Lavy Hotel Dalat

... were just the taxi guys who can take you to your hostel, but then once we got there they said "so have you heard of the Easy Riders...that's us!" - very clever! It just so happened we were taken to the hostel by "The Founder" of the Easy Riders (we also met "The Pioneer" whilst walking around town and were pretty sure if we looked hard enough that we could find "The Originator" too!) so booked to go with him and his cronies the following day on a tour around the countryside ...

... in 3 weeks, this one wasn't too bad but it goes to confirm our resolve not to ride on these things as people here drive with 2 amputated feet.<br><br>We also went to visit a Lat village, which is inhabited by the Lat ethnic people. There are 5,000 people in the village, 3,500 of whom are Catholic and 1,500 are Protestant. The missionaries did a hell of a job here. We were greeted by the village leader, a feisty 64-year-old man who had to apologise to ...

... k*ffe och f*r en l*ng och v*ldigt intress*nt lektion i k*ffedrick*nde, vietn*mese style. En konst. H*n ber*tt*r om sig sj*lv och om sin bst* v*n fr*n Sverige som h*n tr*ff*de i sp*nien, bl*bl*. Inn*n h*n g*r s* s*ger h*n *tt om vi vill t* en m*ss*ge s* s*g b*r* *tt vi k*nner mr B*o s* f*r ni r*b*tt. Ibl*nd *r det j*kligt nice *tt bo lite dyr*re.<br><br><br>

... day taking in the usual sights of Reunification Palace, Opera house, Notre Dame cathedral and a few museums. The pick off the day was the War Remnants Museum which funnily enough is full of remnants from the war! Its a really good museum and has loads of planes, tanks and **** out the front but no camera for me!! The place is another head **** tho as you leave the place with that same mix of sadness, dispair and an overwhelming hatred for the ****ers who started it ...

... called "Pete" and "Tony" apparently and they randomly liked to rap. We saw many things including: a dragon pagoda, a flower plantation, coffee plantation, rice wine distillery, some elephant waterfalls, a silk farm where we learnt how to make silk from the silk worms. On the journey back through the beautiful countryside and amazing views of mountains we stopped at a random piece of architecture called the crazy house ...

... turns inward, so that you are forced to drop your feet and just sail down the rope. At the same time, a massive waterfall comes in from the left and hits your body, propelling it to downward and sideways at the same time (like a washing machine). Toward the bottom, we were instructed to let go and let the washing machine push us out. It was really fun! Once we arrived at the instructor's side, he asked "Do you feel clean now?" <br><br>After another hike up a ...

... br><br> Next stop the Truc Lam Meditation Center, overlooking the serene Tuyen Lam Lake. The Mediation Center could possibly be serene as well if it weren't for the dozens of tourists that came over with us from the palace. With the place crawling with tourists, I'm not sure how any mediation could possibly get done. Chatted with a monk, and sure enough, approximately 100 monks and nuns practice at the monastery. It was evident from the ...

... girls and I went for our last meal and then in the morning it was a sad farewell and off back to Ho Chi Minh City and my flight out of Vietnam to Malaysia and the next chapter.<br><br>Vietnam had been an amazing surprise. I had heard so many negative comments but I absolutely loved it. It&#8217;s an enchanting place. The country is beautiful, so is the food and under there hard exterior, having been through so much terror, so are the people.

... Buddha as the centrepiece, but with a somewhat bizarre bright neon halo above his head?! <br><br> <br><br>It was quite cool, and there was another chubby but happy Buddha outside on the steps, to wish us luck with our travels. <br><br>I managed to frame a photo ...

... narrator of this sorry tale nearly lost it with the tw@ts in charge, who refused to move some short people so that we could swap seats with them. <br><br>The worst thing was that there were only about 10 people on the bus at that time, so all they had to do was give a Vietnamese couple a different seat number?! They just weren't interested in being helpful, so it didn't bode well for the rest of the journey ...