Da Lat is more inland than we’ve seen so far. It took us a good few hours to get there over all these twisty mountain roads and bumpy surfaces. We’d had a few the night before so this was a bit of a trial. The view was spectacular, however, even if it was difficult to enjoy.
The first day we went to an incredibly strange guest house/art gallery called ‘The Crazy House’. This is exactly what it was. Thee were lots of different rooms - each with a theme. Such as, the tiger room (that had a concrete tiger in it) and the kangaroo room (had a kangaroo, complete with scary glowing red eyes - just what you’d need to see in the middle of the night). Health and safety took a bit of a back seat as each room was joined with a bunch of twisty walk ways and filled with bizarre stairs you wouldn’t want to tackle after a few pints. The garden had a giant spider’s web and spider in it, just for Karen. You’ll have to wait for the pictures to get a true impression of just how weird this place was.
Then we headed to the lake to use the Swan boats. This is NOT a girly thing to do. Or so Karen kept telling me. We think we got the dodgy one and had to pedal really hard to go not very far. Then it started raining…
The following day we took a private tour (ooh, aren’t we posh?). We went to the chicken village, a village that has a giant concrete chicken in the middle of it (really). The reason for it stems from a Romeo and Juliet type story and it was what all the villagers asked for as a reward from the government for their efforts during the war. The guide took us through local farmer’s fields, which we wouldn’t have had the nerve to do on our own and we saw coffee beans being dried. Vietnamese people will tell you that their coffee beans are superior to Brazilian ones. Especially the type of bean that is eaten by Weasels and processed into coffee afterwards. The first person to ever do this must have been a bit odd: “Ooh look, there are coffee beans in that poo! What a waste! They look like perfectly good ones…!” Is that why coffee is brown?
We saw the school at the chicken village which was tiny and really poorly resourced and made me realise just how lucky British school kids are - though they’ll never realise it. “You have a blackboard too?” asked the guide. “No, I have a whiteboard…” I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was an interactive one that worked off my laptop.
After this we headed to the Truc Lam (Yellow Bamboo Forest)Zen monastery, overlooking Tuyen Lam (Black Forest) Lake. This was one of the most peaceful places I have ever visited. It was a Feng Shui lover’s dream. There were lots of pathways to walk along, set amongst yellow bamboo and beautiful pagodas and temples, in the mountainside, overlooking the lake.
In contrast to the peacefulness of this was the Dantala waterfall. We took a rollercoaster(!) down to the waterfalls - which were slightly disappointing. But the rollercoaster was cool. It was one of those where 2 people sit in a little carriage and you have a brake to slow you down for the corners. Except if Ross is in charge, apart from when Karen shouted at him, then the rollercoaster could go very slow! At the bottom you could have your picture taken on a horse with a Vietnamese cowboy. Wow! Or with a man dressed as what could have been a gorilla, or a bear or Chewbacca, or something. If you really wanted to.