Into the Hills
Trip Start
Nov 26, 2007
1
19
44
Trip End
Apr 17, 2008
Dalat,
Vietnam
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Out back on this boat was quite an experience, we must have been doing 40 knots so it was freezing cold and anything you let go off would get whisked into the water. I was quite happy that it was too loud for talking to Dutch people anyway as I wasn't in the mood at all for some reason today.
We were in Saigon within 4 hours where I had to spend the night before getting the early bus to Dalat. I booked onto one of the tourist buses as it had been a few days since I spoke to anyone properly and figured I should think about making some new friends again. I also took the opportunity to trade in the finished Pol Pot book in favor of a Vietnam history book. The books are amazing value in Asia; they are all photocopies obviously but where else can you buy a brand new history or Lonely Planet for 2 quid!! Shame that when I opened this Vietnam one the copying was like we used to get at school back in the day before photocopier5s were what they are now...lesson of the day...take wrapping off copied books before buying them...still its totally readable, just pictures are a bit rubbish.
The last night in Saigon I got talking to a 20yr old American chick who was over here as part of her degree. Got talking to her mainly resulting from the Vietnamese waitress coming and sitting next to me and asking if I was married etc...for the 1st time in my life went with the 'yes' answer...it still didn't stop her, she asked what i was doing the next evening and when I said I was going to Dalat to which I got the answer..."ah, Dalat very cold you know, man like you need girl to share bed to stay warm...". Very nice, and very pretty but not really my kinda pulling line. So the end result of all this was I ended up having a few beers with the American girl, we went to another bar and people started coming up to her and saying they had seen her on TV...Turns out on of the Vietnamese blokes she was working with had invited her to a party for Tet (new year), when she got there it was announce3d that her and her friend were to go on stage and sing karaoke..on live TV!! I saw the video on her camera and it was pretty funny. I would have run a mile myself.
At 7am was on the bus outta Saigon. Was pretty lucky to get sat next to a Vietnamese geyser who had went to uni in California so we got talking. The bus ride to Dalat was uneventful, mostly because I was so tired I couldn't really read etc. The last bit of the journey was through nice scenery as we started the climb into the Central Highlands. Arriving in Dalat we were dropped off as usual in the back end of town next to a hotel where the bus company wanted us to stay so I just set off with my backpack walking around town. I had just about picked a couple of options to try out when a woman came running up to me all smiles and happiness and said she had a hotel with rooms for $5 so thought I might as well check it out. So I ended up paying 5 bucks for a night in a hotel with free tea/coffee, satellite tv etc. I asked about getting breakfast as well and she said she couldn't do that for the price but for an extra 20,000 Dong (75p) she would provide all the ingredients so that I could make my own brekkie!! It turned out to be a brilliant idea, the kitchen was in a big conservatory on top of the hotel and I could relax in the morning chatting to people and getting the Vietnamese people to show me how to make the coffee etc the correct Vietnamese way!!
I met a Belgium girl (Yentle) the 1st night and tried to persuade her to come on a motorbike with me and go hiking the next day. She said 'see you around' which I took as a no but then the next morning bumped into her again when she seemed quite keen on the idea. So we set off to climb Lang Bian mountain. It was beautiful hike (well it was once we were off the tarmac road that locals seemed to use as proxy roller-coaster ride in jeeps) - it started off in Scotland walking through a light forest of pine trees before passing into heavy jungle as we went higher on the mountain before ending in a swiss mountain meadow on the top of the hill. What was just as good as the hike was that we met a few new friends that we were to share evening with over the next few nights (a dutch guy, an English guy and a french banker girl).
Dalat is a bizarre little town sitting at 1500m above sea level. First of all it gets cold in the evenings- for the first time in 3 months I was forced to wear shoes and long trousers. The temperature makes out for all sorts of comedy outfits by the locals; you would think they were at the north pole the way some of them were wrapped up. There is a total hotch potch of architecture going on here, from french colonial villas to summer palaces to churches to pagodas. The distinct difference for me from the south though was the friendliness of the people; in Dalat the locals actually seem to see you as a person and want to communicate with you. The only annoying thing is these 'Easy Riders' that they have which are basically motorbike guides who want to try and charge you $40 a day to go around the sights of Dalat or further for anything up to 2 weeks cramped onto the back of a 125cc Honda dream...mmm..nice. They are constantly coming up to you for business and won't take no for an answer...persisting with the where are you from questions..and when I said Scotland they would instantly produce a reference book with glowing Auch Aye The Noo comments from Hamish McTame from Glasgow who had been on the back of a bike with them back in 2003...brilliant...so I decided the best thing to do was to get on a bike myself and try out my own version, more interesting than you would think. Nothing at all like what I was taught to do in the UK. Basically there are no rules and you never try to anticipate what you or anyone else is going to do. I am sure this worked fine on dirt tracks in 1940 with bicycles but add roundabouts to the equation and its gets silly. Instead of stopping at the junction one just drives straight into the middle of the roundabout and then wait for others to drive around you or slow down if you have to. Even this works fine as most people drive slower than they would back home and the of horn tooting gives you eyes on the back of you head. Where it fails is that there is an unwritten rule that the bigger your vehicle the less you have to care about anything so buses just hurtle straight onto the roundabouts at 40km/he and expect the road top clear in front of them. Largely it does but its bloody scary at times. Anyway, me and Yentle went driving to the hills, lakes and waterfalls (complete with comedy roller-coaster down to the falls for the locals who don't like to walk!!) of Dalat with no mishaps at all.
I had some lovely food in Dalat, the 1st night I sat in a little cafe on my own but a Vietnamese couple came and sat next to me and I ended up sharing all their traditional food to try it which was awesome. The other nights I had tea with Yentle at a vegetarian stall in the market (basically the second floor of the market was just full of food stalls of different descriptions; this seemed to be where all the locals ate. the vege food was amazing - basically I just ordered a plate of rice with about 10 different varieties of tofu product on top all served with extra spicy chili sauce!!
3 nights was quite enough in Dalat in the end but decided to go back south to the beach with Yentle and 2 of the other guys I had met hiking since it was bloody freezing to the north. So Mui ne here we come!!
Dalat photos.
