Woke up early today. Apparently school starts around 6am here so the principal was on the bullhorn around 6:30am. That will be our alarm clock during our stay but at least we're not next to a mosque.

The Dalat Hotel Du Parc is one of the first French built hotels in the area and has some amazing architecture. It has an old style cage lift which we failed to realised how to operate first time. We stood in there for a few seconds looking like complete doofuses before an American tourist in the lobby said "press the close button". DOH!

Daniel was a bit taken aback by the size of the room. We explained that we'd already had our big splurge at The Rex so accommodations would be more modest from here on in. It was still quite comfortable and even though we're only on the first floor, the view is still spectacular.

The dining service is a bit unusual here. There's no restaurant in the hotel. Instead we have to cross to road to a restaurant... but its not cheap (relatively speaking when compared to other places in Vietnam). We've discovered that wine is very expensive here too. About $10 AUD a glass. Beer is cheap though and you can pick up a Heineken for about $1. The Saigon Red beer is prettty good too. Breakfast was included and you have a choice of standard western style food or asian. Steve has been enjoying pho (beef/chicken noodle soup) on a number of occassions. Sue and Daniel are trying a few different things but can't go past the pastries each morning.... (more on that later).

We got a cab to take us to the markets to start the day which cost about $3AUD. The driver seemed very pleased when I tipped him 5,000 dong (about 20c). We'd barely stepped a foot out of the cab before a street vendor selling silk paintings was onto us. They were very beautiful but wanted to have a look around before deciding on buying anything. She warned us to keep a close hand on our bags in the markets - apparently there were a few pickpockets around. The markets were mainly fresh and dried produce. There was a huge range of dried fruit - banana, kiwifruit, persimmons, mango and some others we had no clue to their identity. As with the Ben Thanh markets, the meat section had a fairly strong aroma.

As we exited the market, the silk painting lady nabbed us. We decided to concede and consider a sale. Most were very beautiful depicting scenes of various areas around Vietnam. After flicking through the range we decided on three and started haggling. Sue managed to get the lady down to 330,000 dong ($5ea).

We stopped into a coffee house for a recharge. Sue ordered a hot milk coffee, Daniel a hot chocolate and Steve (what he thought was) a fruit juice of lemon and plum. Out of all those, Daniels was the closest to what we expected.

The hot chocolate was very rich and almost looked like a cup of melted chocolate. Daniel was in his element. Sue's coffee was very typical Vietnamese - very strong and very sweet. There was a small cup-sized filter sitting on top of her glass which was slowly dripping through. In the bottom of the glass was condensed milk. After the dripping stopped, she stirred the two together and the result was amazing.

Steve's "fruit juice" was another matter. Sue noticed an unusual smirk on the waiters face when he took the order but didn't say anything. The waiter asked whether Steve wanted it hot or with ice. He opted for ice. What came out was more like a hot tea than a fruit juice. Lemon tea with a salty dried plum floating on top. A combination of sweet, salty and sour all in one cup. He drank it nontheless and chalked it up as another new Vietexperience.

The Easy Rider gang are relentless in this town, offering to take you on tours of the country side on the back of a motorcycle. One guy chased us for quite a bit until we escaped into one of the local parks. We then had to make an impromtue detour - Sue's tummy had started acting up and we needed a toilet... quick! The local service station didn't have any toilet paper so we had to hotfoot it back to the hotel. Fortunately we made it in time.

Steve's beard and mo had become decidedly scruffy so we found a good old fashioned barber to tidy him up a bit. The price was negotiated for a basic beard trim and shave. Steve sat back in the chair and the barber went to work with a good old cut-throat razor. Sue and Daniel took photos and video of the whole affair and wondered how the hell this was going to turn out. All said and done, it turned out pretty well. A bit lop-sided, a few bits missed but what can you expect for $1.20.

We flagged down a cab and went across town to the Linh Son Pagoda. The local monks were very friendly and we had a good look around. After lunch we got another cab and went over to the Crazy House.

This place was surreal. Built by a lady with a PhD in architecture, its twisting organic structure is a labyrinth of rooms and connecting staircases. Some of the walkways up over the peak of the roof were basically a severe safety risk. With a 3 storey drop and just a knee-high barricade each site of the 20cm walkway. There is absolutely no way something like this would ever get building approval back home. There has been ongoing development on the house for many years now and there was plenty of new work going on. Daniel and I saw a builder walking along the roof peak without any harnessing or scaffolding below. A ledges with a 30-40 metre drop with no barricades at all. This place truly deserved its name as the Crazy House.

After all the walking we decided to treat ourselves with a massage at the hotel. The prices at The Rex in Saigon were over the top but in Dalat they were very affordable. All three of us were able to get a head to toe massage for an hour for a grand sum of $73 including tips. All three of us were together in the same room and it caused a fair bit of giggling and chatter amongst the massage ladies when I told them this was Daniels first ever massage and he was 14. We'd love to have known what they were saying. We all came away very relaxed and soothed.