Grey but never dull: Dalat

In an attempt to keep this short (maybe even sweet?) our first stop out of Saigon was the seaside resort town of Mui Ne. Never have I seen so many extravagant hotels and spas in one place. To be honest, it was all a little too much. The beach itself was nothing to write home about and the town was way too expensive for us little backpackers. We searched under the moon light for a cheap place to stay, but our luck was out, it was going to be another 7$ night. Unfortunately this time, the cost wasn’t really reflected in the accommodation. The strip we were staying on was like walking down something from a 90210 episode, ‘life styles of the rich and famous’ came to mind.

We left the following morning.

Back on the road and possibly on the bounciest bus imaginable (my back will never be the same) we headed towards Dalat, high in the hills and famous for its coffee and wine: two of my favourite things. As we climbed the mountains, views of lush greenery surrounded us and made for a strong contrast from the cities and seaside places we had visited so far. We expected Dalat to be a small town, tucked away between the hills. It turned out to be quite different. Tucked between the hills yes, small, not so much. As we topped over the final brow of a mountain, Dalat spread out beneath us, far larger than we both imagined.

Sock horror, we weren’t dropped miles out of the centre. Things were looking good, but there was a reason why our little mini bus had struggled through the afternoon traffic to drop us at the first hotel. I think there were some family ties between the driver and hotel staff. Admittedly, it was a nice looking place, but way out of our league. It didn’t take long before we started walking. With no idea of where we were going, and only a vague idea of bearings, we started down the hill – an easier option than trekking upwards. This didn’t last long. Soon we were at the bottom, with only one option regardless of what road we picked; we were going up.

The weather here took us completely by surprise. From 30 degrees in Mui Ne, we had arrived in a place where the weather resembled something more of a British summer: cool, overcast and a little grey. This helped us as we climbed the endless hill to our guesthouse.

The large building looked good from the outside, and didn’t really disappoint on the inside either. The rooms were spacious, but there was no fan? We knew it was 6$ a night, but still, surely we would fry at night? Like I said earlier, the weather was too cold for any need of external cooling systems. In fact, after a rummage around at the bottom of our bags, our jumpers came out, albeit smelling a little damp. Nice.

It was a family run guesthouse and although not a home-stay by normal definitions, it really felt like we were part of family. It was lovely playing with the young children and the host spoke great English which really helped us out. We went through different tour options and tried to set an itinerary whereby we could see as much as possible. This was a none starter. The distances between all the attractions were just too great, and the costs of doing everything over 2 days was quickly climbing to an unfeasible high. Whilst here, we wanted to see some coffee plantations, explore the countryside, visit the Elephant waterfalls and ride elephants, surely not too much to ask for? There was only one solution, another scooter hire.

Malene’s new friend.

Early the next morning, we hired our scooter (unfortunately not pink this time), filled it to the brim and set off into the mountains. It was incredible. Everything was so green and the soil was a rich orange colour that made for a dramatic panorama as we hurtled our way through the hills. Our first stop was the Elephant waterfalls. Supposedly named because the rocks either side of the water resemble elephant heads, we couldn’t quite see it though. What we did see, was nature at its finest. After a slightly daunting descent, over slippery rocks and down to the river, we were rewarded by a beautiful waterfall. Not a bad place for breakfast we thought, and so grabbed our sandwiches and tucked in, occasionally being splashed by the cascading water.

Slippery slopes, was it worth it?

Yep!

Behind the water.

Back towards Dalat, we stopped at a coffee farm. Their most famous coffee is the weasel variety. Not sure on the name, we enquired as to its origin, not expecting the answer we got. As we walked into a little back room, we saw large cages with sleeping weasels. The process behind this coffee is as follows: feed the weasels coffee beans. The weasel then excretes the coffee beans. Make coffee out of what comes out. I was pretty disgusting and I really don’t know who thought of the idea. Ingenious or a little twisted? You decide.

My total concentration face.

After filling up our trusty 2 wheeled steed in Dalat, we continued to head through the city center and out the other side. It didn’t take long before we had to come off the main road and onto a pot holed ridden side track. But it was fun, occasionally felt like motocross and kept us excited for our next stop: Elephant island. To reach the small remote island, we had to cross the lake. The skies were starting to grow a little darker and with the silent water, it was all a little eerie. The island had the same feeling. Desert of people, we stumbled over large tree roots and passed empty swinging chairs. Eventually we found a guy and saw what we had come to see: an elephant. We promised ourselves that we would only go for ‘a ride’ if the animal looked like he was in a comfortable, nice place. With so many stories of animal cruelty, we definitely didn’t want to be part of that. But this elephant was having a great time. And as we climbed the rotting wooden stairs and onto the platform, we gingerly stepped over and onto the wild beast. It was a slow, surreal experience. He (I think it was a ‘he’?) plodded carefully through the forest and down to the waters edge. All the time chewing on a huge bamboo shoot. Naturally, I felt like I was sitting on top of an Imperial walker from Star Wars, another dream fulfilled!

Eerie lake.

Riding through the forest.

Same same but different.

The entire day was something of a dream. This was kind of the underlining tone for this entire trip so far. Right from the start, at the orphanage with the children, to the playground of Nepal and Thailand, Cambodia and now Vietnam: we were ticking so many life long ambitions. It’s all going so well and hopefully won’t change. The way things are turning out…how can it get any better?

We’ve lost out camera.

It turns out that Malene had hidden our camera behind the television in our room in Mui Ne. Without blaming her entirely, I was left in charge of packing our things together in preparation for the bus. Silly me for not checking behind the tv! Okay, I should have done a simple checklist of all important items, but it had happened and we needed to fix it. Luckily, we managed to get in touch with the previous hotel and they had found the camera and were keeping it safe. They then popped it on the bus and we were reunited with our trusty camera later that evening. I was seriously considering buying a new one, as the scratches on the lens are starting to get really noticeable. I hope the photos in this post are passable, as it was my trusty phone that took them.

Our final near miss came when we were to board our bus to Nha Trang. The confusion started with the fact that there are 2 buses, heading in opposite directions and leaving at the same time. We were supposedly booked on the Nha Trang bus, but in fact, the booking hadn’t gone through, leaving us potentially stranded. Luckily (using that word a lot at the moment!) our host managed to book us with a different company which all went through fine. What it does mean is that the company we brought our open bus tickets from, would have had to pay for the same journey twice. Mistakes on their behalf had started, and this would echo for the rest of our Vietnam trip.

Nha Trang here we come. With more beaches and Malene itching to take her PADI open water diving course, we were both eager to get there. We just had to ride out the 12 hour bus journey it would take for us to get there. Good times.

Hard to say goodbye to these views.

Entering Thailand: Bangkok

Apart from sitting at either end of the plane from each other, the flight over from Kathmandu to Bangkok (via good old Delhi) was pretty harmless. Shabby food, mediocre film, but the most incredible views over the Himalayas and the mighty Mt. Everest.

I will admit straight away that I was pretty worried about our arrival into Bangkok. Hearing stories about the hussle, the dirt, the traffic and Kao San road led me to think that we wouldn’t enjoy our stay…maybe we could just stop over in the city for one night then move on. It would turn out that I couldn’t have been further wrong about the place. This is a common problem I have with travelling and pre-reading about our future stops. It’s so easy to skip all the positive reviews and weight too much influence on the negative comments. When booking a hotel, we would often flick past the ‘good’ reviews and read the negative ones, thinking for some reason that they carry more truth. It’s a crazy idea. Follow these rules and we’d end up sleeping on the streets, which obviously we don’t! I suppose its a way to try and get the best value for our money…but those negative reviews, be it for a hotel, restaurant, a tour, a temple: you name it, negativity isn’t hard to find, you just to take those comments with a rather large pinch of salt.

We arrived into the airport, struggled with our visas for a little while then grabbed our bags and headed for the taxi rank. There were no tuk tuks, no bicycle rickshaws and no vehicles that appeared to have more than 50k on their clocks: where were we? All the taxi’s, with gleaming yellow and green paint jobs, had full leather upholsteries, A/C as standard and most ran on chrome alloys; we were confused, but on the inside, a little happy! Our ticket was punched in and our taxi driver met us at the ticket counter to ‘guide’ us to his car. This car in fact turned out to be the only pink painted car in the entire underground parking lot…it was getting better and better!

The ride into the city was taken in silence, just like our first experience of Delhi 6 months previous, but for completely different reasons. We were starring at pure wealth. Cars worth more than the average house in the UK and skyscrapers draped with huge digital screens offering the latest in technology. A mere 3 hour flight from Delhi had delivered us into yet another world.

By the time we hit town, it was already in full flow. Bright lights lined the streets, blinding tourists from bar to bar. Each bar that we passed blared out various genres of music, from jazz to hip hop, classical to death metal, it was all such a mash up, like a menagerie without a theme. But it was fun, and in the nights to come, Malene and I would fully dive into the craziness that is Bangkok.

On our first day in Bangkok, we visited a lovely little art gallery and met the 2 artists whose material was on show. It was all quite surreal as we watched their art being fixed to the gallery’s walls and chatted to them about their ideas. Outside the gallery, there was an interesting array of food on offer, but we had just eaten breakfast and politely turned down the offer to try it out…

As insignificant as it may sound, one of the beauties of Bangkok, and certainly a way in which it differs from India and Nepal, is it’s use of pavements. Of course they exist in the aforementioned countries, but the difference here is that you can actually walk on them: shock horror! In Nepal, the pavement area is used as an extension to shops, or for parking, which makes walking on them impossible. In India there weren’t any, but thats India. Well done Bangkok, another thumbs up from us.

The Grand Palace is kind of a ‘must do’ for those visiting Bangkok. After the initial shock of the price and Malene had hired a pink shirt to cover her arms and chest, we waded through the hundreds of people as we gazed at the impressive temples. True, by this point of our trip, we had already seen what felt like a million temples and were running risk of what’s known as ‘temple burn-out’, but it was still an interesting area. The various monuments all surround the huge Temple of Emerald Buddha which houses a beautiful green sitting Buddha. It was particularly wonderful to listen to the chanting monks and locals which can easily entrance you as you walk around the tightly packed grounds.

Malene and I were trying to get used to the heat, which was different to Nepal and reminded us of what it was like when we first entered India in mid-September. As the midday sun roared down on us, we dived between covered markets and occasionally into air conditioned shopping centers. The only problem with the later, is your body quickly gets used to the cool temperature, and returning back into the sun feels like stepping back into an uncontrollable oven.

Moving around the city is a breeze, especially by tuk tuk, most of which come fully equipped with huge, big-bore exhausts and sub-woofers to match. One lesson we learnt quickly was the various prices for using these tuk tuks. If you didn’t mind a stop off in one or two suit shops, then the price of the journey would be minimal, sometimes free as the driver would get a token for free fuel out of it. If you didn’t want a stop off then the price goes up…a lot! We tried a couple of suit shops, pretended we were interested, maybe mentioned that we would come back another day, but it’s no fun, plus you’re wasting the sellers time, and your own as well.

On the final night, Malene and I travelled across the city to one of its biggest theatres: the Siam Niramit Here we saw an incredible show of dance, music and theatrical play. In the most amazing theatre I have ever been in, we were treated to a show that we’ll never forget. The show included the history and culture of Thailand and even had a river flowing through it. With fireworks, floating candles, elephants, rain and, well, a river: it’s a night we’ll never forget.

On this last evening, we ended up miles from our hotel and found a parked taxi. Thinking it would be wildly expensive, we in fact got a good shock. I was barely more expensive than a tuk tuk and that’s without any stops…perfect, another thumbs up for Bangkok.

We of course tried Sao Kan road for an evening out. It was definitely as wild as everyone makes it out to be. With a huge mixture of people, young and old, tourists and locals all were crammed down the street. ‘Lively’ doesn’t do it justice. With live music in every other bar, we sat down, ordered a bucket and let the street entertain us. They was even a trio of break dancers whose backflips, head spins and turtle walking had everyone in awe.

‘In awe’, kind of sums up Bangkok. The biker groups that perform wheelies down the streets at night, the local police riding around on pink scooters, the beautiful floating houses, the impressive 18 meter tall gold standing Buddha, all add intrigue and great reasons to visit this amazing city. My worries beforehand came from too much reading and too many other peoples negative responses to the city. Personally, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. True, it is catered for tourists and the prices are double compared to India and Nepal, but for a trip back into ‘normal’ life, Bangkok ticked far more boxes than we ever imagined possible.

P.S. What do you think of the new layout? Photos within the text; fancy I know. Did you prefer the old style, making it easy to skip all the waffle and straight to the pics?

Chitwan part 2 – Going deeper

Our morning hunting for crocodiles was incredible. We weren’t sure how safe we felt on the water in our tiny boat with large shadows lurking beneath us, but we’re still here to tell the story and we’re thankful for that!

In the afternoon of what was already turing out to be an exciting day, we joined a small group of people and got back into a boat. After crossing the water and back into the Chitwan national park, we walked for a few minutes before an opening in the jungle revealed a fleet of tiny Suzuki 4×4’s. After reaching ours, all 6 of us climbed into the back, with another in the front and our guide who clung onto the back. tThe plan this time, would be to go deeper into the jungle where hopefully there was a better chance to spot more wildlife.

It must have been around 3 and a half minutes later that the truck came to a quiet stop. With everyone being as silent as possible, we all peered into dense forest. Sure enough, lying down in the bush there was a huge one horned rhino. He appeared to be waking from a sleep. It all happened in a bit of a dream. So close to where we started and also in the exact same area as we had been walking just hours before! As I steadied my hands, I took photos before we moved on – our guide pronouncing that we were a very lucky group…and we felt it!

For an hour or so since that first sighting, we didn’t see any more ‘big’ animals, however, plenty of monkeys, large birds and hundreds of crocodiles…at the crocodile farm! After the farm visit and in what felt like tropical forest heat, we again hit the track. After a few minutes, we spotted another truck full of people waving their hands. We edged closer. They all appeared to be giving us different signals, some to come closer, some to stop, some seemed to say go away! We got closer, until we were parked directly behind them. What they had seen, and we were now looking at, was a huge bison. Unfortunately, we could only see the top of its back and it’s wagging tail, but apparently it was coming out of the bush. After 5 minutes of looking, it didn’t seem to want to play and stuck to the covering of the trees…when all of a sudden Malene points behind us and shouts, “look, rhinos!” Everyone turned on their heels and saw the baby rhino and its mother crossing the track. By pure chance (and Malene’s observational skills!) we had seen 2 more beautiful rhinos, this time walking along the track. The sighting was brief but incredible all the same.

A few more minutes of driving and we reached a watch tower that over looked a watering hole and open grass land. We would spend a few minutes here and hopefully might catch a glimpse of some animals. It really was, our lucky day. Off out in the distance, walking through the grass (again) Malene spotted something medium sized and black in colour. As we both peered out, we thought at first that it must have been a wild dog, maybe one of the guides had a dog? We continued to watch it as it slowly came a little closer. It wasn’t a dog. In fact it was a very rare sloth bear with a baby cub on its back. These are apparently as rare to spot as the tigers and we were loving every second of it!

For the remainder of the trip, we came across 2 more rhinos in the forest, crocs on the waters edge (not in a farm!), peacocks, deer and a host of other beautiful animals. It had certainly been a productive day! Up close and personal with vicious, meat eating crocodiles in the morning and huge rhinos and savage sloth bears in the afternoon. WOW!

It wasn’t just the national park that we loved here, but the small village and of course the amazing lodge where we stayed. In fact, this was Malene’s favorite place so far, and its easy to see why. Quiet, peaceful and incredible nature surrounds you here and for those reasons, we both fell in love with Chitwan.

Next up, Lumbini: the birth place of Buddha. Time to get back in touch with our spiritual side.