ĐÀ LẠT. PART 2

2nd - 5th Jan 2020

Cable Car from Dalat town to Truc Lam.

The day was spent venturing into the surrounding countryside. There is a cable car from the south side of the town to the Truc Lam monastery. It is a 2½ km (15 min) journey over and through the forests. I happened to share, by default, my little gondola with a Russian lady called Tatiana. She was actually quite amusing. Her husband couldn't be bothered to come with her, she told me, and she was keen to improve her English. We had a very jolly chat about her life and family in Moscow as we glided over the trees. On landing at the other end she went her own way and I mine.

Left: The monastery had the normal Buddha shrine which, shoes off, you entered and saw locals all bending over to do their praying bit.

Right: The stupa in the monastery grounds.


















Left: Dress instructions. I do not possess any short skirts and as mentioned before only wear shorts for tennis or special occasions.












It was a 30 minute walk down from the cable car station to what I was told was a roller-coaster ride, called The Datania Ride. Well, I thought I had better give it a go and assumed it woud be a rather stately and gentle ride for timid tourists. You are strapped into a sort of toboggan on rails (right) which has two large brake handles which you pull to release and let go to brake, ie. like a 'dead man's handle' if you fell unconscious it would stop. Braking is for wimps I decided. Off to a gentle start it soon picked up speed and dived through the forest with serious dips and around sharp corners. It was actually very hairy and reminiscent of the Cresta Run. The G forces going around the loops were alarming. I braked! It was 2½ kilometers long and it felt on occasions that it might spin off the rails. I got to the bottom feeling somewhat shaken! I did manage to hold my camera in one hand some of the way; the other on the brake. I recorded a video of part of the ride which may, or may not, work.

If you can open this vid below it is apparent, even with me braking, you can get stuck behind some even more wimpish riders. For future reference (if I do it again, or you do) it is worth waiting at the start for a good few minutes, which you can do, to allow the slowcoaches in front to get well away ahead of you.

Left: A plan of the ride.



















When you get to the bottom you can walk further down to the Datania Falls, another popular tourist spot. They are quite dramatic I suppose (right).
Back to the bottom toboggan station and you are towed up a steep rack and pinion track back towards the top. I thought that was it but about halfway up the toboggan is released again for a further flourish down another series of dips and loops. This took me rather by surprise. It is then a further haul up to the top station. In all quite an exhilarating experience. Recommended.

That little trip took up most of the day and I spent the evening wandering around town. I found, eventually, a little restaurant in the maze of streets to the north of town called The Herb Garden. There are not a lot of decent restaurants in town but this one is a little gem. It is owned and managed by a charming ex-pat American called Chris and serves good sensibly priced steaks. Thoroughly recommended if you ever visit Dalat (and can find it!).

The area around the night market was buzzing. There was a very jolly crowd of people, including many children, out enjoying themselves with lots of music and dancing in the streets and the bars were doing good business.
It really does have a very jolly atmosphere and one thing you don't see is bad behaviour or drunkeness. Or at least I didn't.







Right: More flower rafts on the lake














Left: There were also fleets of these swan shaped pedal boats. Popular, but I didn't!

So that describes my two days in Dalat. Well worth the visit I thought.

Back on the bus the next morning for the return journey to Saigon. Same as before in reverse although, having mentioned no delays on the way up, about 20 miles out from Saigon, on a dual carriageway, we met the mother of all traffic jams and were stationary for about 15 minutes. It was due to a road accident. Anyway, back safely and not too late.

Just as a post-script, and now that I have got the hang of uploading/downloading my vids to/from YouTube here below is one I took in the Dalat night market. The children were loving it!

That will have to do from Vietnam......for the time being.

ĐÀ LAT. PART 1.

2nd - 5th Jan 2020

Dalat

The charming town of Dalat is about 300kms (190 miles) north-east of Saigon. It is up in the hills at an altitude of 4900ft. Warm in the day but sweater-wearing cool at night, it is where the French colonialists used to go to escape the heat, build their holiday homes and make wine. There are still many French colonial style buildings which surround the large artificial Xuan Hong lake. The surrounding countryside is very scenic with pine forested hills and a large national park; popular with trekkers and nature lovers. 

I chose to travel there during the day by bus to get a view of the countryside. It was a 7½ hour journey leaving at 10.00am and remarkably comfortable (and inexpensive). The bus had fully reclining seats, good air-con and a 'cabin crew' service for soft drinks and snacks. We had two stops en-route; one quick pee-break and a 30 minute one for lunch at a large transport café. We passed through some spectacular scenery up twisty mountain roads. Having said that the roads, sometimes dual carriageway, were in remarkably good nick and there were never any traffic jams, or roadworks.

We arrived in Dalat at 5.30pm. The bus company provided free-gratis mini-bus transport to my hotel, the Dalat de Charme Village (left). I had booked this the day before. It was cheap (£20pn), built in French Colonial style but I had not checked the location. It was about 3 miles out of town down a small road in the middle of goddamn nowhere! Nothing wrong with the hotel although there appeared to be no other residents around when I got there. The bar and restaurant were closed but I could order a drink (Dalat wine) and sandwich at reception. The accomodation was in comfortable and clean chalets plus good TV with decent balcony views towards the hills to the west. I discovered that the only time the place seemed busy was at breakfast. I presume the guests, mostly Vietnamese I think, then all left to do their sightseeing or whatever and didn't come back 'til late. That first evening I initially tried walking to see if I could find some shop or hostelry nearby. After 30 mins walking I gave up.  It was a taxi ride to town (or anywhere interesting) but the saving grace was that you could order a 'Grab' motorbike taxi at the hotel which turned up promptly, was quick and only cost about 80p for the 15 minute ride to town.

I started off by wandering around the vast busy market in the centre. This morphed into an even bigger and busier 'night' market. There were loads of small (and big) hotels around here and I wish I had chosen one of them. I should have stuck to my policy of only booking one night in advance! Mais c'est la vie........

Dalat is famous for flowers. They have a big flower festival every year which had just finished when I was there (fortunately probably). Every structure is covered in flowers of some sort. Left: Flowers on wheels bordered the lake.

Right: Flowers on all the embankments and roadsides.

Left: Flowers on rafts all down one side of the lake.

OK, you get the message; lots of flowers.

Next up I decided to visit the 'Crazy House' which is well advertised and well named. What an extraordinary construction, very much in the Salvadore Dali tradition of totally bonkers architecture. It consists of three or four (difficult to tell) buildings of weird design and varying height surrounding a small courtyard interconnected by a maze of passageways and vertiginous steep and narrow outside stairways (with low or sometimes non-existent guard rails) some at about 80ft from ground level. It would most definitely fail western 'elf 'n safety' regs.

I will try to show a selection of views of this 'house' complex but impossible to show it all together. There were plenty of tourists wandering around including many Russians for some reason who 'barge' their way around, and you never quite know where you are going or have been. Very disorientating.

Right: An example of the muddle of narrow (2ft wide) and steep stairways. Problem if you met someone coming towards you.

Left: So easy to fall over the side and it is a long way down! There is most certainly no 'wheelchair access' here. Or safety net!

Right: Curiously, in amongst a myriad of rooms serving varying functions, or none, there are some, randomly situated, which are fitted out as comfortable accommodation with toilets and showers en-suite. I can't imagine who uses them. 

Left: Click on this to enlarge. It tells you more about the place and its 'idiosyncratic' architect.

A stroll around the lake took me past this large spectator stand (right). I think it must be used when they do things on the lake and during the flower festival. It has a large shopping complex beneath it. The flags of all the SE Asian countries were flying.

Further on I took a detour to the old railway station (left). It is no longer on a main line but runs an old fashioned 'tourist' train for a 30 minute trip out to the east to the town of Trai Mat and back. The building has been well restored and there is a very decent restaurant inside.

Right: An ancient locomotive with a less ancient local posing alongside.

Left: Our train to Trai Mat. The thing that pulled it was a small modern diesel affair.

We travelled slowly and in some comfort on soft leather seats (right).

One of the extraordinary views en-route was mile upon mile of poly-covered greenhouses. They stretched to the horizon on either side of the railway. The amount of flowers and shrubs produced here must be vast. I presume they cannot  all be just to bedeck Dalat. They must be for export worldwide.














On arrival at Trai Mat we were told we had 50 minutes to amuse ourselves before the train departed. There is a famous pagoda to visit. Actually, being thirsty, I was more interested in finding a nice café for a cup of coffee or glass of beer. There weren't any that I could see. What a dump! So I followed the crowd to the pagoda (right). Yes, a nice pagoda I'm sure, as far as pagodas go, but I've seen so many before. Spent 5 minutes here and eventually found a place that sold beer. Phew! A man could die of thirst in Trai Mat. You would have thought that some enterprising person might have opened a decent hostelry at the station.

Interestingly there are many Christian churches in this part of the world. I saw several on the bus journey and this one, amongst others, in the town (left). I imagine the French had something to do with spreading the Christian faith. There is of course the large imposing RC Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon.

On return I continued my stroll around the lake and came to the Flower Park. Entrance (right). Obviously popular with tourists and many bus loads of them were arriving while I was there.










The gardens cover a large area either side of a long ornamental waterway with lots of fountains and contain many varieties of flowers and shrubs. I am no gardening expert and frankly have difficulty in telling a flower from a weed but these gardens were certainly colourful.








Right: This pony stood around hooked up to a cart covered in flowers. It was very well behaved. I'm surprised it didn't get bored and just go for a walk.

Left: A large bottle of Dalat wine featured in one spot. I believe the French produced good wine in these parts before the vineyards fell into neglect after they left. There are now several restored vineyards but from my experience the wine they produce is not very good. Neither is it cheap. The Vietnamese are not really wine drinkers.

Right: Roses with statues.

Left: One of the fountains.














Right: A flowery musical  'objet d'art'.













Left: Several years ago these penguin waste bins were all over Saigon. They aren't there now and I  sort of wondered what had happened to them. I now know. They have migrated to different parts of the country. Why penguins? I haven't a clue. I don't think Vietnam is a natural penguin habitat. They must have been bought as a job lot.

Right: Just outside the entrance/exit was a row of these rather tarty horse-drawn carriages. They took passengers up the lakeside to the town centre and they did so at an alarming speed. The horses were galloping up the road! They must have been knackered at the end of the day. Yeee-haa.

I found a remarkable pub that evening called 'Roofs' in the centre of town (left). It is on 6 floors connected by narrow staircases. The little bars on each floor were 'rustic' to say the least. Plenty of scope for banging your head on the overhanging forestry.

Part 2 in and around Dalat to follow.

BACK TO 'NAM AGAIN

13th Dec 19 -  2nd Jan 20

Saigon City Hall

I do like Vietnam, which explains why I normally choose it as my bolt-hole from the grim weather and even grimmer enforced commercial 'jollity' of the so called 'festive season' in UK. At this time of year the weather here is warm (mid 30s) and sunny, as is the nature of so many of the Vietnamese. They have yet to be affected too badly by the rights, free services and hand-outs demanded by our spoilt, litigious and ever complaining Western inhabitants. They expect to work, however menially, to earn a living, take responsibility for their misfortunes even if not their fault and have a strong family bond to support them. There are some downsides, but on the whole they are a very hardy, uncomplaining and enterprising people free of our 'entitlement' culture. Plus the place is safe. There is relatively little violent crime and terrorism is unknown (but they do have some skilful scooter 'bag-snatchers' on the Saigon streets). All the sexist, racist, homophobic, #metoo, etc. bollocks so whinged about in the West is unknown. They are fairly conservative in their opinions and behaviour and certainly the likes of Pattaya (see previous) would never be tolerated. They also have some splendid bars, restaurants, shops and sights to see and all relatively inexpensive.  So the place appeals to a boring old fart like me. 

Left: This was an accident. I intended to refuse all 'Merry Christmas' routines but was forcibly encouraged to join some staff at the excellent Caravelle Hotel in Saigon on Christmas day on my way up to the Rooftop Bar to be entertained by the splendid Cuban band which performs there. I have videos of this band but still, for the life of me, I don't know how to fix videos on this blog even though it should be possible (I'm told).

Right: The streets were packed with sightseers on their scooters (motos) over Christmas and New Year. The locals love to get out to see the lights and fireworks. Scooters are never a problem here. Traffic problems are caused by the increasing number of cars.

The New Year was seen in by the usual fireworks display and happy throngs. I was happily not celebrating in a nice restaurant and didn't see it this year. I have covered all these celebrations in previous (last year's) blog so not going to bother doing it again.

Right: The street cafés are popular with locals and tourists alike. Rough and ready but delicious food and very cheap.

Left: These small art galleries are popular. On one street (Tran Phu, Dist 5) I counted 42 of them in the distance of 300yds. Most have 'artists in residence' and must produce hundreds of paintings a day between them. Some of them are quite good, but I wonder who buys them all. 

It is interesting to see a strange mix of shops on Saigon streets. Right: a motorbike repair shop sandwiched in between two rather chi-chi hairdressers. Hair done while your bike is serviced? A very useful facility on Vietnamese shops, however small, is that they all have their street number and address on the shop fronts. It must be a legal requirement. You always know where you are. This is something that is curiously lacking in UK where so few shops display even their street number. I think it should be made compulsory if only to help emergency services.

Left: Sitting at a bar on the 52nd floor of the Bitexo Tower in the south of the city. This sky-scraper has 68 floors including a helicopter-pad sticking out from the 49th.











Right (not my photo): The Bitexo Tower with helipad which, I am told, is very rarely used. It would be a good spot for an 'al fresco' knees-up.

Left: Looking up the Saigon River to the north-east. You can see the ferry terminal from which you can do trips to various places. I got up very early one day for a round trip to Can Gio. Got to the terminal at 8.00am but told the tide was out and the river was too low.

Just a brief report on Saigon as I've done it all before. Blogs delayed due to a technical hitch with loading photos. These computer companies keep changing things without warning you which is most irritating. Anyway, I think I've sorted it out, eventually. More to follow from the lovely town of Đà Lạt.

Just discovered how to put videos on this. However they only accept 'small' ones so a bit limiting. A couple below of the Cuban band at the Caravelle Rooftop Bar (3 girls and 2 blokes).