Going where I’ve never been

…and honeymoon capital of Vietnam. That is Dalat’s claim to fame, and it’s easy to see why! The place is beautiful and can really only be described as romantic; as I said before, I immediately thought of southwestern Europe and Gabe could’ve sworn he was in Colorado. We spent four full days there, quite a chunk of time on this sort of trip, and were both hesitant to leave.

It was just such a nice change from everywhere else that we’ve been for the past six months. The nights were cold, the days absolutely beautiful, and palm trees were replaced with towering pines. The whole city is built into the mountains with stairs connecting the various levels and narrow cobbled alleyways, and there’s no word for the houses aside from ‘quaint.’ The market is now at the top of my list, several levels and streets full of everything you can imagine and a food stall area that just begs you to eat 8 meals a day! Soup, the number one food in Vietnam, is especially wonderful in this town and the numerous cafes are a welcome sight with their steaming cups of locally grown coffee.

We spent the first day hiking up Lang Bien mountain, a volcanic peak with incredible views of the countryside. There was unfortunately a large cloud occupying the top, but we made it up high enough to enjoy endless views of surrounding farmland, vineyards and coffee plantations. At night, we’d enjoy a bottle of Dalat wine (less than $2) and whatever treats we could pick up while roaming the market in search of brand name bargains (resale, anyone?)

We drove our motorike out to Thoc Voi, or Elephant Falls, on the second day. The route was off of our map and it took a lot of asking fellow drivers and turning around to find it, but it was more than worth it! The drive itself was breathtaking, full of steep, winding mountain roads and valleys absolutely bursting with vineyards, lakes, farmland and flowers. The falls were huge, crashing down over massive boulders at the bottom; we spent time climbing around at the bottom, priding ourselves on being the only ones there without a guide. Afterwards we stopped for some pho at a roadside home where it seemed no tourist had stopped before – they got a kick out of it and served a delicious, memorable meal.

On the third day Gabe went mountain biking while I explored (code word for walked) the town a bit more. I finally headed over to the lake, and immediately kicked myself for not having done so sooner! The lake was huge, surrounded with perfectly landscaped trees and flower beds and lined with a wide, clean unbroken sidewalk. In short, this was probably the best running I’d find in SE Asia! I walked a loop to test the distance (5K) and enjoyed the crisp, sunny day and hundreds of other people out doing the same. Refreshingly, Dalat is full of tourists, but they are all Vietmanese. Somehow this place hasn’t really made it onto the standard foreigner circuit, and we loved it all the more because of it!

Needless to say, I was up at five the next morning and headed straight for the lake. I immediately noticed (when will I quit being surprised by this?) that we miss out on a lot while we sleep. As I passed above the market area, I couldn’t help but notice that the streets resembled Times Square on New Year’s eve. They were packed, with thousands of people browsing around what is apparently the best all-night market in existence! I tried to push away my regret at not having experienced it and continued on.

The lake was surrounded by innumerable runners, walkers and cyclists, and the chilly air was enough to allow me a hard nine miles, something I was quite proud of after my rather dodgy running schedule lately. I enjoyed a euphoric walk home where I dragged Gabe out of bed (so what if he had a grueling 35km bike ride the day before?) in search of food, pronto (I’m so lucky that he manages to be so agreeable in the morning…)!

We had to leave at 4 p.m. on a night bus to Hoi An. We had one more lake visit, got one last market meal, savoured one last bakery treat and somewhat sadly waited on the bus to show up.

We were even more hesitant to leave after we realized that we (the only people with “Europe-legs” on the bus) had picked seats above the wheel carriage. As the guys in front of us leaned their chairs faarrrr back, we looked at each other, acknowledging that it would be a looonnnggg night. 14 hours and four pee stops later (one of which was on the side of a mountain road, involving lots of shameless, squatting women) we arrived in Danang, boarded a school bus that looked like it’d been through a few world wars, entrusted the driver (who had one good eye and no passable English) with our life and soon found ourselves in Hoi An.

Hoi An is a beautiful place as well, though absolutely overrun by white people. We’ve done a good job of keeping our distance and straying from the path,  as usual (finally found our 50 cent soup!). I’ll save my description for another post in a day or two, after the longing for Dalat wears off a bit more…

Vietnam is fast becoming the highlight of our trip, consistently putting smiles on our faces. We started out on Phu Quoc, a large island not too far from the Cambodian border. Phu Quoc is 90% mountainous forest; there is a small guesthouse/resort strip and a main town with some paved roads, but otherwise the entire place is remote and crisscrossed with dirt roads. We had a beach-front bungalow with hammocks for $8/night – the beaches are gorgeous, there are no crowds and the waves were wonderful. We rented a motorbike and spent an entire day exploring the north end of the island. We got caught in one downpour while passing through a village and were immediately ushered into a small bamboo hut by the guy that lived there – we couldn’t communicate via words but he was happy to have stay until the storm passed. The rest of the day was spent driving alongside miles and miles of absolutely pristine,deserted beaches and ended with indescribably fresh seafood. We really didn’t want to leave, but luckily we pulled ourselves away and headed to the next place!

Stop number two was Can tho, on the Mekong Delta. We foolishly agreed to buy minibus tickets from our moto driver – “very nice bus, fast, air conditioned!” In reality it was a large van that should have been retired years before, with one fan and nearly 20 people (someone with a bag of fish) crammed in. Within an hour we got a flat tire and it took over an hour to fix…luckily there was a bia hoi place to keep us occupied. Anyways, Can tho was a really nice little town and we headed out at 5:30 the next morning to some floating markets. We had a longtail boat with a woman to drive it down the Mekong, and it was great.

We’d done the floating markets in Thailand, but those are so overdone and exist only for the tourists. These markets are actually functional, there were few other foreigners in sight and certainly no boats selling souveniors! Our driver spoke no english, but she made incredible sculptures out of palm leaves as she motored along and took us down lots of rural, beautiful back canals where the resident kids would run out and scream their hellos – we loved it! We were back by lunch, just in time for an afternoon of thunderstorms…luckily we were blessed with a hot water shower and a wrought iron balcony (and, okay, the Discovery channel) that made our room a perfect place to spend such an afternoon.

Next, we headed to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon. We weren’t anticipating enjoying it, expecting it to be another huge, crazy, dirty city and were going to stay for a day, see a museum then head north. However, we were pleasantly surprised! We arrived at night again and at first glance, it resembled Bangkok quite a bit. Once we were settled in our guesthouse (another great, clean, hot-water and balcony room on the second floor of a sweet old lady’s house) and went out to roam around, we realized that the atmosphere was a lot nicer and the city was unbelievably clean (a rare thing in SE Asia). The traffic was impressive, but had nothing on Phnom Penh – I mean, come on, Vietnam actually has helmet laws and stoplights!

I got up at 5 the next morning to run, as there was a large park across from our place. From our back alley location, I couldn’t tell if it would be too early, too sketchy, etc, and headed out tentatively. Stepping onto the street was like stepping into a time warp! I’d expected it to be dark, quiet and to feel a bit jumpy until the world started to wake up. What I was greeted with, however, were bars still full of foreigners, breakfast soup vendors everywhere, Vietmanese men already at the cafes with their iced ca phe and cigarettes and a park absolutely packed with runners, walkers, handball games, soccer games and mass aerobics groups in the center of it all. I was the latecomer! Running around that park was akin to being on a carousel at a carnival, it was super entertaining and a perfect start to the day.

We explored the market for breakfast (and snack and lunch), where we found a mindblowing spread of new things to try, then headed to another park to sit, write and enjoy the absolutely perfect weather. Saigon is a beautiful city, very green, very clean and full of French architecture – hands down the nicest city we’ve seen in Asia. We headed to the War Remnants Museum in the afternoon. I won’t go into too much detail on it, but it was another harsh dose of reality. The photos were shocking, things you never see or hear about in history class (or anywhere else), and while it was obviously presented from the Vietmanese point of view, there’s no arguing some of the things we saw. One of the most overwhelming sections documented the effects of Agent Orange on later generations; it put me near tears and both of us felt as though we didn’t want to speak and have anyone in there hear our American accents. I have no doubt that I have learned more history on this trip than I could’ve learned in 30 years of school at home.

I was sort of sad to leave Saigon so soon, but we only have a month and time is flying; the country that began as our lowest priority has quickly become the highest and there is so much ground to cover! This morning we both went running, checked BBC for election updates, had another soup (the current front-runner) at the market, checked BBC for election updates, then boarded a bus to Dalat. Dalat is in the central highlands and the descriptions were wonderful; waterfalls, mountains, lakes, cool climate and lots of French influence – we anticipated wanting to spend a few days in such a place.

First of all, the bus was light years ahead of anything we’ve been on recently. Lots of leg room, tv, a/c, good food stops and amazing scenery. The further we went, the more breathtaking it became; mountains covered in vineyards, huge pine trees, gorgeous waterfalls. Arriving in Dalat was the climax; if it weren’t for the motorbikes and laughably cheap food/accomodation, I’d think I was in France or Switzerland!

The town is built into the mountains, the roads are steep, the buildings are French, it’s immaculately clean, the trees are huge, local wine is sold everywhere, bakeries are at every corner and it is COLD. I don’t mean that there is a chill in the air, I mean that it’s COLD! We have not experienced this since winter in Austin and finally, finally it feels like November!

We already had huge grins on our face when the bus pulled in, and they got even bigger when it dropped us in the town center instead of a distant station. We got out and a girl politely asked if she could help us (compare this to the usual onslaught of moto drivers all pulling and shouting at you). We asked about a guesthouse that was listed in our book and she offered a free ride to it, but said she had a room right there if we wanted to look- she’d discount it to make it the same, $8. We agreed to look and stepped into the hotel. She led us up four flights of stairs to a spotless room with real bedcovers, hot water, television, complimentary tea and a great view.Our grins got bigger and we moved in – cold weather, real hotel…we felt like we were on vacation from backpacking!

We went to check in and she showed us the newpaper declaring Obama as president – my grin hit its limit! From there, I needed a coat as my rainjacket is hardly protection against chilly weather. We headed up the steep streets and were immediately confronted with a bakery that had our names written all over it. We spent a lot of time gawking and drooling, then finally bought a bottle of wine ($2) and cheesecake. My grin suddenly found room to get bigger! The cake made it all of five feet from the door before it was devoured (they always give you spoons), then we headed towards the market. Coats and winter gear are the specialty in Dalat, and within minutes we were drowning in choices.

As you probably know, Vietnam is the place for clothing production, which means it is the place for bargains. There is the market, where coats/sweaters/wool hats/scarves are piled on the ground and it’s a free-for-all bargain fest. Near the market are shops with more upmarket choices, and this is where I found my deal!

There was a super nice Northface coat that I immediately saw, and Gabe, former outdoor-gear professional, informed me that it retails for at least $350. We asked the girl what she wanted for it, expecting maybe $100…she responded with “$24.” Twenty four dollars! I let Gabe do his expert inspection and it all checked out as genuine and intact, so I happily bought it and am now contemplating Craigslist opportunities…I may be buying several!

To sum this up, Vietnam is breath-taking. Thailand was great and Cambodia made what will probably be the biggest impression on me, but this place is just all-around wonderful. It’s gorgeous, there are so many drastic differences between the different regions, it’s not overrun by tourism (as is Thailand), the food is amazing, it’s clean, it’s taken care of and the people are phenomenal. There’s much more of a Chinese influence here and you can see it in the relative orderliness of things. I’m sure I’ll have lots to write after a few days in Dalat, and things should only get more beautiful from here; the grand finale will be in the far north mountain town of Sapa, where snow is a very real possibility. I have a feeling that these grins aren’t going anywhere…