Well, breakfast was a mixed bag with a mainly Asian menu. We tried the noodle soup, the breakfast of choice for the locals, and although it was tasty, eating meat flavoured soup in the morning just isn’t right for a western palate.
After yesterday’s realisation about the travelling difficulties we spent the morning glued to the internet - something that’s becoming a bit of an annoying custom of late - to put some more detail on our otherwise sketchy travel plans. With that sorted we set off to explore the town at, surprise surprise, the hottest time of the day. Fortunately the weather here is lovely and although it was hot the air is much fresher making it very pleasant.
Our first stop was a visit to an ‘easy rider’ company to try to arrange our journey to Hoi An. Easy rider tours, as the name implies, are journeys made on the back of a motorbike and get rave reviews by everyone who's done them. Navigating from a crude A4 photocopied hotel map we miraculously found our way there to be greeted by an empty office. Door open but no one home. We waited a while then gave up, opting instead to go for a wander around Dalat’s famous lake.
Feeling peckish we were unable to resist the tempting wares displayed in a bakery we passed and ended up buying two cakes and a chicken sandwich for less than a £1. You gotta love Vietnam. Munching our goodies we wondered if the Saigon method of road crossing still worked here. Only one way to find out, step off the curb and continue in a steady pace across the road. No need to look, the traffic separates either side of you. Stop, and havoc breaks out as everyone is now unsure what to do. Amazing!
Now at the lake’s edge we set off at our steady ‘travellers’ amble. Dalat is totally different from Saigon. Less busy, cooler, more spacious, green, in fact it has a feel not dissimilar to a French mountain town - there’s even a golf course and the lakeside was bedecked with posters of Asian lady golfers advertising a female tournament.
Part way around we came across a garden area full of colourful flowers and the most amazing collection of bonsai trees. Some small, some quite large and some planted together to make a kind of mini copse. Full of admiration for the gardeners we walked on and reached ‘the’ flower garden, a pay to enter attraction. Looking like the entrance to a Disney park we looked over the gates at the plastic figures dispersed amongst the flower beds and decided it was not for us.
On the far side of the lake was the Big C, a French style shopping mall with one large supermarket and a handful of smaller stores at the entrance. The hotel receptionist had been very quick to highlight it in the map for us so it must be source of some pride for the locals. Inside it was really rather well stocked so we bought some milk (hotels never provide it and Yvonne does complain about her tea without it), some tea bags and four chunky kit kats - emergency rations you understand, although it doesn't take much to make an emergency when you're travelling.
Leaving the Big C we came across a large semi circular plaza, which we expect would be the place for the locals to hang out of an evening.For the moment there were only three young men. One on rollerblades and two using these strange wheeled plates that they stood on, one under each foot, and somehow rolled across the floor. They seemed to need a small slope to get themselves moving but there must be some fancy footwork that will propel them with practice.
With our lap complete we returned to the easy rider office to find it still empty but as Dalat is the home to easy riders we’d soon met three other operators all claiming to go off the beaten track and returned to the hotel to scour TripAdvisor for reviews. Oh, what a minefield. There are dozens of operators all with similar names - Dalat easy riders, Easy riders group, Vietnam easy riders etc. We struggled to get started so decided upon radical action - food.
On our way back we’d passed an interesting looking restaurant where diners were bar b que’ing their own dinners at their tables so this is where we headed. Presented with a large and confusing menu we solicited the help of the waitress who guided our choice of items, who also suggested we may want to substitute sparrows for frogs. Yvonne shocked by both decided to stick with sparrows. Within minutes a small metal tub of smouldering charcoal was brought to the table swiftly followed by bowls of salad and plates of meat. Before we could decide how to start a young guy arrived and started tossing meat onto the grill for us and before long we had a production line going of him cooking and us eating. We selected a mixed meat platter of pork, beef, goat and the sparrows. Yes, tiny birds complete with heads, beaks and claws. Naturally Glenn was persuaded to try the first one and after some delicate surgery he managed to remove a miniscule portion of meat from the carcass. Tasty it was, plentiful it was not. Goodness knows how the locals manage with chopsticks unless the correct way to eat it is simply to crunch the whole thing in one go. Nasty.
With bulging stomachs we left the restaurant and returned to try and relate easy rider reviews to the guys we spoken to. It was hopeless. Eventually we noticed that none of the companies had a bad review so the choice seemed arbitrary. Time will tell.
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| Notice the Eiffel tower radio mast. A link to Dalat's colonial past. |
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| Dalat's lake |
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| Bonsai copse |
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| Tour de Delat |
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