After visiting the Mui Ne market that morning, we returned to our hotel, the Hai Yen Family Hotel , but not before returning our motorbike to the rental shop. We packed up and headed to the Singh Tourist office, just 300 meters away, saving us the cost of a motorbike taxi.
On the agenda, a complete change of scenery as we leave the beaches and the sand for the greenery and heights of Dalat, a mountain resort popular with Vietnamese people for the mild air that can be found there almost all year round.
A short introduction to Dalat
During the French colonial period, this city was one of the resorts for the French from Saigon who liked to escape the hot tropical humidity by going to this place to recharge their batteries.
Dalat is called a romantic mountain city and has a significant tourist attraction thanks to its landscapes, waterfalls, lakes, lush meadows and flowery valleys. Its colonial villas whose style recalls the architecture of the provinces of the former metropolis.
There are Norman villas as well as chalets and Basque houses. Its train station is particularly famous.
Personally, apart from waterfalls and a few houses, we didn't see any of that (we only stayed for one day too…)
Dalat is also called "the city of eternal spring" because the average temperature in winter never falls below 10°C, and in summer it hardly exceeds 25°C.
This mild and pleasant climate allows the city to cultivate a wide variety of flowers and fruits. That's what Wikipedia tells us.
Dalat is also renowned for its vegetable crops, which thrive thanks to an ideal climate. Farms are plentiful around the city, and a large portion of the vegetables destined for southern Vietnam originate from this area. Finally, Dalat is also known for its wine and tea production.
On the way to the mountains of Dalat
We were surprised to find that our means of transport was just a simple van, which meant only 6 people going to Dalat with us? After finding the last passengers, some French people (whom we will follow over the next few days), we set off, heading towards the mountains of southern Vietnam.
The road, although the main one from Mui Ne, is not very wide, the average speed barely exceeding 30 km/h at times… This leaves time for chatting, and Jitima, as best he can, tries to take a little nap…
At that pace, it took us almost four hours, especially since we stopped halfway (I think the van must have been overheating a bit on the climb, lol). We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but there was a small local grocery store there. It helps support the local economy, since some of the other passengers in our van were buying snacks. Meanwhile, Jitima was thrilled to say hello to two adorable living plush toys.
Night walk near the lake
That same evening, we just took a short walk in the cool night air, after finding a hotel run by the sister of a Vietnamese woman who spoke French, and who herself ran a small hotel almost directly across the street. An artificial lake sits in the middle of the town, but it was drained for work to improve water management (particularly to prevent flooding in case of heavy rain).
We first stopped at the Thai Bao restaurant, which had a rather cosy look on the edge of the lake (dried up for work at the time of our visit), a small meal that didn't really delight us.
We'll continue towards the roundabout around the market (still bustling this evening) before heading to a more upscale neighborhood where, still feeling a bit peckish, we'll be tempted by the window display of a bakery. The next day, we'll explore the area around Dalat!
Flower garden, or not
To start the day, we rented a motorbike right across from our hotel. It was my first time trying a manual version, for lack of other options. Well, I discovered that it was actually a semi-automatic, so thankfully not like a real motorcycle, and I quickly figured out how to shift gears with my foot without having to deal with a clutch.
We then went to take a look at the flower garden. From the outside, it didn't seem worth paying for. Indeed, this garden is most interesting during its flowering season in January and February, so being there in March, it was rather dreary.
The Valley of Love, Romantic Dalat!
So we continue towards the area called "the Valley of Love" , as I said the day before, Dalat aims to be a romantic city, so this park has all the elements to allow lovers to stroll in a suitable atmosphere.
The weather being quite mixed the experience was not the most unforgettable. We still stayed a little while to go for a pedal boat ride on the lake at 40.000 Dong per hour.
Cam Ly Falls and the “crazy” house
After that, it was time to look at the few waterfalls in the area, after an unplanned stop at the "mad house" (which we will not visit by the way), we went towards a very bad surprise... according to the photos below, disappointed, we quickly left elsewhere wanting to go into the forest, thinking that it would be more pleasant (and it was).
We stop for a moment in front of the "crazy" house (you will see crazy house on local maps), a wacky and strange work of the daughter of a former minister (later to become the second president of Vietnam) of Ho Chi Minh (the guy, not the city) that we will not visit.
Dantala Waterfall
After a few kilometers, we arrive at the Dantala waterfall, which offers an original way to access it, a kind of manual roller coaster, the journey still lasts about 4 minutes, knowing that you manage your speed manually, be careful not to hit the possible neighbor in front of you.
We were lucky, there was no one at that time, but I limited the speed a little, because I had already managed to convince Jitima to do it, I didn't want to terrorize her either... It requires an extra charge (otherwise you can go on foot) but you arrive directly at the bottom at the foot of the falls so it's quite pleasant.
Back to Dalat market, restaurant and school outing
After this return leg to the city center, Jitima wanted to return to the market during the day, and in passing, we noticed the sadness of the empty central lake... Then we left again, not without having spotted and tested the restaurant area (along Thanh Thai street)
We wander around on our motorbikes without any specific goal, just to visit the surroundings, we stop somewhere to walk a bit. We arrive in streets that are not tarmacked and no tourists in sight, we don't go unnoticed. The time to get back to the motorbike and it was the end of school, in other words a huge mess, but we had to squeeze through all these people to get home...
