Day 242 - An eye-opening bus trip to Dalat

While Liv dined on breakfast, Adam had to pass, and before long we arrived for our bus as instructed at 7.45am. Almost an hour later a small mini-bus arrived and we started circling around town picking up passengers, until we had more passengers than seats. We thought this mini-van was only taking us to the bigger bus so we didn't mind squeezing in, but after a couple of hours on the road it became clear that there was no bigger bus!

A journey was made a little more stressful than normal (anyone who has been to Asia will understand the mahem of the roads and drivers) because we had a newbie driver probably because the normal driver had gone on holiday for the week of Tet. Our driver was apparently unaware of the use of gears, refusing to change down from 3rd gear until we had almost stopped - this was even more frustrating as we were making ourway to the Highlands and therefore the majority of our trip was going up and around mountain passes.

As we were making our final uphill drive into Dalat we came across 2 accidents. The first involved a tour bus and a truck and the mountain, and the second 2 motorbike drivers who are now part of the stastistics that arise when there are millions of motorbikers in Vietnam. Hmmm, shall we still hire a motorbike tomorrow to explore the region?

We finally arrived in Dalat (a little somber, needless to say) which is set in a mountainous region neraly 1500m above sealevel - this means that the temperature here is a pleasant 5-10 degrees lower than in Saigon and a hell of a lot less polluted. The Highlands around Dalat was once a hunters paradise, but unfortunately there were too many hunters that the hunted are no longer around. The highlands area also fell victim to Agent Orange during the war but Dalat itself seemed to be spared the effects, and we found ourselves surrounded by pine forests (not unlike those back in NZ) and valleys filled with farms and fields.
In the evening we wandered the fruit and vege markets and bought ourselves some bananas and mangoes before going to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner - Liv was spoilt for choice and we dined on Sweet 'n Sour "beef" ribs and braised "chicken"!

Adlibing it to the Highlands.