Day 10 - off-roading

I have made a map to track our progress, and will continue to do so so you can follow our progress geographically.

We spent a lot of time trying to get to Dalat. Now we’re here – it seems a very odd place. The guidebooks describe it as the Paris of Vietnam, and they weren't wrong. Everything is ultra kitsch! It even has it's own mini Eiffel tower. People here dress with a European flare, there are many bars, hi-end electronic shops, and some of the architecture here resembles what you might find in the French Alps (chalet style). This was a place the French (when Vietnam was a French colony – 1858-1954) decided to make a home-from-home to escape the sizzling heat of the dry season. We are 1500m above sea level, making the climate dramatically different to what we've been used to – you need a blanket at night, and it even rained here today. This is a place that many Vietnamese come to as a honey-moon destination, and is popular with tourists due to it's cosmopolitan vibe. A large contrast to our experiences to date.

Our first morning consisted of driving to a monastery in the hills, which was really lovely – a very tranquil place with stunning views (apart from the tourist shops with caged monkeys). After which we went to the main waterfall in the area. The falls were okay (it is the dry season after all!), but it was SUCH a tourist trap – tack-ometer was off the scale.

Scenes up here in the mountains.

Returning to the city, we ventured around the central lake, then into the east-end of town. After which we decided to get off the main roads and start exploring the countryside a bit. And boy was it the countryside – massive valleys, filled with beautiful scenery, stepped farmland & paddies that just stretched on forever. Truly awe-inspiring! We enjoyed ourselves so much we forgot about time, distance, and petrol again. This time it was Lukas that ran dry, quite literally at the top of the hill that takes us back onto the main road, where by another amazing stroke of luck there just happened to be a petrol pump (these are not stations like at home, but barrels linked to hand pumps in people driveways you can buy from) 10 metres away – lucky boy! :)

By this point we were covered in head-to-toe in red dust from the off-road routes we'd taken. After some more driving around, we settled for one of the best meals we've had in the country so far, and back into an internet café to update our progress.

Regular red-faced appearance.

Tomorrow we hope to hire an 'easy rider' biker dude for the day to take us to more remote places that we can't find in any guide, and show us more of the real countryside we loved so much today.