Da Lat - Day 1

When I woke up early to go and catch the bus to Da Lat, it was absolutely bucketing down. So much so that I asked the hotel to see if they could sort me out a taxi, even though it was just around the corner. They just looked at me with a puzzled expression, so, drawing the florescent orange waterproof rucksack cover and taking my flimsy Chinese umbrella, out I went.

There was nobody else waiting at the tourist office, but the girl directed me round the corner where a couple of other young men were huddled under a canopy. I confirmed with one that he was waiting for the Da Lat bus and so we waited. Soon after came our bus. Not a plush air-conditioned coach, but a transit mini-van. The lack of air-con was hardly a problem in the rain, so in we hopped and were joined by a couple of attractive ladies, one of which recognised me as the chap who had kindly taken her photo for her at the Cham temple the day before! And that was it, off we went.

The journey was a good one. The roads were much smaller than I had expected and there were numerous pot holes and flooded parts to negotiate along the way, but that just made it more interesting. We had long stretches of hill climb along the wet and narrow roads that the driver appeared to fear somewhat less than us. We had to wedge ourselves into our seats in order to ensure we stayed in them! I found the others good company and the four of us (Me. Rasmus, Milijana, and Francesca)booked into a hotel together when we arrived.

We ventured out for lunch, with me doing a lousy job of navigating us around the town in the rain, whilst we practical men shared our umbrellas with the girls. In the afternoon we decided to get a taxi 8km to a village where there were a couple of temples worth visiting and then we would try and get the train back. It started well, as we found a taxi in no time at all and Rasmus, our chief negotiator, had agreed on a good price. We were in high spirits regardless of the miserable weather and were even singing along to the cheesy 80's music that the driver had put on, when Rasmus let out an obscene cry! Thinking that we had been driving for too long, he had re-checked the note pad he had used to communicate with the driver and it turned out that there was a problem. The fee agreed was not 130,000VND (about £4.50), but 1,300,000!!!!! The driver thought we were going to a town miles away. No wonder he was so happy! So, we turned him around and tried to agree a new price, but he insisted that we pay the meter instead, which was not a small number.

Never mind. It could have been much much worse.

So, we explored the two temples and realised that the day was coming to an end and evening was setting in. We found the station, but were too late for the last train. Luckily there was a bus and this arrived around 20min later to our relief. We returned to have dinner at a very good restaurant and bought a bottle of the local Dalat wine to polish off back at the hotel. The wine was terrible, but the company made the evening enjoyable and it was a shame that the girls decided to leave the next day, hoping for better weather further south. Forgivable, considering that we had to use a hair dryer for around 2 hours to get everything dry, but a shame.