In Da Lat

An eight hour bus trip takes us north into the Vietnamese Highlands and the city of Da Lat.  It’s three hours of HCMC’s urban sprawl before we’re truly in any sort of countryside.  Several hours later we climb out of the tropical vegetation, suddenly in the mountains covered with green, smelling strongly of evergreens.  As we enter the outskirts of Da Lat, the temperatures is noticeably cooler, and by dinnertime we’ve put on our long pants and long sleeves for the first time in three weeks.  The locals looks like they’re ready for a major blizzard, and the local night market is littered with jackets, sweaters, hats, scarves, earmuffs(!), and gloves. 

We wander into a “hot pot” restaurant, where fortunately there is a smattering of English words on the menu.  We order a chicken and straw mushroom hot pot and ask for extra vegetables.  Not entirely sure what we’re going to be eating, we look around where other patrons are busy with their own hotpots.  A stand with a small container for fuel underneath comes to the table, topped by a pot filled with broth, chicken pieces(mostly bones for broth), mushrooms, various leafy greens and onion/chive pieces.  The fire is lit and we wait for the whole thing to heat up while watching the other customers consume their food.  Andres gets up to show the lady that we want some noodles, as well as some extra greens.  We do our best to eat the mixture properly, and are politely ignored by the people around us when we throw our cold noodles INTO the pot—something no-one else seems to do.  We leave deciding that basically we’ve had chicken soup that we heated up ourselves at the table. Nothing too special.

Wandering through the crazily busy night market, which spills out over stairways, sidewalks and into the streets, we’re tripping over dozens of watercolor sellers, who flash portfolios of garish paintings, invariably introduce themselves, and then to make sure we reconnect with them later, point out their hats—all of which are indeed different.  “My name Dao, say Dao, remember me yellow hat.  See you later for you buy me, Dao.”  And on to the next woman with the same speech, different name, different hat.  Weary, we wander home.

The first full day we walk around sections of and near the central lake, where locals wander the sidewalk, fish, hang out on their motorbikes, ride the swan boats, or sip coffee at one of the few cafes on the shore.  It’s actually a dammed reservoir, and long ago it was a rice paddy.  We walk into the hills above the lake, and later walk to the “must-see” destination, Da Lat’s flower garden, a kitschy flower park, with everything from hundreds of potted plants, fountains, bonsai pavilions, topiaries of various kinds, large penguin trash cans, and a large tower made from bottles of Da Lat wine(Vietnam’s only wine).

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