And that's Da Lat!

After waiting for an hour at HCMC bus station, we boarded our sleeper bus at 11:30pm, bound for Da Lat.

The seats on sleeper buses are very narrow and it’s pretty daunting when you’re on the top seats to make sure you don’t fall out, but we quickly settled down into a comfy position for sleeping. The journey wasn’t too bad, broken only by (in my opinion) unnecessary rest stops and rocking from side to side as the bus climbed up the hill to Da Lat at 1500m.

We’d deliberately chosen this bus as it was scheduled to arrive into Da Lat at 7:30am, allowing us to drop our bags at the hostel then head out to explore the town before our afternoon check in. What we hadn’t been told is that the bus companies greatly overestimate the time it takes to get there, and we arrived at 5am! We got a free shuttle bus to our hostel, but still being before 6, the hostel was shut, although we found out later that if we’d rung the bell, they would have let us in! Luckily things start opening pretty early in Vietnam so we found a cafe round the corner to wait for an hour.

At 7am, we went back to the hostel, where they kindly offered to look after our bags and give us breakfast. We got talking to some other girls who had had a similar experience and had arrived even earlier than us. We decided to explore Da Lat together so the five of us, James and I, a German girl called Marieke, a Dutch girl called Aline and an Australian girl called Harper, set off for the Crazy House.

Never has a place been so aptly named! This is essentially a hotel that over the years has grown into something more and more ridiculous. It was definitely worth the £1 entrance fee. UK health and safety would have a fit if they saw this place, but it was incredible. I can imagine a group of kids would have a field day here, playing a neverending game of hide and seek. The only odd thing would have been to stay there, as it opens pretty early to tourists, who wander round and inevitably end up peering in through your hotel window!

From the Crazy House, we walked through the little streets to the lake in the centre of town, where we stopped for a coffee, or hot chocolate in my case. Just down the road was the central market. Due to its temperate climate, Da Lat is surrounded by endless greenhouses growing a wide range of produce, many of which were on display at the market. It appears that strawberries are coming into season, although they still looked a bit underripe for my taste. Aline did buy a deep fried, battered banana though, which was very tasty!

The other side of the lake were two odd shaped buildings, which turned out to be a cafe and a shopping centre. At this point, Harper decided to head back to the hostel, so the four of us continued to the shopping centre. Inside, there was some more 3D artwork, which we enjoyed posing in front of.

A key attraction in Da Lat is the cable car which takes you across to a Buddhist temple. However it closes between midday and 1pm, so we took this opportunity to have lunch at the buffet restaurant in the cable car station. This was a vegetable hot pot, with a big station full of salad and sauces. Very tasty and nice to share with everyone.

With the cable car now open, we took it down (we probably did it the wrong way round!) to the temple. This was nice to look around and there was another lake at the bottom which offered lovely views among the hills. However by this point, we were all starting to feel the effects of our early start so decided to head back to the hostel and check in.

A shower and a nap later, we were ready to partake in family dinner. Essentially, the hostel cooks dinner for anyone staying there who wants it. In our case this was 28 people. We had an enjoyable evening chatting with the other guests and eating a delicious and plentiful feast. Our hostel, Cozy Nook, was one of the best places we’ve stayed in - I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking to stay in Da Lat!

The next morning, we wandered up to the Summer Palace. Built between 1933 and 1938, it’s surprisingly understated for a palace and also pretty ugly, particularly from the outside! It was the summer residence of Vietnam’s last emperor, Bao Dai, who was exiled to France in 1954. The gardens were pretty though!

Unfortunately, we were only passing through Da Lat, but we were very pleased we did. Being higher in the hills, it was cooler than HCMC, and was much cleaner. If we’d had more time, it would have been nice to explore the surrounding area as there are meant to be some lovely waterfalls around, but being the dry season, I don’t know how spectacular they’d be, based on our previous experiences!

At midday, we got a bus transfer down to Nha Trang, where we were going to pick up our overnight sleeper train to Danang, and on to Hoi An. The drive down to Nha Trang was stunning. Starting off passing by hundreds of polytunnels, the road climbed steadily until we were driving over a high pass with an incredible view down into the valley and to the coast. It was a shame we couldn’t stop and take pictures, as the ones we tried from the bus didn’t really work.

We arrived in Nha Trang about 5pm and were dropped by the beach so went to look at that briefly, before wandering back to the station to collect our tickets.

Tickets is maybe a bit of an overstatement, as what we actually got was a piece of scrap paper with the time of our train and our seat numbers handwritten on it! But luckily, after some scrutiny, they were accepted by the train staff.

We went for dinner at a rooftop bar near the station, at which we ate some very tasty steak, despite not having an English menu and so not really being sure what we’d ordered. We arrived back at the station about 45 minutes before our departure, only to find out the train had been delayed by an hour and a half due to “technical difficulties”. Eventually the train arrived just before 9pm and we were pleased to find out we had our four berth cabin to ourselves!

We did a bit of blogging before heading to bed. We slept surprisingly well, once James had gaffer taped over the air con so it wasn’t so cold! However our hour and a half delay translated into three hours overnight. This wasn’t too bad, as it meant we were able to see more of the countryside in the daylight than we would have done otherwise.

Finally, after 11 and a half hours on the train, a record for us so far this trip, we arrived into Da Nang. We had a spot of breakfast before jumping in a Grab taxi for the half hour drive to Hoi An.