Monday 14th September 2015
This morning we
left our comfy nest in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and flew off (VERY cheaply!) to
Dalat.
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| Ho Chi Minh City photo time! |
It is quite
different here, in the highland farming area.
MUCH cooler! We have gone from 37
degrees to about 19…and it is raining.
Not monsoonal downpour, but Tasmanian-style drizzle.
So we have gone
from being expats to being tourists.
 |
| Nifty panorama shot of the view from 4th floor, River Prince hotel |
Our hotel is the
River Prince, grandly named for a non-existent river. There is, however, a large lake.
And we should
really have been staying at this hotel, further up the hill.
This a very big
city! Who knew?? (206,000)
We spent a bit of
time watching, with fascination, as two young blokes loaded TWO large mirrors
onto the back of a motorbike
And off they went,
on the slippery wet road…
We are here for
two nights, then off again on the tourist trail.
Yesterday we
wandered around Ho Chi Minh City being tourists instead of expats. I am fascinated by the Communist iconography
all over the city.
Ho Chi Minh coming
and going!
and I was mightily
impressed with these four people comfortably managing to ride one small moped…
 |
| Dad plus his three daughters |
When we go back I
want to spend time in this book shop, where I might buy something to read
intellectually…
Tuesday 15th September
Today we had a
great Dalat Day. We joined a party of
backpackers in a small bus and saw the sights of the countryside, with a
delightful guide, Tiep.
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| Pete and Tiep |
The backpackers
were great and regaled us with tales of their travels and of the hostels they
have stayed in…Some of the hostels sound ghastly…slippery nylon sheets,
mattresses stuffed with straw, two toilets to be shared by 30-40 guests…I am
very grateful for this s spacious room, at the River Prince, even though the
bed is as hard as a billiard table…
First stop – a
flower farm. Many gerberas, very pretty.
 |
| Yes I know it is only a gerbera…but what so photogenic! |
Next – a Koho
village. The Koho are the indigenous
people of the region, amongst the poorest in Vietnam. They grow rice and coffee but only have one
harvest a year. They also get money for
letting vanloads of tourists come and peer into their one-room houses…
I felt very
uncomfortable about this but Tiep, a Koho girl herself, told us it was all
fine, and that this particular woman loves to have the odd lot of backpackers
traipsing in and out of her house, to hear her sing. She sang a traditional Koho song and also…Joy to the World, and Jesus Loves Me…
Coffee was next on
the agenda (thank God…)
We had a cup of
weasel coffee and looked out at the view and life was good.
Not so sure about
the cricket farm…Tiep had a very engaging manner and she assured us that deep
fried crickets are very delicious and very nutritious.
We saw them being
hatched and matched. It takes about
three months for them to become an edible size.
 |
| teensyweensy crickets |
Yes I did eat
one! But only one…It didn’t taste
particularly awful but it did get VERY stuck between two of my back teeth and I
very much did not enjoy trying to excavate it with a toothpick. Creepy!
 |
| Intent on the process |
Our friends for
the day all got out their cameras to snap away at the snackplate…their
expressions are very telling.
I hadn’t ever seen
the process of making silk. Yes I have
seen the product!
But Tiep took us
to a little workshop where the cocoons are put through their paces to produce
beautiful skeins of shiny fine silk.
Gorgeous!
 |
| cocoons |
There is always a
temple, on a tour…
This one had a
very large very happy Buddha.
And some fabulous
dragons!
We didn’t really
bring the right clothes to Dalat. It is
very hot in Vietnam. 37 most days in
Saigon. But up here it is 15-25 degrees,
quite different. I have two dresses with
me, one long, one short, both very lightweight.
And one pair of fittflops (thongs).
Pete had his long white cotton trousers tucked away in his pack, but no
proper walking shoes. So we were NOT
properly dressed for a walk down a steep and slippery path to the Elephant
Falls.
But it was a
fabulous walk, and the falls were wonderful.
Huge, thundering down into a big brown swirl of fast-flowing river.
I went down into a
series of caves from where you could seen the waterfall overhead. (Not a good place for my camera…it stayed tucked
into my bag.)
Then I went down
to the bottom of the falls, with some of my tourfriends. Pete decided not to get covered with mud so
he just walked elegantly to the top of the falls, took some videofilm, and
sauntered back to the bus. Without getting
a single splash of mud on his white white clothes!!
My Irish, English,
Dutch and Australian friends and I, on the other hand, were liberally
splattered with mud and we all had gritty bottoms from sliding down the rocks.
 |
| FilthGirl! |
But…we were
fine. Only dirty. One of us, however, was not fine at all…Right
at the water’s edge we came across a sad and sorry sight – one of our team had
fallen and had bashed his head badly on the rocks. My first thought was…PETE! His thongs are VERY slippery and I wasn’t
sure which path he had taken. But no;
Pete, still pristine in his whites, was fine.
It was one of our young Australian blokes who had leapt cheerily from
one rock to the other and then had slipped and fallen into the water. Thank God he didn’t get washed away…But he
did have to stop his tour and go off to the hospital, with his lovely
girlfriend and two others from the group, one of whom, we all thought, might
have been a doctor.
We had our lunch
in a more chastened mood…
So the Crazy House
was probably just what we needed. It was
designed by Dang Viet Ng, the daughter of the third president of Vietnam, who studied
architecture in Russia, and it is a work in progress. (She still lives there, somewhere hidden
away.)
Gaudi-inspired, nature-inspired, Russian-inspired, it is a crazy maze of winding staircases, strange little rooms, bridges across from one level to the other. Lots of fun! It was all a bit disconcerting, really, but very interesting.
Gaudi-inspired, nature-inspired, Russian-inspired, it is a crazy maze of winding staircases, strange little rooms, bridges across from one level to the other. Lots of fun! It was all a bit disconcerting, really, but very interesting.
Last stop – the
oldest railway station in Vietnam, built by the French, not so very long ago…
Tomorrow we are
leaving, but we really have enjoyed our Dalat Days.
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