Lovely Dalat!

View of Dalat. Yes, it poured on us!!



At the "crazy house" (a guesthouse modeled after Alice in Wonderland apparently)

I arrived in Dalat yesterday and I LOVE it. It’s a beautiful mountainous town in Central Vietnam. We had been fore-warned that the temperature in Dalat is quite cool. I didn’t think much of it considering everywhere else we've been has been scorching hot in my opinion!
Tiffany and I got of the bus after a mere 6 hour ordeal and set off to find a questhouse. There were a million and one people asking us to stay at their guesthouse but we like doing our own think so we set about with our rucksacks on our backs and map in hand. Actually shall I rephrase that? Tiffany with map in hand. I must say she has a much better sense of direction than I and she is our designated navigator. So we finally settled in a very nice guest house called "Peaceful Guesthouse II" for a mere $2.5/per night each.

We spent the rest of the night wandering the town. Walking through the local food market testing little goodies along the way. We walked a 7km loop and then settled in for a nice dinner. Red wine and Vietnamese cuisine. Mmm. We brought our sketch books with us to design some clothes we want to get made in Vietnam. (Okay so we don’t have actual sketch books but notepads of some sort). I laughed at all my attempts to design clothes. Oh well, it was worth a shot!

March 13th. Today we woke up bright and early with the intention of renting a motorbike and climbing this mountain 14km outside of Dalat. But we woke up to the sound of pouring rain on the roof not to mention on my bed (I left our balcony door open) oops. So we closed our eyes and slept for another hour postponing our mountain trip for a day in hopes that it will be sunny weather tomorrow. Did I say how much I love Dalat? I feel like this is one of my first authentic traveling experiences since being away. I know that sounds weird but everywhere else I’ve been has been so geared towards tourism and it’s a lot harder to get off the beaten path that I ever would have expected.

Tiffany decided to get here hair down today so I wandered around the town. After getting soaked in the rain I ducked into this little hole in the wall restaurant for some reprieve from the rain and hot fluids. I ordered a bowl of Pho Bo (Beef Vietnamese noodle soup) and this Vietnamese guy named Quoc motioned for me to come join him at his table. So I thought why not. We shared an interesting conversation with many hand gestures and broken English and he played Celine Dion and gave me the thumbs up sign which I feebly gave back with a crooked smile. I looked at the CD case and it said "Best Happy Songs from around the World!" it had Eric Clapton and the Beetles, ACDC, Shania Twain. It was an AWESOME mix!

After lunch with Quoc, I found Tiffany at the hair salon (her hair now platinum blonde with blue streaks... love it! what else do you do on a rainy day?) we explored the city a bit more. After visiting this questhouse which is built like Alice in Wonderland by a quirky hippy lady we settled down to a nice steaming cup of coffee. Mmmm.

Evening: lovely diner followed by watching cheesy music videos on Much Music Asia. Loved it! We are such geeks!