DaLat is known all over the country for its flowers, the altitude, soil and weather makes it prime rose, lilly and gerbera country. The hills where we went were just covered in basic green houses all full of different flowers. Lilies are popular for Tet, and are priced based on number and quality of blooms. There was a very deep purple lilly in bloom when we got there. Of the roses they only grow three main colours; red, white and yellow. Take a very simple guess as to why that is. The gerbera's are in every colour under the sun as they are at home. Even the dandelion's that grow by the sides are used to make tea.
From there we headed out towards one of the main coffee plantations. They use weasels out here as well; if you're not sure what I'm referring to it was first known in Indonesia where a man found that if his weasel ate the whole coffee been its stomach would digest the first layer and the bean would pass through whole which could then be dried, further processed and roasted. They make two main types of coffee here weasel arabica sour and robusta (strong but bitter) as well as some types of mocha blend. Coffee is traditionally served with condensed milk and as I've heard from many people over breakfast 'Vietnamese coffee is really strong'.
We then made a quick detour to see a silk weaving factory, watching the woman (employed because only women have the patience for it, according to the owner) fist soak the cocoons in hot water to strengthen the fibers, then connecting one of the threads to the weaving machine and watching it spin. I feel bad for the bugs, I had silk worms as pets but we let ours hatch one evening on the front porch and fly off. Although I have heard that there is a way to collect the silk and not killthem.
We then headed to Elephant Waterfall, this is a small waterfall with a trail that leads to the bottom as well as to a small tunnel that leads underneath the waterfall. It was lovely and cool as we climbed down and the mist from the falls was really refreshing when the wind was in the right direction.
At the top of the waterfall is a Buddhist temple with a giant Happy Buddha statue out the back. I'm not kidding this thing was huge, it looked both happy or like it was in incredible pain depending on your angle. I preferred the inner part of the temple although the led lights on some of the statues kind of ruined the ambience of the place.
Lunch was at a local place and they set out a spread like our dinner the other night; rice, pho, different chicken and pork dishes, spring rolls and vege. So filling and tasty. From there we headed to a cricket farms and tried some deep fried crickets. They aren't too bad, the legs are liable to get stuck in your teeth though.
After a longish drive back to the main city of DaLat, we stopped at the 'Crazy house'. It's not what you first think, as like me you possibly thought "mental asylum?" No it's a gaudy-meets-sesame street man made tree house. It's designed and run by Ms Dang Viet Nga to quote her
Since the end of the last century till now, nature and the environment have been too much destroyed; and human beings have taken the consequences of what they have done. For this reason, as a Vietnamese architect, I would like to bring people back to nature to be more friendly with it, to love it; not just to make full use of it, then destroy it as people in many places of the world including Viet Nam have been doing. - from the official website
It's nuts and you feel like a kid again climbing through the staircases and looking into rooms. Unfortunately some of the rooms that we should have been able to look at had just been booked by guests so they had closed the doors. There is a kangaroo room, there's a wooden kangaroo near the door but it's freaky as there a lights in its eyes, even sillier is that they're red. Everyone knows that it's drop bears who have red eyes. I had fun climbing around and seeing how the spaces were designed to mimic natural systems. It would be a bad place to try and explore while tipsy/drunk as some if the paths are quite high up and the rails only come up to my knees.
Our last stop was DaLat's Old train station. It used to service 84km of rack tracks due to the local landscape. It was abandoned during the Vietnam war and then the track was mostly dismantled to assis with rebuilding the north south railway. They have a 7km stretch of track that tourists can use toget to a neighbouring town. It's a nice bit of architecture but nothing spectacular unless you're into old steam trains.
We then headed back to the hostel and figured out what we were doing for the next 1.5days. Tomorrow we will go for a long trek to the highest point in Vietnam and the following morning we're going canyoning.
After going for a walk around the lake - which I should mention I spotted two older scout leaders as we were walking, I saluted and got a smile and a salute back - we had dinner at a place called chocolate cafe. It's nice and the service is decent. Back to sleep to rest for a busy day
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