I arrived into Dalat ahead of schedule - which only ever happens to me when I get a night bus and therefore arrive when it's still dark, so I whiled away an hour reading until the sun came up! I decided to walk into town. I reached the centre and went in search of some lodgings - it was still Tet - this thing drags on - and there was no accommodation available - I tried about 20 hotels! I decided to go back one of the first ones I'd tried who said she might have something later. There I met a girl I'd met in in Ho Chi Minh who said if I was stuck I could probably squeeze into their room. So I had a plan B. I decided I could spend my day looking for accommodation or I could go and do some touristy stuff and enjoy Dalat. After numerous recommendations I decided to go for a motorbike tour (on the back of one - not as the driver). It was cool. The first stop was a flower farm and I was interested to learn that flowers are big industry in Vietnam because of the predominantly Buddhist population and their growing economy!

The next stop was a coffee farm where the grow and produce coffee beans including some that they feed to their weasels and then recover from their excrement - apparently a fantastic way to get some great (and expensive) coffee! From here we went to a silk factory which was also really interesting to see. Along with the little informational stops the scenery was beautiful. Dalat is in Vietnam's central highlands so there was an abundance of beautiful mountain scenery.

The next stop was elephant waterfall - which again was really beautiful and the little hike to get there added a little adventure to the trip. At the same location is a giant laughing Buddha which I checked out. After this we stopped for a delicious lunch before returning to Dalat. Back in Dalat I visited the "crazy house" - which is moderately crazy - it's an alice in wonderland style house with stairs winding in all directions - at one point I did wonder if I would ever get out!

I returned to Dalat where the lady in the hotel had, true to her word, kept me a room. It was a room for 3 people though so cost me the pricey sum of US$15. I had dinner and some drinks with some girls from the hotel! We had a bottle of Dalat red wine - I didn't even know there were Vietnamese wines. It was an inoffensive red wine - quite sweet and tasted more like a rose to be but certainly drinkable. The next day I jumped on a bus to Nha Trang to spend some time at the beach and that's where I'm sitting now updating this - although I don't when I will actually upload all this stuff! Although maybe the trend has been bucked - nobody has vomited yet although the bus does stink - even though it's the middle of the day and a short journey we are on a bed bus and somebody (definitely not me) has extremely smelly feet - ah well I'll keep my window open and enjoy the scenery!