Andre and Wendy: Da Lat attractions

Set the alarm for this morning. No need, the woman with the cart walking down the street with the recording of what she us selling on replay comes by at about 6am.

Downstairs early by about 630 and the lovely Vietnamese woman that speaks no English but looks after the hotel is already working. She is sweeping the lobby from where bikes have parked inside for the night. We both have our phones out to have our Google translate conversation. I think her grandparents are coming tonight and staying in the balcony room above us. Can't imagine how old her grandparents would be? She also wants to clean our room today, we told her it is OK we are leaving tomorrow. She is a little concerned about no cleaning cut we assure her it is fine.

Breakfast of Banh Can at the restaurant next door to our hotel. Menu has 9 different ones, no idea what we are getting, she just showed us a picture of 8 little round things on a plate, yes please. Get the bill, so now we know we had Banh Can Thap Cam. 2 iced tea, and 2 spring rolls. She just brought the spring rolls to our table to try, they were not spring rolls we expected, nearly like a sausage roll steamed in banana leaves, neither of our favorites, but we both really liked the Banh Can.

Coffee shop again from yesterday, thanks Scott for the intel, tomorrow we will know what to try. Glad to see our friend again from yesterday, he is happy to hear what we are doing today. He shows us a little what we think is an electric 1 inch fan with him that he shows us, lots of wires hanging out of it, wonder is it works but he is very proud of it.

Scraping of the bottom of the shoes done, not sure what Andre has picked up, not sure we want to know.

Off we go, a touristy day planned today.

First off take grab to cable car. We are there at 8am and only see 3 other tourists. It is a very pretty morning, mist in the mountains.

We knew a little bit about what we were doing today but obviously hadn't researched enough.

We got off the cable car and look for the roller coaster, nope not here, but look there is a monastery. We really enjoyed our visit around the monastery grounds. There sure are some masters of bonsai in Vietnam, every garden we have visited has very impressive bonsai.

So many Vietnamese tourists at the monastery. We for once this vacation are actually bringing the average age down. Quite a few people chat with us, when they hear we are from Canada they all seem to have a sister, cousin, brother etc in Canada. I always say Vancouver, they are happy to know I know Vancouver even though it is 6,000km away from where we live. Lots of touching of my arm as we walk around, we learnt on our tour yesterday that this is good, doesn't bother me at all.

Done with our exploring of the monastery, Google Maps out and we see the roller coaster is about 2 km away. It is not hot out, let's walk. Maybe not the wisest decision ever, no sidewalk along the curvy part , but we are still early and not much traffic. It was actually nice seeing some farmland and countryside.

Reached the Datanla sign, now what. We follow the 200m sign so down we go. We realize this is where the ropes course starts, no thanks. Back up 200m and we find the right spot.

Tickets purchased. We got an early start this morning knowing Saturday would be busy, but there is already a 30 minute wait. We are the only English speakers in line, well except the 2 little girls behind us, where are you from what is your name exchange. End of conversation. We have also brought the average age back up here.

On to the roller coaster we go. We shared a car, Thank goodness or I may still be up there with some man blowing a whistle at me to get moving. Crap, it was not my favorite thing. Poor Andre, I may have told him to brake and slow down 50 times. Why did I envision this to be a nice ride through the mountains. Lots of signs for no pictures, but to fit in with the Vietnamese Andre took lots of pics on the way down.

Reach the bottom and I am actually shaking when I get off. Andre is not surprised. We bought round trip tickets, but I told Andre I was not going up again. Well once I look around I don't think there is a choice but to go back up or maybe you can walk somewhere,?

Explore around the bottom. There are some pretty waterfalls with a little bench set up just over a few rocks , I assume for whatever the latest social media shot.

Andre gets in line for a picture, I'm passing scrambling over the rocks. Only a couple of people in front of him, but it seems to take forever. Pull hair forward, pull hair back, look up at sky , but my favorite is turn back to camera. Andres turn , couldn't do the hair flipping thing but I did make him turn around with his back to the camera for a shot.

These falls also have people rappelling down into the base of falls, another thing I will not be crossing off my list. We could have also zip lined or ropes course, those will also forever be on my list as not checked off.

Back up the Rollercoaster, not nearly as bad as down, way better than the walk out or up would have been.

Got a cab back to the city, Andre showed him on his phone that we wanted to go to Train Café. Andre always likes to follow the route on a map, part way down he says he should have turned there, about 1 km later Andre says where are you going? No no no, he is pointing ahead, turns on to a little alley and points to Rain Cafe sign. Andre shows him his phone again and off we go. He tells him to stop the meter, but he doesn't seem to understand at all. Finally I see what looks like the train station and I say there. Our mistake not saying train station, maybe? I don't think he did it on purpose, I'll stick with that. We had to pay 10 000 dong each to even get into the station and out of the car.

We both enjoyed looking around the station. The old train had just pulled in so fare game for social media pictures. Women were changing into beautiful dresses and the posing began. It is a very nice spot for a photo shoot. It was fun to get on the train and explore a little.

Next on the list was the Da Lat Flower Gardens park at the end of the lake. Not too far from the train station so off we go. Fun walking the back streets. A lady grooming her dog outside, poor dog had a pink fluffy tail. Came across a driving range where you hit into a net , the clubs may have been older than Andres first set 25 years ago. Walked through what looked like minority village set up for tourists to see, no one was working but lots of interesting things to look at.

Arrived at the flower park, if like flowers you could spend hours in here wandering. Lots of flowers we recognized from home, except ours last only a couple of months. We were here a good hour.

Start walking towards our hotel and come across a street vendor selling strawberries, since we haven't had any yet in this city of strawberries time to get some. He says salt? Um OK, salt and chili actually was pretty good. Not sure I need more salt in my diet so probably won't continue this trend at home.

Next we see the Pagoda from yesterday that we want to visit. Up the hill we go, gate is closed, what? We didn't see any gate yesterday. 2 women were working in the garden one jumped up and came and opened the gate for us. Still unsure of shoes off shoes on we left our shoes outside and climbed many steps to not see too much. All of the doors were closed, so no exploring inside.

Time for food, it is now 3pm, breakfast is long gone. We are headed towards the photo place from yesterday with the intention of a lunch break on the way. Noodle sign , quite a few people inside, looks good. About 1/3 of the restaurant is tables with people sitting on the floor the rest is little chairs, not the tiny chairs just little chairs. Thank goodness for little chairs. Menus brought over relieved to see they had English on the menu. Beer please, waitress has no idea. We try Saigon, Tiger, then realize no liquor served here. Andre does not look happy but we are settled and not moving to find another restaurant. Noodle dishes chosen, then she asks on her phone what heat level, we can choose between 1 and 7. We both like heat but are a little concerned how much is too much so 3 it is for both of us.

We are trying to figure out what type of restaurant this is. Maybe Korean, but I saw the word Singapore on something so who knows, from some country that likes spicy noodles. Once again we are the only English speakers, and realize once our food arrives we really don't know heat, 3 was so hot! I am watching the table beside me , she seems to be using chopsticks to take the noodles out of her bowel of broth and then puts them on a spoon. I try this method, so much better as I can now avoid the noodles touching my lips as they are really burning at this point. We both finished all our noodles, but gave up on the broth. Then Andre says I saw yogurt on the menu, perfect, 2 mango yogurt to cool us off and we are good to go.

Back out to look for the photography street, no luck but we still had fun wandering around some new back streets.

Rested up a bit back at our hotel then off we go to the night market again. Picked up some breads for breakfast, they were so good the other day. Watched a bit of the performance on stage, loved the bamboo instruments. Had enough of the market, it is crazy busy tonight. Stopped at the corner store, picked up some beer, a green apple something for me, and some snacks and ready to call it a night. 18km walked today.

That is it for today, getting prepared for what I think is our final sleeping bus I think tomorrow. Next up trains, planes and automobiles. Will we have top bunks????

Todays Pictures:

Some type of batter which they had a quail egg and toppings