17th - 21st March 2003, Dalat is a hillstation, situated way up in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We'd decided to head there at the last minute, instead of heading directly to Mui Ne. Apart from the spectacular views on the way up we we were pretty disappointed when we finally got there. Our hotel was a gray goverment run place - a real hole, but at $6 a night we weren't complaining.
Historically the place got off to a bad start from the first brick, as it was designed and built by the French. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the French, it's just that I can't understand who'd want to dump a load of French style architecture (which to be fair is pretty bland) on top of some mountains in the middle of Vietnam, there's even a mini Eiffel tower for crying out loud! However the Vietnamese seem to love the place and all honeymoon here - heaven knows why, the place has all the allure of Doncaster during the War. We did take a daytrip into the mountains while we were here though, just to see a few of the surrounding sights including a boring old French style palace of a former King, some boring waterfalls, complete with the famous Dalat cowboys (Vietnamese dressed up as the Lone Ranger.....please!) and a few other boring things. In fact the highlight of the trip was being driven round in an old Soviet army jeep by a psychopath - great fun! Not wishing to be too harsh on the place we did visit a minority village which was quite good, the central feature being a twenty five foot concrete rooster - don't ask. Sarah did however end up sitting at the back of class at a children's school during a maths lesson, which was a good laugh - she struggled with her Vietnamese three times table a bit though to be honest.
The most memorable thing about Dalat is a chap we met in the Peace Cafe called Thao. He was a motorbike tour guide (The Easy Riders) and after meeting him we so wished we'd splashed out the cash to spend a few days with him on a tour. We met every night we were in Dalat and just chatted about life in the South and all things Vietnamese. He was a very interesting guy and opened our eyes to a lot of things about the country. As we left Dalat for Mui Ne, Thao appeared at the tour office and brought a pot of Strawberry Jam for Sarah, he then rode behind the bus to the edge of town to wave us off. 'Xin Khao & Cam on, Thao!!' if you read our journal.
Not a lot to say about Mui Ne really, we just hit the beach and did nothing for a few days! After being delivered to the wrong place twice, (the driver had a scam going with some out of town hotels!) plus being hassled beyond belief by motrorcycle taxi's, we booked into a little bamboo hut on the beach - way too expensive at $13 a night but that was the cheapest we could find in the direct area we wanted to be. Although Mui Ne has the best beaches we've seen in Vietnam, as with all things here it could do with a good clean up. However we had a good time and some good food, which unlike the accomodation was cheap. We had two nights in Mui Ne, tans coming on great and we think we're now ready to face SAIGON!!
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