<!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->

21 June: Dalat

Our plan for the day was to rent a motorcycle and head into the rural areas to explore the waterfalls and other attractions around Dalat, of which there were many. Unfortunately for us the prior evenings excursions had left us feeling less than energetic and we decided that this would be one of our "off days", to try and catch up on lost sleep and recover. We slept in until just after 10h00, whereafter both of us started with our not so up to date diaries, mine a little less up to date than Leanne's.

We decided to walk through the city in the opposite direction of the previous evening to find something to eat for lunch and also sniff out a place to hand in our washing. We found the food first, right on the edge of town, the thing that drew us the most was the mention of a hot pot. We had had one in Malaysia, but non since and really enjoyed it. To our surprise it wasn't what we expected, but that's to be expected in a country where you can't understand them and neither can they you. They arrived 5 minutes later, three of them, one carrying the pot atop a paraffin cooker, another with a plate of raw fish, squid, clams, prawn, fish balls and possibly a piece of eel, and the last with a plate of leaves and a plate of noodles.

We sat there staring for 2 minutes, before asking the obvious question, how and when. The waiter was very polite and in her best English tried to explain that we must wait for the broth to boil, before adding the seafood. First mistake, we had already added some squid and prawn, at least no train smash, rather over cooked than undercooked seafood. Waiting for it to boil we added the other at the appropriate time. We waited another 15 minutes drinking our Saigon beer, before gesturing her to assist us once more. She added the leaves and with a type of ladle she dipped a spoonful of the noodles into our now richly coloured seafood soup, long enough only for the noodles to absorb some of the broth. It was time to eat what we had cooked, it was different but very tasty even with a bit of burn left by the chillies which had been added.

On the way back we found a laundromat and arranged to bring our clothes later the afternoon.We continued with our reading and writing spell for the remainder of the afternoon. Heading out, we first handed in our laundry, before walking back for dinner literally across the street from where we stayed. Dinner was steamed fish with rice and vegetables and chicken fried rice. The steamed fish was quite a treat from the usual we had been having for the past month. Sometimes a little difficult just deciding on anything when you don't understand the language especially seeing as anything can land on your plate here. After dinner we returned home and watched a movie before hitting the blankets, tomorrow would be a long day.