Sunday, March 1, 2015

Dalat, Vietnam Pic set 1 (click on Image to enlarge)

This girl spoke a little English and helped us order Breakfast in the Dalat Central markets.  She rang her sister on her mobile so we could explain to her sister in English, just to make sure she understood us correctly.
We had warm weather in Nha Trang, but, our next destination was Dalat situated inland in the mountains with mild and cooler weather.
Back on the open ticket bus again, we were expecting to travel south along the coast from Nha Trang before heading inland to Dalat, but, the bus travelled along a very scenic route through a twisting  winding road with a lot of hair pin bends.  We had never been on this route before.
With in a few K's out of Nha Trang the traffic stopped and with the odd exception of a motor bike the road was very quite indeed.
On arrival in Dalat we re confirmed our next bus ride, before flagging a taxi down to find our next hotel that we had a voucher for.  The hotel was the worst one we stayed at during our whole trip. The young girl realised we were not happy and  upgraded us to a hotel one door away, with the exact same name with a number 2 added to it. This new room was very good and had a lot more space as it had two double beds. it was on the second floor with no lift.
Dalat was much the same as our previous visits, we checked out the lake and the central area, then visited a new store called the Big C.  This chain of stores are all over Vietnam nowadays and are much the same as a
super Kmart, but, on a smaller scale. We also went to see the Chicken Church situated high on a hill over looking Dalat.

About 8 K's from Nha Trang

Road side rest area for buses, we stopped here about 40 min


Road to Dalat



The higher we went the thicker it got

Coming into Dalat

Dalat













Yum, I'll have a sweet potato 






Outside Dalat central markets
This bloke insisted on having a photo with Teresa, I was given the hurry up







Under this mound and sculpture is the Bic C right opposite the lake




Sunday, February 15, 2015

Nha Trang Vietnam (click on Image to enlarge)

Back on a sleeper bus to travel overnight from Hoi An to Nha Trang.   The distance was only around 400 odd K' but, with traffic and road works travel time took about nine hours. Our next accommodation voucher was for a three night say on the 4th floor of our hotel, this room had a balcony that looked out to the street and although one could not see the ocean Teresa was very happy as our washing dried very quickly out on that balcony.  Once again we have visited Nha Trang several times over the years and our last visit was only a few months ago on board the Sun Princess cruise ship.
Nha Trang is being over run with Russians, thousands of them were on the beach in fact they were every where.
Lots of restaurants have Russian menus and every second travel shop was Russian and operated by Russians.
We soon worked out the bus routes from a Russian time table and got around on the local buses (full of Russians) The local buses were cheap 7,000 VND  pp, you could travel the whole route or just one stop the price was the same 7,000 VND. We visited several places of interest for just a few dollars now if you took a tour from the cruise ship to just one or two of these places it would be well over USD 100 pp.   Cont Below......




The weather now had warmed up, compared to the north and with 3 days in Nha Trang
we found it very relaxing.


























The name of this Cafe caught our eye









Street Barber
Hair cut
40,000 VND

















































Who let the dogs out