We caught our first Vietnamese night bus from Can Tho to Da Lat. We had seen these in Ho Chi Minh and they looked rather posh. There are 3 rows of single seats in 2 tiers, they are like aeroplane seats which recline and have a little pod for your feet to go in. It took a while to get comfortable under our blankets but 10 hours later we arrived in Da Lat. It was 6 in the morning and we were welcomed to the cold and crisp fresh air. Da Lat sits in the Vietnamese highlands so it is rather cooler than the south but a pleasant change.

Our bus company had a complimentary minibus to a hotel of our choice so we found one in the book and headed there. They had $10 rooms which isn't bad so we checked in. Our room was massive with two double beds, a tv, hot water and a balcony. We couldn't get the door to the balcony open but after a little persuasion from Pete we did, we couldn't get it closed again though, obviously there was a reason it didn't open.

We then headed out to explore Dalat. It is a beautifull town with a lot of character. Our first stop was at The Crazy House, designed and built by a Vietnamese architect. It was made up of lots of buildings that look like huge trees, each has different themed rooms where you can stay and each building connects to another via thin elevated paths and steps, it was crazy.

From here we headed to the lake and hired a pedalo. We started pedalling into the wind, it was tough but we thought it would be easy on the way back, it wasn't. Once we returned our legs were burning.

The following day we decided to hike up the tallest peak in Dalat, Lang Bian, we had breakfast at a cafe that make lunch boxes so we bought two of these to have at the top. We started walking up a road which was quite steep, after half an hour we veered off on to a footpath. We stupidly thought we had done the hard part but we turned the corner and saw our target, we still had a climb ahead of us. As we got closer to the top we had to climb hundreds of huge steps through the forest, it was tough and we had to stop a fair few times; it brought memories back to Pete of the three peaks. It was worth it when we reached the top though, the view was stunning, you could see other mountain ranges all around and Dalat in the valley. We ate our lunch and trekked back down at some points breaking in to a run so we could catch the bus back in to Dalat. This was definitely the most challenging thing we have done so far!