Ai Nghia Hotel Dalat

Dalat's a funky little mountain town, high up so you notice the drop in temperature. Its pretty and has a nice market selling lots of woollies. We have really nice rooms with telephones, so there's lots of late night phone calls (mainly flag related ones between ...

Xin chao (Hello)<br><br>Well I'm not sure about Paris of Vietnam but Dalat has I must admit has blown my mind away. The people are amazing, the place just beautiful and the and the atmosphere so relaxed you could stay here forever. The only thing that it doesn't have is the coast. But then it is 1475mtres up. <br><br>We spent the first day strolling around the town, slowly making our way to the cable car. The book promised sights that 'aren't ...

... Vietnam is the amount of Catholics here. You cant move for churches and in all the houses we visited there were pictures of Mary, Jesus and the rest of the gang. Other than Catholicism, Baguttes and architecture the french seemed to have left the Vietnamese to their own cultural ways when they colonised the country. Although it was wrong at least they allowed the people to carry on living in their own way, especialy in rural areas. Compare this with America ...

... a man in a boat hanging out extremely small cocktails (included in our tour package, naturally) and slices of pineapple. We bobbed in the water, sipping the fruity drinks for about twenty minutes before we were corralled back on to the boat and on our way to our final destination. We were actually allowed to set foot on the final island (after paying a dollar entrance fee, naturally), where we discovered that it wasn't more than a rocky beach with vendors selling overpriced ...

... we had met back in Malaysia<br>happened to be on the same sand dunes so we slid around with them too.<br>SO much fun!!!<br><br>Fishing Villages- The fishing villages are<br>super cute to just pass through and get more of a flavor of what Mue Ne<br>used to be.. just one street with a few scattered shops on either side.<br>I loved seeing all the docked boats just hanging around.<br><br>Da Lat (17/7- 19/7)<br><br>We arrived at Da Lat and dropped<br>off our bags ...

... her. She points out a long bloody scrape extending from her knee down to her ankle. What the!? <br><br>Thoughts of turbulence, luggage compartments spewing bags, and crash landings come to mind. Wait, is this MY plane!? Quickly my mind races for alternatives to boarding the plane - spend the night at the airport? Catch a flight somewhere else? Returning to my cell is not sounding so bad right now...<br><br>As I ...