Novotel Dalat

... 000-12,000 dongs and our guide and driver thought it was scandalous to pay that much for a fruit. But pay we did and now we have a mother of a big pomelo sitting in our hotel room. Since we're leaving for Saigon tomorrow, Pierre wanted to give it to the hotel owner but there is just no bloody way i'm letting him off the hook since he INSISTED on buying the beast. We're gonna eat the damn thing even if we have to carry it all the way to Saigon by aeroplane ...

... these Open Tour buses (which are designed for the tourists, and much more comfortable than the local buses) is that they drop you at a hotel, so everyone bundled in, and within 5 minutes I'd managed to get myself one of the best rooms in the hotel for $8. Felt a bit guilty cos they really wanted $10, but I said $8 was all I could afford (and was what I'd been told by the tout outside) and started to walk out the door, they called me back ...

... 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 ...

... various themed rooms and the overall ambiance of the hotel is nightmarish, characterized by twisting stairwells, faux wire spiderwebs, imitation trees and bizarrely shaped windows and bedrooms. It is a mockery of architecture, but apparently a source or pride for the community, as photos of the architect are proudly displayed all over the establishment in addition to an entire room dedicated to a biography of her life. After the Crazy House we walked past the gorgeous ...

... and drinking and
decided to stop by. Just ordering french fries was a task and seemed to
take forever. While waiting for our order we befriended the other peeps
at the next table and they shared a shot of the rice wine with us
(gross) and gave me their emails. It was a nice way to end our stay in
DaLat. While we loved the cool Da Lat air, we were ready to move on
since we wanted to see so many things in such a short amount of time.

Dalat, Vietnam carrienica05

... encourage them to hurry up...all this while the plane is taxing down the runway!

After a short flight, we begin our descent into the mountainous area surrounding Dalat. From up above the landscape looks like a patchwork quilt of browns, reds and shades of green pieced together. No skyscrapers, no busy highways, and best of all, no motorbikes in site! Woo hoo! We land at an itty bitty building, posing as an ...

... br>I stopped for coffee (oh as well as the food, the coffee is amazing in 'nam too!) and some holidaying vietnamese from the Mekong delta came to talk to me.... I am either super-attractive over here or the people are really friendly!
It was a great day - great driver - great weather - great rural scenery and a glimpse at rural life here - and fresh air!!

I wanted to take an Easy rider trip to my next destination, Nha Trang, but it was a tad expensive so ...