Dalat

29th April 2010 Our first job today was to contact Hue Riders. These are the local version of the Easy Riders we used in Dalat a few weeks ago to do a day tour into the countryside. This time we’re keen to travel down the coast but this time going over the Hai Van pass that we came under in the tunnel yesterday. Viewers of Top Gear may recall this pass from the Top Gear in Vietnam episode they did a couple of years ago. We were also interested in continuing our journey by bike on down to Nha Trang, but we didn’t really know how long it would take or what our options are. A quick phone call to a helpful Australian lady resulted in a Hue Rider arriving at our hotel some ten minutes later. ...

3rd April 2010 Our aim today was to see some of the sights within Dalat itself. However our first port of call was the post office where we sent home the tablecloth we had purchased yesterday. On the way to the post office we passed Dalat’s allegedly beautiful lake, but at the moment it’s undergoing renovation work and not looking so great. ...

4th April 2010 Phat Tires are a company in Dalat who specialse in adventure tours. They do all sorts such as rock climbing, trekking and abseiling, but we had booked a mountain biking trip with them. Our destination was the beach resort of Mui Ne. This is a four hour drive from Dalat, so becuase we were only doing one day with Phat Tires we drove for an hour and a half down from Dalat before we started. ...

2nd April 2010 Our Easy Rider guide Hiep was at the front of our hotel at 8:30am this morning as promised. He had brought along Gong, another Easy Rider who also spoke English, also as promised. Considering these guys have had no schooling and have taught themselves English, their language skills were really quite good. The accent, as ever with the Vietnamese (who very rarely get taught by English native speakers) could be a little hard to understand at times. But again, once you get your “ear in”, and because you are one on one you can ask questions. At one point during the day Gong even wished me “iechyd dda” (cheers in Welsh for the uninitiated!) which amazed me - he had had 2 Welsh people on a recent tour! ...

1st April 2010 This morning we bid a fond farewell to Karen and her lovely apartment, full of gratitude for what we have seen of and learnt about this fabulous country. It was time for us to continue our explorations by taking an 8 hour bus journey to the city of Dalat in Vietnam’s central highlands. Dalat is a popular place for domestic tourists from Saigon. It is spring-like cool all year round and a vege-growers heaven. It’s climate is ideal for growing many types of fuit and vegetables. ...