Tuesday, 16 January 2007 - Da Lat

Breakfast at the hotel - in the kitchen at a big table with an English/French couple who live in the south of France and are going on to Australia after they leave Vietnam. A huge variety of fruits for breakfast this time, including passionfruit, yoghurt, soft cheese, and eggs any way you liked, cooked by the manager.

We then headed off to the crazy house, a guest house still being added to and designed by Mrs Đặng Việt Nga.  

Although the Da Lat People's Committee do not really appreciate her architecture, she has not had too much trouble, as her father Trường Chinh was Ho Chi Minh's successor.  It is an amazing building. A nature-inspired protest against conventional architecture — no straight lines, no right angles, just flowing forms resembling trees, caves, animals, spider webs, and mushrooms.

Next stop was the Lam Ty Ni Pagoda, home of the crazy monk who is said to be the wealthiest person in Da Lat.  He has (it is said) churned out an astounding number of artworks that we thought were worth a look.  Anyway, we arrived to locked gates and eventually concluded that no one was home. 

Caught a taxi to the Stop and Go Cafe, thinking it to be a franchise of the one in Hanoi and maybe a possibility for lunch.  Well, an eccentric gentleman in a beret with a long beard greeted us. "But we are actually looking for the cafe we said". He showed us into a room with the walls all covered in "poems" (in both French and English) and sat us down, placed a gerbera behind the ear of Jennie and Jill, gave us photocopied booklets of his poems and magazine articles featuring himself, and took our orders, and bought us cherry tea, artichoke tea and cake. We ate, drank, chatted, photographed and bought a few of his scrolls.  Turns out Duy Viết was not just a café owner but a distinguished Vietnamese poet, orchid gardener, former journalist, teacher, political activist, and even a former mayor of Da Lat.

Down the hill we walked to Xuan Huong Lake.  The Lake is the central landmark of Da Lat — a crescent-shaped, man‑made lake about 25 hectares in area with a 5 km perimeter, created in 1919 when the French dammed the Cam Ly stream. It was renamed in 1953 to honour the poet Hồ Xuân Hương, whose work is iconic in Vietnamese literature. We hired some tandem bikes and cycled around the lake and followed up the cycling with a snack at a lakeside restaurant (banana and shrimp spring rolls - yummy).

Back through the market and upstairs to lots of fabric shops.  We were about to head to the embroidery section on the next floor when many young women in traditional Vietnamese attire started coming down the stairs.   There seemed to be hundreds of them.  Obviously their working day was over, and they were on their way home.

Back to the hotel to book the Open Bus to Saigon on Thursday (no one calls it Ho Chi Minh City) and also the Hong Hao Hotel for two nights.  Da Lat wine and pistachios in Richard and Jennie's room (it's on the first floor, and we're on the 3rd and there's no lift) before heading down to the Trong Dong restaurant for dinner. We had lotus salad, something stuck on sugarcane that we wrapped in rice paper (with rice noodles and vegetables) and dipping sauce, along with various other stuff - delicious.