Another overnight bus journey took us to Nha Trang. There was another 'sick' incident on the bus...a rather tall and lanky legged french guy decided that he just couldn't get comfortable on the seat to sleep so he lay down in the aisle on a blanket, and dosed off. A poor girl woke up in the middle of the night coughing and while she coughed a load of sick came out aswell-all over poor lanky man! He wasn't amused!!
Anyway we arrived in Nha Trang about 6am and so did all the other open tour buses, it was then a mad dash to try and find some accomodation before all the other hoards of backpackers on the other buses got there, we found somewhere eventually! We didn't really plan on spending any time in Nha Trang, just a stopover point before we travelled up to Dalat. We would have liked to have looked around a bit though but it was a really wet day and it didn't allow us to do much. Nha Trang did remind us of a spanish holiday resort a bit though, alot of concrete towers and the beach (which was pretty) we got a bite to eat in the evening and on the way back to our room we saw the most rats we've ever seen in our lives! There were loads of them running around this food hawker, we quickly walked away hoping we didn't have the same effect as the pied piper of hamlin!
The next day we got an early bus to Dalat, which is a town up in the hills. The bus journey was very scenic and there were alot of long and winding roads. As soon as we got there we could feel the temperature difference, it was lovely and cool and overcast, no sweating!! We found a room straight away and then went out to investigate Dalat. It was a pretty town, with a big lake with swan pedal boats in, in the main centre of town there was quite a steep hill with shops and cafes either side and pretty flowers in the middle. We were quite happy because we thought it made up for the dissapointment of Ooty in India. We decided to book a tour for the next day because we didn't have much time there and we wanted to make the most of of our time. The tour started off fine and we went to the cable car and had a great view over the trees and a lovely lake. When we got off the cable car we were at a Buddhist monestry which was very pretty and pituresque, we alked down to the lake and admired the beauty of it...the next place we went to was Prenn Waterfalls, our giude asked excitidly if we wanted to go on an elephant ride, we declined and are really glad we did. The poor elephants were being 'looked' after by some really horrible men. There were families who had dressed up in ethnic costumes to have their pics taken on the elephant, anytime the elephant moved slightly the keepers stabbed it in the head with a stick with a spike on the end. One of the elephants heads was actually bleeding a bit. We walked off in disgust with a danish couple who were on our tour aswell. We were able to walk behind the curtain of the waterfall which was quite fun and of course we got a bit wet! We hung around waiting for the rest of the tour group to leave, all around the waterfalls were men dressed up as cowboys with ponies and carriages decorated in tacky flowers, we watched as lots of families posed in the carriages which was quite amusing. Luckily we didn't have to wait for long and the next place we went to was the Lake of Sigh, and we sighed too....was a pretty lake but surrounding it was more cowboys, tacky horse and carriages and big plastic animals! We then moved onto a place for lunch that was really expensive. The next stop was the old presidential home which was quite interesting but the gardens were full of plastic animals again! Kam got told off for sitting on the plastic elephant! Our guide got so excited when he told us the next stop on the tour was 'The valley of love' me and kam looked at eachother and could picture more plastic animals and cowboys, I think the Danish couple thought the same as we did so we devised a plan to abandon the tour and walk back into Dalat ourselves...successfully we left and felt freedom. On the way back we found this house called the crazy house, a lady has designed this extremely odd place which you can stay in if you wish (we didn't see anyone staying) the whole place looks like something from a fairytale, each room has a different theme like ant room or bear room and there are loads of tiny staircases and corridoors going to different places, it all felt a bit eery!!

We found our way back to our guesthouse and bumped into some bloke who said he was from the 'Easyriders' (who are quite an established motorbike tour company) we found out we could have gone on a tour with them and saw the real sights of Dalat and the surrounding countryside with not a plastic animal or elephant with a stab wound in sight!

Bummer!