A $30 sleeper bus from Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat got me to my place in a little less than 5 hours. On our way we also stopped a couple of times to stretch our legs and try a 25,000 dong bahn bao. The bus company I took was called Futa Bus, and it had the ugliest company logo I have seen in my life. I will not add it here to not damage anyone’s mental health. Basically its this ugly combination of red and green stripes in a square with “Futa Bus” written diagonally.
Da Lat was a major French city during the French colonization before 1945, when Vietnam gained its independence. Today, it is a beautiful blend of European architecture and Vietnamese way of life, overlooking a picturesque, mountainous landscape below. Many locals prefer it over hot and humid centers like HCMC, for it mild and warm climate, as well as more relaxed, buzz-free style.
The first thing that caught my eye when I arrived was the amount of flowers in the streets, and the effort put into the decorating streets with pretty facades, flower beds, and painted walls.
Took me a while to find my hotel (or, to be more precise, homestay), which was located down one of the narrow streets, hiding from the main road. The place was held by a lovely couple who had a very lovely daughter. She was about 6-7 years old but spoke better English than her parents. Three minutes up the street took me to an amphitheater-shaped square, with two grotesque flower bud buildings – one was the opera house, and the other one was a popular here Highlands Coffee (something like Starbucks at home). Underground I found a 3-level shopping mall, and a huge grocery store GO! where I bought the tastiest fruits in my life.
The next day I set out to find a travel agency which could book me on a tour to discover local Da Lat treasures. I picked the closest found location on Google Maps and set out on my way. It led me along picturesque streets to a residential area with no hints of any travel agency whatsoever. The same story happened the second time, except it was even funnier – the agency should have been located at street number 18/8; at that moment I felt Harry Potter’s pain when there was platform 9, platform 10, but no 9 and 3/4.
On my way I also stopped at one of the small kiosks to grab some dry napkins. The lady at the cash register was very excited to see a customer, but spoke zero English, and did not understand what I asked for. Frantically, she started offering me some packs of milk, and then called somebody from the back, with clear panic in her voice. All this time I was waiting for data on my phone to connect, and finally was able to translate “napkins” to Vietnamese. If the word “relief” was a person, it would certainly be that lady 🙂
I finally decided to just book Grab trips to all the locations myself and have a solo tour. Another option was booking on Booking.com, but of course the third party always overprice these things to make some money themselves.
As a last resort, I popped in some random, posh hotel and asked if they organized any tours, and was handed a booklet for HappyDay travel agency. I turned around 180 degrees and headed back in the direction I just returned from. A couple of hundreds meters up the incline and I found my last and final place where I was finally able to book a tour to Elephant Waterfall, Pongour Waterfall, weasel coffee farm, bee farm, and Datanla Waterfall.
Skipping a bit ahead, Datanla waterfall was the first on the list, but when we arrived, the tour guide turned us around – the line up was way to big. We returned there in the end of day, but it was already closed. So one waterfall was unfortunately crossed off the list.
I had booked the tour for the next day around lunchtime, but at 8 pm, while I was already in bed scrolling through my feed before sleep, I received a WhatsApp message cancelling my tour due to a lack of people. I asked to rebook me for the next day (Monday), and received a vague message which could be interpreted either as “yes of course, I booked you” or “I will check and maybe book you”. Next day (Sunday) I messaged the tour agent two more times & with no response, irritated, went back to their office (almost got hit by a bike on my way – the guy’s wheels rolled over the tips of my shoes and I felt the breath of death motorcycle wind blow my hair away).
Finally got that all settled – and to be honest, the tour was worth the fight.
I never knew that the beautiful picture of the waterfall hanging in my grandmother’s bedroom was actually the Pongour Waterfall, or that Vietnam is the only country that has Lady Buddha (here is 360 video of the petal covered square at her feet, as well as the amazing view of Da Lat from up high).
Another 360 video of Pongour here.
I also never knew weasels are employed to eat the coffee beans, and poop out the beans without the acid-digested outer skin. These are further processed to remove remaining skins, and then roasted to open up in a well-known, cozy bouquet of coffee aroma. I have not made any pics because I miscalculated the Vietnamese dong, paid a whole fortune for a 250gr pack of moca weasel coffee beans, and therefore was suffering from the mental trauma and financial breakdown.
My newly made friends Alejandro, a solo traveler from Chile, and an exchange student Assia from France (currently studying in Malaysia), suggested we finish up our tour with a personal trip to a Truc Lam Buddhist Monastery. They asked everybody to dress in clothes fully covering the body – a test which my shorts and slim shirt never had a chance passing. So we hid behind the bushes and Assia kindly lent me her skirt and a blouse 🙂
On Friday I wrote my statistics exam and realized that it would be a much more useful way to spend time if I visited the Crazy House and Clay Tunnels. Somehow these ones escaped my diligent planning up until my last day in Dalat.
Crazy House was an… interesting place. Reminded me of the house from the cartoon Carolina, where her button-eyed family lived; just less sinister and more labyrinth-like. Tip for the future – don’t pay 80,000 dong for entrance, go around and enter through Crazy Cafe for free.
The buildings had long and twisted staircases, with minimum support, although they were quite firm to stand on. The underground was decorated in the marine style, and that’s the best imitation of the underwater world I have seen – very detailed, with correct color choice, lighting, etc, etc.
Then I had a genius idea to walk 13 km uphill to the Clay Tunnels, because $4 Grab (a taxi service, similar to Uber in Canada) was apparently too much.
Sometimes I become ridiculously Scrooge McDuck-y.
I did it. Took me 2 hours 45 minutes, as well as the will to live, but I did it. It is possible that local people have never seen a masochistic person like me, and some even stopped to ask me if I was okay…
If you are curious what the “clay tunnel” was, then I will tell you: imagine a park full of clay structures of a size of a small elephant, with some being engraved right in the stony walls. See for yourself in the pictures.
I firmly decided that everything has its limits, and my passion for saving also belongs to the definition of “everything”. So I tried to order a Grab, which – surprise, surprise – was not available because I was so far away from the busy areas.
I saw a tourist bus getting ready to leave, and quickly rushed to it, trying to explain that I just want a quick ride to Dalat, Grab is not available, I would need to walk for 3 hours, bla bla bla… At first they had no clue what was going on and thought I messed up their tourist group with mine, or simply got lost. I tried to translate to Vietnamese, but as it later turned out, it was a VIP Korean tour, and Vietnamese probably confused them even more than English.
Finally though, gesturing has once again proven itself to be the universal language, and in 20 minutes I was at my place.
Till next time, my friends 🙂
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