We got up early to catch our bus from Nha Trang at 7:30. Conveniently, it picked us up at the end of the alleyway our hotel was in, and was a spacious and air conditioned large minibus.

We set off and after leaving Nha Trang soon began climbing into the hills as we moved inland. We stopped for breakfast at a nice little cafe place above a river, where we immediately noticed the slightly cooler, fresher air thanks to the increase in altitude. After breakfast the bus carried on, through the lovely sunny morning, into the hills. We were presented with some truly awesome views as we curved around hillsides on the new and smooth road which climbed towards the Central Highlands. As we rounded some corners we could see down the length of immense valleys to distant hills and plains towards the coast.

Shortly before noon we began driving between hillsides completely blanketed with poly tunnels, stretching in all directions. After rounding a few corners we realised we were in Da Lat. I had expected the town to be quite a small place, being up in the hills, but it was fairly built up with lots of tall hotel buildings and large junctions. We drove through the centre and up one of the many steep roads leading away from it, before our bus deposited us outside a group of small hotels.

We had gotten used to bus companies dropping us at specific hotels, and on principle normally avoided those hotels. However, this place looked alright, if basic, and the staff who immediately approached us as we got off the bus seemed pleasant. We had a look at a room and found it was large, with everything we needed and breakfast included, for only $10. It also had a view from the window over the rooftops of the town below us, as we were up on the top of a hill. We really couldn't be bothered with the hassle of wandering around with our backpacks looking for somewhere else so we went for it. Matt, Carolyn and the boys, who had been on the bus with us, ended up taking the big family room just down the hall.

Once we were settled, we decided to go out and have a look around the town and get some lunch. We walked down the steep hill outside the hotel past all the shops and restaurants, then found a cheap and busy local place beside one of the main roundabouts in the town centre to eat. We got some tasty fried rice here then carried on exploring the town.

We wandered up another steep, shop-lined street in a different direction from the roundabout, eventually finding ourselves on a plateau with a big road junction where 5 or so roads met. We crossed this and had a look down the other side of the hill. We were looking down on a big building which apparently housed the town's central market. It looked like a multi storey car park and was surrounded, at the bottom of a concrete slope dropping down from our level, by a moat of litter. It wasn't the most appealing sight and we realised then we couldn't really be bothered looking around the market, which had been our plan.

Instead, we walked back to the hotel, picking up some beers on the way, and arrived in our room just in time to watch Scotland's rugyb world cup game against England on the TV. We stayed in the room glued to the telly as we watched the exciting, but ultimately disappointing game, then mourned Scotland's departure from the tournament.

After the game we just bummed around the hotel for the rest of the afternoon and evening making use of our wifi connection and the TV. We booked one of the popular 'Easy Rider' tours through the hotel for the next day. These tours, where you ride through the countryside on the back of a local guy's motorbike and check out various sights had been recommended to us and were allegedly the best way to see the area.

The next morning, after an early-ish night and a good sleep, we got up really early to have breakfast in time to meet our Easy Riders. After our eggs and bread we met Kin and Tony who equipped us with crash helmets and got us sat on the back of their Chinese Honda ripoff bikes.

We set off and soon left the main town of Da Lat, climbing into the hills around the town along country roads. Our first stop was at a flower farm where we had a look at the various flowers growing in poly tunnels and Kin explained the meanings the Vietnamese attach to the different colours of the flowers. He also explained that most of the farming land used to be used for vegetables suited to the cooler climate of the Highlands like broccoli and cauliflower, but that the flowers were more lucrative so were now the main thing grown.

From the flower farm we continued deeper into the countryside, up and down windy roads lined with pine forest, something we hadn't seen for quite some time. Kin explained that much of the forest was recently planted for commercial purposes, and we came into contact with one aspect of the commercial process first hand when a log rolling down a hill nearly flew into the road and wiped us out. Luckily it stopped on the hillside above us as we cruised past. Driving through the hills, we continually rounded corners to the sight of wide valleys below us with farmland and forest painting the scene in various hues of green.

The next point of interest that we visited was a coffee plantation, another of the areas main commercial pursuits. The hills around the field where we stopped were covered with the shiny coffee bushes, and we got a close look at the plants just at the roadside. We popped open a raw bean from the plant and were surprised how different the little slimy white bean inside the red casing looked to the roast coffee beans we are used to seeing.

We had a little taste of the bean, without chewing, and spat it out before hopping back on the bikes and carrying on through the countryside, past the odd house or little roadside shop until we reached a coffee shop. Here, we were shown the weasels in cages out the back of the shop, the source of the famous Vietnamese 'weasel coffee'. This is produced from beans swallowed, digested, and excreted whole, in clumps, by the weasels. Despite its dubious source, I had heard the weasel coffee was delicious, and tried a cup whilst at the coffee shop. It was indeed delicious, with a rich, almost chocolatey taste.

At the coffee place we also got a look at some of the equipment used in the production of rice wine, including rice mulch fermenting in barrels and stills fuelled by burnt coffee bean husks. We were given a demostration of the potency of the rice wine after its first distillation when our guide Tony set alight to a small puddle of the liquid, which took flame readily and burnt with a large blue flame. We also tried a sip of this spirit, which was around 80% alcohol and had a distinct kick to it.

From the coffee shop we rode on, with me asking Kin general questions about life in Vietnam and politics, until we arrived in a small country town where we pulled into a silk factory. We had seen some silk worms and a little exhibit on sericulture whilst in Japan, but this was a much larger operation. We walked through the factory, and saw the silk in all stages of its manufacture. We saw huge trays of newly spun white fluffy cocoons, created by the silk worms which had been fed on mulberry leaves; the cocoons in buckets of water being spun by a lady at a spinning wheel into thread and also undergoing the same process on large automated machines; the thread being woven into thicker strands on another machine and finally the silk threads being woven into garments according to punch-card patterns by another machine.

It was really interesting to walk around the factory and see the silk all the way through its production. It gave us a great insight into where all the silk stuff we saw for sale actually came from.

We continued from the silk factory to our next stop, the elephant waterfall. At the waterfall we stood at a railing and got a look from above over the wide, thundering mass of water pouring into a sudden gap in the land. I climbed with Tony down a slippery rock path to get a better view of the waterfall from a lower vantage point, while Lucy waited near the top, afraid of slipping and hurting herself. As well as getting a look at the waterfall from near the bottom, I was able to squeeze through a narrow gap and walk on a ledge behind the water, and although the cool blast of mist was refreshing I was soaked in a few seconds.

After climbing up from the falls, we walked up some steps nearby to a large and fairly modern-looking Buddhist temple with wide courtyards out the front, cool concrete dragon banisters and, inside, massive statues of multi-armed deities in a big spotlessly clean warehouse-like space. Out the back of the place we found a huge expanse of coffee beans drying in the sun and, around a corner a gigantic minty-coloured statue of a fat, chuckling Buddha. After taking snaps with the big Buddha, we rendezvoused with our easy riders and carried on into the countryside.

We continued higher up into hills, stopping occasionally for great views over the surrounding landscape, and to look at plants and things growing along the roads, like tea plantations and curry plants. We rode on to a small village where we turned off the main road, went down a dirt track and pulled into a house where a group of people were relaxing on a porch having evidently spent their morning shifting a big pile of earth by hand. These people turned out to be Kin's family and this was his house. We were taken into the kitchen where we sat around a table and were soon served with a massive and very tasty lunch by one of Kin's relatives. Lucy and I, along with our guides, tucked into this feast which comprised spring rolls, green beans, chunks of omelette with spring onions and a platter of pork and onions with spicy sauce which we cooked on a gas stove in the middle of the table. This was all accompanied by some home made rice wine.

After stuffing our faces, we all went out to sit on the porch and ate some rambutans whilst playing riddle-like kids' games with cocktail sticks to pass the time. Eventually it was time to saddle up and hit the road once again. We left the village and drove some distance through the lovely countryside, then stopped off at one of many mushrooms farms. Here, we got to peek inside one of the many thick plastic tents where mushrooms were grown on hanging bags of fermenting matter before being dried on huge racks outside in the sun. We also saw a man washing the dried mushrooms in a big vat of soapy water, another part of the production process.

From here we drove through another valley, along a more main road with a greater concentration of buildings lining it, until we arrived at a village off the main road, a the foot of some tall green hills. The main attraction in the village was a huge concrete statue of a chicken with big spiky spurs on its legs. The thing stood at least 20 feet tall and dominated its surroundings. According to a woman working at a weaving machine in a nearby tent, who we were directed to, the chicken represented the fact that the village was the amalgamation of two hill tribes who used to be mortal enemies. Apparently, in the olden days a woman from one village wanted to marry a man from the enemy village. The man's village chief said they could marry when the woman presented them with a chicken with big spurs, something which doesn't exist. The statue allegedly represented the fact that the two tribes eventually came to live together in the village. However, another story is that the chicken was a gift to the village for remaining true to the communists during the war whilst the surrounding areas sided with the 'enemy' intended to ensure tourist trade in the village.

Whatever the story, the chicken was weird and interesting to see and we snapped a few photos before getting back on the bikes and carrying on up the road. We weren't on the main road long before we felt a few spits of rain, so we pulled over and got on our ponchos, as well as waterproof trousers in Lucy's case, provided by Tony. With our wet weather gear on, we carried on as the rain got heavier. By the time we reached our next stop, a reservoir at the top of a series of tall stepped weirs, the rain had stopped and we walked a bit along the side of the reservoir in the sunshine. Along the way I was approached by some locals who wanted to take their photo with the White Giant. I was pleased that they asked rather than did their usual sniggering and height comparison thing.

We bought some dried fruit and candied rose petals at a little stall beside the reservoir then hopped back on our bikes for the last part of journey, back to Da Lat through the poly tunnel-clad hillsides we had passed on the bus the day before.

Once back in town, we had one last stop to make, at the so-called Crazy House. This place was very aptly named, as it was indeed crazy. Apparently the brain child of a local female architecht trained in Europe, the place was like an acid-trip mashup of Gaudi and Salvador Dali with a dash of World of Warcraft, the sprawling, organic-looking yet eclectic structures spread all around us in a psychedelic 3D maze of curving corridors, odd staircases and themed bedrooms with animal statues. We wandered through the brightly painted corridors, along deadly catwalks over rooftops and up semi-constructed staircases to a rooftop with great views over the city. Evidently still being built, the crazy house still had some rooms which could be rented out, for quite steep prices by Vietnamese standards, allowing you to stay in rooms such as the 'Land Eagle Room' with a massive statue of a bird perched on an egg-shaped fireplace in the centre of the hobbit hole-like room with its little bed nook.

We spent quite a while wandering about, and wondering about, the Crazy House before heading back out to meet our easy riders for the trip back through the town centre and up the hill to our hotel.

Once we returned to the hotel, sometime in the late afternoon, we found we were exhausted after quite a busy day so we went for a nap for an hour or so. When we got up, we decided to go to a cafe we'd heard about for dinner, where there was apparently live music every night as well as tasty food. As it was on the other side of town we arranged for a taxi, which took us to the V Cafe, on a street near the lake in the middle of Da Lat centre. Inside, we ordered some pizza and a salad made with local avocados to share as we'd heard the pizza was particularly good. It indeed was, as was the salad, but unfortunately the live music wasn't. Instead of the blues band we had been hoping for, we got a local guy with an acoustic guitar, singing out-of-tune versions of popular hits. After eating, we soon left him to it and caught a taxi back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we found that the tiny bar next door, which was owned by the Easy Rider guys we'd engaged the services of and seemed to open sporadically, was now open and had a free pool table as well as cheap beer. Matt and his 11 year old son Lochlan were there, so we grabbed some beers and I played pool with them and some of the locals for a while before following Lucy up to the room.

After another good sleep we got up just in time to get our free breakfast downstairs in the hotel lobby and, with this in our system we went back upstairs to have a shower and pack our bags, having decided we would catch the night bus that evening to Saigon. We left our bags down at reception and checked out of the hotel, then went out to explore some more of Da Lat itself.

We retraced our steps from a couple of days before, walking up to the central market building. This time however, we went inside and found a very 'local' market with a huge fresh food area on the ground floor, a food court above that and two floors of tightly crammed stalls of clothes and other goods above that. On the lower level we bought some more of the sweets made from local fruit, then went up to the food court where we had a drink and then some noodles with sliced meat rolls in Lucy's case and pancakes with shrimp and pork in mine. It was all tasty and very cheap.

We had a look around the clothes stalls for things for Lucy but didn't find anything. The claustrophobic, dingy atmosphere in the big concrete shell of the market wasn't particularly pleasant either, so we soon left and bought some rumbutans at a stall downstairs on our way out.

With our fruit, we walked down to the big lake in the centre of town, then found a swing seat in a small park overlooking the lake and the town. We sat here for a while in between rain showers, eating our fruit and looking at the town, with its buildings scattered clinging to various hills around the lake and a little canal running through a park downstream of the lake.

We took a walk up the side of the lake then stopped for a coffee at a cafe with a view of the lake, before doubling back and walking through the park with the canal, then along the canal, back through the centre and up the hill to the hotel. I think we provided more entertainment for the townspeople than their town did for us, as they couldn't stop staring at us the whole time we walked around the town.

Back at the hotel we sat in the lobby on the hotel's wifi connection for a while, before meeting up with Matt, Carolyn and their boys as well as an American guy and his Chinese girlfriend who they had met, and heading out for dinner as a group. We went to a Chinese restaurant Matt said they had visited the night before and which was good, and ordered a tasty feast including fried tofu with minced meat, stir fried morning glory, and a few other dishes which we shared. The meal was great and we returned to the hotel full to wait for our bus at 10:30 that night.

A shuttle bus arrived and took us, along with Matt and family, to the main bus station where we had to wait around for a while before finally being able to board our sleeper bus for the journey to Saigon.