in, we walked down the street to explore and strolled by a café with some locals having coffee. We greeted them “sin chao” and they smiled and invited us in. We order a coffee each and started chatting. The chatting soon turned to a pool invitation at ‘The Hang Out’ and then, later, to dinner. One guy in particular, Tyan, was such a treat! At first sight I was quite weary of him - 29 year old Vietnamese dude with piercings, longish hair and dressed in something looking like motorbike leathers. Tyan is an Easy Rider by profession - they have government permits to take tourists on out of town tours. So they drive you around and they also act as your tour guide. Tyan actually has a degree in tourism. We had such a great evening with him!
NOTE: do NOT, repeat, do NOT take Malaria pills on an empty stomach as it will just come right back up!! We had to visit the restaurant toilet before we could actually have dinner!
The next day we dwelled into town - firstly to the cable cars to take us to Robin Hill and Lake Tuyen Lam. We hiked through town about two kilometres - UP HILL!! (As we are too stingy to spend money on a moto). And the cable cars and lake was a total disappointment. We did get to see a very impressive pagoda, called Truc Lam, so it was not all in vain. From there we walked to ‘the Crazy House’ - this house is built to replicate an Alice in Wonderland surrounding. The house itself looks like a maze of tree branches, each room with a different theme and décor. At the same time amazing and creepy.
Da Lat has a Monk living on his own in the Lam Ty Ni pagoda. He is known as the Mad Monk, as he is a bit eccentric. He paints and sells his own paintings - and this is not true to a Monks nature as they are not to earn any money. Apparently, he could be quite temperamental and you should expect to find him in any of his many moods. We walked all the way to the pagoda to find that he locked the gate and was not seeing anyone - well, I think I’ll remember this trick for a bad PMS day!
The days’ walking had claimed its toll, and we had an early night and a good night’s sleep.
Click on image below to view Da Lat gallery:
