I am starting to think that I could write a separate blog about my bus experiences! I am starting to feel that I am spending half my time moaning about the journey in some way! (However I suppose that this is all part of the experience so I should just should embrace everything that comes my way, especially as I'm a world away from home.) Of course this journey was no different! The journey from Nha Trang to Dalat was only supposed to last five hours, but instead it felt like it lasted an eternity! The couple in front of me decided that they wanted their seats reclined as far back as possible, which meant that my leg room had been reduced from minimal to non-existent! I was in a window seat, and the sweaty Vietnamese bloke sitting next to me not only wanted to sleep the entire journey, but kept on moving so he was effectively sleeping on me!! This in effect meant that I was squashed!

I tried to ignore this as best I could. Dalat is located in the central highlands of Vietnam, so the bus had to attempt to weave its way up the mountainous roads. This led to some stunning views of mountains covered with trees and waterfalls streaming from any small crevice. Climbing the mountains created another set back for the journey. There had been a rockslide (although this can be seen as advantageous for me in one respect as it allowed me to get off the bus and gave me the chance to stretch my legs and get away from sweaty Vietnamese men!). I did think that we were going to be waiting around for the road to be cleared for ages, as there was already quite a queue developing. Fortunately though we were only hanging around for about half an hour before the road had been cleared to a point where traffic could be negotiated through the slide.

Dalat is by far the place that is most 'off the beaten track' that I have visited to date. I knew that this was the case before I left Nha Trang, however I didn't realise how much off the trail it is (I was the only backpacker on the bus). The city is really in the middle of nowhere, away from the rest of Vietnam's civilisation. The fact that tourism is not so big here does give a certain charm to the city and its population. I think throughout my three night stay here, I was only asked once if I wanted to buy anything, which I found quite a refreshing change from cities like Hanoi and Hoi An where hassle does seem to be constant. However local motorcyclists did ask me if I wanted to have an Easyrider Tour of the local area, but once I said no, they did generally leave alone (unlike locals in other cities where they would follow you and generally pester you).

On my first full day I met Nick at the hotel where I was staying (he had just travelled up from Nha Trang). Both of us were interested in doing some form of Easyrider Tour for the following day. In the end we opted for a tour of the surrounding area that would last the entire day, which we booked through the hotel. Unfortunately we had to stump up $40 for this, however it did seem that we would get a lot for our money. This was booked for the following day, and as a result we had the rest of the day to have a look round the city.

The problem with staying a place that's off the beaten track is that there isn't all that much to see or do. After we had booked our tickets to Ho Chi Minh City, we spent the rest of the day literally wandering around. We checked out the market, which was very cramped and predominantly sold meat, which consequentially meant that there were flies everywhere. Beside Dalat is Xuan Huong Lake, and as there was literally nothing else to do we started to have a wander round. The lake turned out to be a little bigger than we thought (according to Wikipedia it's 5km⊃2;), so when we got halfway round the lake we needed stop off for a drink as it was so hot. Unfortunately for us the only café about was pretty grotty and seemed as though it hadn't had a customer in years (the man working there appeared to be genuinely surprised that we had turned up there!). Getting to that side of the lake did give us an opportunity to take some good photos of the lake with Dalat in the background, but nevertheless we still decided to make ourselves scarce pretty quickly.

The following day was the day of the tour around Dalat, and had been something that Nick and I had looked forward to (even if it had cost us $40 each). When the minibus arrived outside of our hotel we discovered that we'd be the only two on the tour, however we wouldn't let that dampen our spirits. The first stop on our tour was the Datanla Waterfall, which is located a few miles outside of Dalat. The waterfall itself was quite nice, however it felt as though much of the emphasis of the site had been taken away from the waterfall. This was because a 'rollercoaster' had been built which enabled people to get to the waterfall and back, rather than taking a sub-ten minute walk. Nick and I were given the option taking the 'rollercoaster' to the waterfall or walking and both of us decide to walk, much to the disappointment of our tour guide (the reason for her disappointment became apparent on the way back up as at one stage we had to wait for her to catch up with us!).

The second phase of our tour saw us go to a lake outside of Dalat for an elephant trek. This was one of the activities on our itinerary that I was looking forward to the most, but unfortunately it was a real disappointment. There was only one elephant at the trekking centre and it seemed as though this elephant was the most depressed creature on the planet. I noticed that the trainer in control of the elephant was holding a metal rod, so God knows what treatment the poor animal has been subjected to. Then just before getting on the elephant, our guide informs us that the bottom the animal's tail has been cut off as it is very profitable! She then tells us that our tour will last an hour, however it barely lasts 20 minutes! This was actually pretty good for Nick and I as after we had been told, there was a bit of an awkward silence between us as neither of us wanted to be there.

There were two other places we visited before having lunch (I think that we were being shown the tour as quickly as possible as 'lunch' was at 11 am!). The first place was the Truc Lam Meditation Centre, which was quite a serene and peaceful place which had well maintained gardens and also provided stunning views of the surrounding lakes and highlands. We then visited Bao Dai's Summer Palace. I guess the building's architecture and grounds were quite impressive, but inside there was nothing really exciting. It was in essence a museum; everything was behind a rope or covered in order to be preserved (we even had to wear socks over our shoes to keep the carpets clean!).

After lunch we headed back out of the city to visit the Dragon Pagoda, which was one of the highlights of the tour. The complex consisted of two buildings; the main Pagoda and a seven storey tower next to it. We first climbed to the top of the tower, which at every level had a statue of a Buddha. However, the higher we went the harder it got to climb up (to get to the highest storey it seemed as though we effectively climbing a ladder in order to get there!). The Dragon Pagoda was absolutely amazing and it was certainly apparent that it had taken a high level of craftmanship in order to design and build it (we were told that it had been made of glass bottles).

The final stop on our tour was at the railway station, which I have to say was completely uninspiring! Nick and I were effectively given a brief tour of the station had our photos taken with a few trains. This had been going on all day and had meant that the tour was over before 1 pm (when it should have finished at 5:30!), which seemed like a bit of con. It was here where Nick suggested that we ask them to take us to Elephant Waterfall, which turned out to cost an extra $12 each (Nick really didn't want to have to spend another day in Dalat doing nothing!). However, before we could go on this tour we were taken back to our hotel where we had to wait for our tour guide and driver to take some people from our hotel somewhere (the fact that they knew they had to do this beforehand pretty much confirms the con!).

The extra trip however turned out to be great value for money, and Nick and I agreed that Elephant Waterfall was the best place we had been to all day. The waterfall is located about 40 minutes outside of Dalat, and is a lot bigger than Datanla waterfall (as soon as we got off the minibus we could feel the spray coming from the waterfall). It also seemed to be less of an attraction than Datanla, there was no rollercoaster (in fact there were no stairs!). This meant that we had to climb down on rocks that were soaking, and consequentially quite treacherous (however this seemed to be no problem for our tour guide who was jumping down to the bottom no problem - incredibly in a pair of flats!). We were able to go behind the waterfall, which was very refreshing. When we eventually made it to the bottom the view of the waterfall was amazing (well worth risking my life for!).

On our way back to Dalat we had some two more stops as apart of our extra tour. Our first stop was at a small village to visit a coffee plantation where we were shown how coffee is produced and what different variety of coffee bean were produced in the area. The second stop was at a flower-growing village, which was surprisingly quite a spectacle. To be honest I'm not all that interested in botany but even I was quite fascinated to see hundreds of thousands of greenhouses that filled my view far into the distance! After that we returned to our hotel (at about the time our original tour was supposed to finish!). I was say that overall it was a good day as it was something completely different to what I had done so far during my time in Vietnam, even if it was a little expensive and certain aspects of the day were eye opening (for the wrong reasons). I think that three nights here is enough for me and it is time for me to move on to my final destination in Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City.