Vietnam Day 11, 12, 13 – Nha Trang & Dalat

Beached.

We arrived in Nha Trang at about 7am, looking like zombies. There was another couple on the bus, also heading to the same hotel – and we told them it was only a 5 minute walk from the bus drop-off so we set off in convoy. Unfortunately at this point our phone GPS decided to abandon us so we were wandering the sweaty streets for ages trying to find it – the other guys didn’t look impressed, but equally also had no idea. Eventually I got directions from a shop, and fortunately it was 2 minutes until we were in the lobby.

The owner was a dutch ex-pat called Danny (with token Vietnamese spouse), who had a very serious and almost teacher-like tone as he checked us in. We lucked out with the hotel - we’d only booked the previous afternoon, but fortunately got the last available room – which was family sized with three beds (leaving us with a goldilocks-esque dilemma), and the most comfy mattress and pillow combo we’d had yet! We whacked the air-con up, drew the curtains and promptly slept until 11:30am. Then Lisa woke up, and I continued to sleep until 1:30pm!

Sleeping Buddha

We were both ravenous at this point, so headed to a Texas BBQ place around the corner for some ribs and beers (we didn’t feel bad about eating Western food, as this was about the least Vietnamese place we’d seen so far – it just felt like the Gold Coast – absolutely soulless). Given it was now about 34 degrees out, we ventured to the beach to cool off – it was pretty breezy down there, and much cooler so we hung out for an hour or so. I braved the water, but there was a massive shore-dump with head high waves smashing into the beach and a bit or a rip so it wasn’t all that much fun!

Post-beach we thought we’d walk to the Long Son Temple – again, we foolishly used the LP map as a reference and it looked about 20 minutes away. 45 minutes later, again we were dodging rush hour traffic along the busiest road in town (you’d think we would learn our lesson!) – but at least we were sweating out the onion rings from lunchtime. We had to walk through a school that was just kicking out which was pretty funny though – all the little kids were playing and messing about until they saw the giant, red faced man and his pixie sidekick approach and literally stood and gawped at us as we cut through, trying our best to smile and wave at them all and hold back the urge to kick our way to freedom.

James and the Giant Buddha

Eventually we found the place, and were delighted to discover that it involved about 200 steps to the summit! Fortunately, halfway there was a really amazing statue of (I think) sleeping Buddha – about 20 metres long and 5 metres high. It wasn’t mentioned or signposted at all – we just happened to look across en route and see it.

Just above that was a giant bell – used by the monks for various monk related things (we’ve seen loads of monks on our travels so far and have no idea what they actually do all day!), and then – finally at the summit was what we had come to see. A GIANT 74 foot tall seated Buddha– on top of a circular platform of Lotus flowers, looking out over the city. It was pretty awe-inspiring – especially with the cloudless sky behind as the sun was setting. We walked around it – then got encouraged by a little old man to go inside – he unlocked the door, then promptly lit some incense sticks and gave them to us to say a little prayer (I think) – then put them in the pot in front of a smaller Buddha inside. We duly obliged, then I went to put some cash in the donations box – he quickly stopped me and held out his hand, gesturing with the other that I should be paying him! The joke was on him though, as I only handed over about the equivalent of 5p and legged it before he knew what was happening.

We hung around for about half an hour as the sun went down – waiting for them to turn on the spotlights and illuminate the statue, thinking that they were bound to do so any minute. Unfortunately, it never happened so all we got was bitten by mosquitos and a perilous jaunt back down the poorly lit, death steps to the streets below. There – we promptly couldn’t find a taxi for ages (the first time in 3 weeks!), so had to battle the streets again before finally hailing one at the train station and being whisked back to plan our next move.

Cablecar ride -  Dalat

We had a couple of options – either head straight for Saigon on an overnight bus/train or go inland up into the mountains to Dalat. After not going to Sapa, and wanting to see some central highlands scenery and something a bit different from the well-beaten coastal route we opted for Dalat. We went and bought our bus tickets for early the next day and took a stroll down what looked like the main artery of the party area. As we saw all the backpackers spilling out into the streets, glowing lobster-red from a day on the beach and too many shots of rhum we were glad we’d only booked the one night in Nha Trang – quite honestly, it was a shithole.

No, I'm pretty sure they aren't just pets...

In the morning, we were suitably late checking out (why change the habit of a lifetime) so had to scamp quickly back to the bus company office to make our 7:30am check-in. We needn’t have worried however, as we then had to sit on our backpacks on the pavement for 45 minutes waiting for the bus to arrive. One large one came and went and looked relatively comfy – but not heading to Dalat. Then a dirty old minivan showed up – the driver shouted our destination and we piled in, expecting that this would be the shuttle bus to our nice, shiny, air-conditioned, modern vessel to glide us through the mountains. As they loaded our bags however, it seemed like they were taking way too much time fitting them all in, and it dawned on us that because they had only sold 7 tickets for that morning – this was to be our transport.

There were three seats in the back, three in the middle and two up front (one being the driver). Fortunately for us, there was a group of three girls who got wedged in the tiny back row – then Lisa got in with a couple of locals in the middle (they were tiny women, and it was still a squeeze so we were glad it wasn’t a couple of HUGE Scandinavian Viking women – which we had already experienced, so it could have been worse – but not much) and I called shotgun and took my chances in the front.

Rawr!

As I got in I asked the guy – “this van to Dalat…?” – already knowing the answer. He knodded, confirming our fears – it was going to 5 hours in this sweaty death-trap taking on the winding mountain roads, oncoming trucks and man-sized potholes. Nothing you could really do, but since we’d forked out extra for this company because of their reputation (Sihntourist again) we were both a bit pissed off. Not as bad as the three girls at the back though – who after an hour on the road were still holding onto the hope that we would be transferring to another bus!

“Excuse me – when do we change bus? We pay for assigned seats!”. The driver and the locals had a good old laugh at this in Vietnamese before he broke the bad news. The drive wasn’t too horrendous for the first half, until we started climbing into the mountains and the driver decided that air-conditioning was no longer required, so turned it off to let in the cool mountain air. Unfortunately for us, 24 years of living in South West England has conditioned us to feel that an air temperature of 28 degrees  is pretty fucking warm – regardless of it rushing into your face through a window. I took out the laptop and tried to blog my way through it. Mainly because I had my closest view yet of local driving up front, and a few times as we were overtaking a truck around a blind corner with a 300 foot drop on the otherside down a cliff to our certain deaths, I did start to wonder why we didn’t pick the train to Saigon…

On the plus side, he did give us boiled sweets.

Another plus was that we somehow didn’t plunge to our untimely demise and we arrived in Dalat at around midday – actually on time! We’d emailed a couple of hotels, but hadn’t heard back – so called them both, opting for the $8/night option over the $25. She said they’d send over someone to pick us up and within 2 minutes they had arrived. Unfortunately for us – it was ‘they’ plural, two young guys on motorbikes! Before we had the chance to ask if they had a car instead because we had a lot of luggage – they grabbed our big backpacks, shoved them in the front footwell and handed us both a helmet.

Weeeeeeeeeee!

It wasn’t my first experience of a local motorbike ride, but Lisa had a look of terror as we departed – fortunately they took it pretty easy, and it was only a 5 minute ride. I actually enjoyed being on the back for a change, although I’m never sure where I should put my hands, and straddling a strange young Vietnamese boy so closely should be kept in the realm of elderly overweight European men (we’ve seen plenty).

We checked in and they were all really nice – the hotel seemed to be near the action, and the room (although basic) was fine for $8. We debated what to do for an hour or so, then decided to hire a motorbike from them for $4 and head out to see some sights. Dalat is famed for its motorcycle tours as there are quite a few things in the surrounding areas of interest – mainly waterfalls and silk factories but also somewhere called the Crazy House (more on that later…). The easy riders story is actually quite good – apparently a bunch of ex-army guys had nothing to do after the war ended, but all owned motorbikes to started charging tourists to drive them about all day and earn themselves a decent wage (tours were about $20 each I think), compared to farming. Word soon spread, and more and more guides have emerged all over the place – but we’d rather have a go ourselves for a tenth of the price!

Bear hug.

We had lunch and set off to a cablecar just outside of town – which is one of the longest in Asia, and takes you from the top of the hill, through rainforest for about 10 minutes and to the top of another hill with a temple, and lake. The temple was OK, but we’ve already seen more than our fare share – and we got scammed buying ice creams, and harrassed by a tour guide who was insisting he show us the way (then they ask for $10 at the end) as we got there which didn’t help. They did have some amusing animal hedges, but other than that it was kind of dull – and the lake was actually miles away.

We scamped back to catch our return cable-car before they stopped running and we were stuck with the hordes of Korean tourists (who take really amusing pictures at sightseeing places – we stood and laughed at their poses for quite some time).

On the way there we had passed over loads of fields, farms and a town. One of the houses had a big tree just growing through the middle of it – they had built the roof around it! Another place had a big garden – and about 10 German Shepherds running around. “Aw, look at all those dogs!” Lisa excitedly said to me as she noticed them… “Why would anyone keep that ma….” she tailed off as the realisation set in that it was probably free-range dog we were seeing, not just an enthusiastic pet lover.

Crazy House

On the way back, we looked down at the dog-house again, this time we could only see five…

Filled with that cheery imagery – we drove another 5 minutes down the road to check out the waterfall at Datalna. It was 4:30 by this point, and we thought it closed at 5, so weren’t hopeful – especially as it took 10-15 minutes each way to get down to. As luck would have it – it was still open, and they also have a toboggan ride which you can catch both ways for an extra $2 each – sold! The toboggans were awesome – we had single seaters, and they were controlled with hand levers so really easy. It was just us riding too – so we had time to mess about a bit, and ride far too closely to each other. They didn’t feel like the safest of things, and actually went pretty quickly down the hill and round the corners!

We made it down in five minutes – checked out the waterfall for some pictures, then as they were closing we caught the last ride back to the top (not as exciting as they just pull you pretty much straight up – but at least we didn’t have to walk!).

We were on a sightseeing roll – so decided to see if the crazy house was open. This is a residence built by the daughter of a dignitary after a jaunt to Moscow inspired her.

 The place was insane – it reminded us both of the various Gaudi buildings we’d seen in Barcelona, but all kind of mushed together. Many of the ‘houses’ within it have the look and feel of being trees, with narrow winding staircases connecting very random bedrooms – each themed in some way (a giant bear, a bee, ants, a tiger etc on the wall). There were walkways connecting some of the buildings in the complex which intertwined like vines from a fig tree – only wide enough for one person that climbed to three or four stories high, but with only a waist or shin high barrier on either side.

The garden had ponds with hundreds of frogs and bugs chirping away – and a giant (fake) spider in a web. We walked around for over an hour as the light disappeared and stayed until they closed at 7 – it was really good fun exploring and we were glad we sought it out that evening.

Easy Rider.

That night we researched a food place around the corner that apparently did a really tasty vegetarian buffet – consisting of rather convincing mock-meat dishes. We found it and got there as they were about to close. No one spoke a word of English – so we just pointed at a few things, grabbed some beers from the fridge and took a seat. They were all chatting and laughing at us – and at one point an old lady came up from the cellar, clocked me and just stared for a good minute or so! To top it off, the food was amazing and has given us a craving ever since for whatever it was – but we’ll probably never find it again!

We briefly scooted around the night market – which resembled a jumble sale dealing almost exclusively in knitwear – then to the main backpacker street to see what action we were missing out on. 

It turns out – not much at all, so we called it a night.