Dalat is awesome.
Seriously, I had the best time there. It was the first place I’ve visited in Vietnam that I could actually imagine myself living one day. It was seriously abolsutely stunning, and unlike many other places in Vietnam, it's nice and cool due to its location in the central highlands, which was extremely nice after experiencing the humid beach weather of Nha Trang. The only real downside to Dalat was that my hotel was pretty much a dump. The staff were extremely unhelpful and spoke almost no English, which is a real bummer considering I've had really good experiences with hotel staff thus far. Then, when I checked into my room right away I noticed two cockroaches crawling on the bed. I pointed them out to the woman checking me in and she just laughed, killed them, and left me in the room to frantically inspect every crevice. During the next ten minutes I killed approximately 10 more cockroaches throughout the room before I decided to go and ask to be moved. In the first room she brought me to, we found another 3 cockroaches just looking around the room for a few seconds. I did eventually find a room that was suitable and only ended up killing one more cockroach during the next two days, but thit really makes me wonder why they would put me in a room that obviously had an infestation problems in the first place when there were better rooms available. Unforunately, the terribleness of this hotel did not end with the cockroaches. The hotel had these doorbell things on every door so people could ring them instead of knocking, for some reason, and I guess people felt the need to continually ring them throughout the night (even at four freakin' am). To make matters even worse, my floor had two big Vietnamese families staying on them, and they felt the need to be the least courteous and respectful people in the world and leave their doors open and talk all night. And man, Vietnamese people always seem to feel the need to yell when they talk. It was absolutely horrible, I swear I got about two hours of sleep the first night. Suffice it to say, they will be getting a horrible review from me on the site I booked them with. A piece of advice for anyone planning to travel to Dalat: don't book your hotel before you get there. Seriously, just don't.
Anyway, away from the negative and on to the positive. On my first day in Dalat I got there on the bus from Nha Trang at around 2:00 in the afternoon, and after checking in set out to explore the city. Unfortunately, it was the first city that I found myself in that I could not seem to navigate. Normally I just tear out the map from my Lonely Planet guide and wander around until I find something interesting, but Dalat is not laid out based on any sort of logical scheme or model. It's very hilly (much like La Paz or San Francisco) and the roads split off in a hundred different directions, making a map practically useless. Eventually, after almost three hours of aimless wandering, I found myself on a street with a lot of highly recommended restaurants and chose one, Peace House, to have dinner in. Myself and this other girl from New Zealand were the only people in the restaurant and we ended up striking up a conversation and getting along quite well. After a few hours of chatting, I headed back to my hotel room but not before picking up a bottle of local Dalat wine to try. Believe it or not, it was actually excellent, and at $2.50 a bottle I was more than surprised myself.
On my second day in Dalat, I booked myself a full day Easy Rider tour. The Easy Riders are a group of English (and many other language) speaking guides who specialize in both short and long distance travel in Vietnam via motorbike. Let me just say, I could not be more glad I got over my fear of motorbikes, because the Easy Rider tour was easily the best thing I’ve done since I’ve been in Vietnam. My driver, Quyen, was really great and very knowledgable. I was of course a little hesitant to head off alone into the countryside with a man I didn't know, but he was a total professional and he took me to some absolutely amazing places. Here are some highlights:
The Valley of Love
Paradise Lake
Big Gold Buddha
Look Mom! No Hands!
Eco Tour Village
Waterfall
It was seriously even more amazing than it looks. Almost all of the places he took me to I was literally the only person there. I went to a chinese pagoda and sat down for like and hour just because it was so quiet and peaceful. Unfortunately my camera died before the end of the trip, so there was a few things I did not get to photograph. I would really recommend these tours to anyone coming to Vietnam, I wish I had longer (and more money) to do a multi day tour. I have Quyen's card if anyone ever wants it!
So that was my time in Dalat in a nutshell, and much like with Hoi An, I really wished that I had more time to spend there. When I come back to Vietnam someday I'll definitely be doing a full week in the Central Highlands.
Well I suppose that's it for me this time. I'm currently sitting in a cafe in Saigon and leaving to go pick up my friend Lauren at the airport in a little over half an hour. We're spending the next two days in Saigon before heading off to Cambodia. It's hard to believe I've been in this country almost three months, and I'm really quite pleased that I've seen so much of it. The journey from Hanoi to Saigon is approximately the same distance as Halifax to Toronto, so that is a lot of cover in a week, but I did it and I couldn't be happier that I did. I have to say, I'm really going to miss this country, and I would highly recommend it as a vacation spot to anyone interested in travelling. Everything but the airfare is cheap, and it's a perfectly safe place to be (other than the traffic, but you get used to that). I know when I was leaving to come here, a lot of people reacted with wonder and amazement as to why I would ever want to go to Vietnam. But I think the question should be why wouldn't you want to come here? A place where travel is cheap, the people are friendly, and there's so much to see? Vietnam has something for everyone, from beach lovers, to trekkers, to adventure enthusiasts, to city lovers, to those who never want to leave their fancy resorts. I know after spending a few months here I will become an ambassador for Vietnam as a top travel destination; I really think everyone should visit.
So until next time, remember, just because you've heard a place is bad to travel in from people who really know nothing about it, doesn't mean you shouldn't go.
Sarah
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