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Right, so then. Andy here, getting my first stab at blog writing.
We were sad to leave beautiful Hoi An, but realised that we needed to start heading south and trying to stick to something like our planned itinerary. Left Hoi An and got a taxi to Danang (about an hour) and then flew south to Dalat, where we taxi'd it in to our Hotel. This was a beautiful, restored French villa. Was one of 20 that the hotel had bought and had done up, all in about 100 acres or something. Was lovely and pretty swish too (Gemma's breakfast scale not great, but possibly the comfiest bed of the trip so far!).
Dalat itself was a little disappointing. Bit like a slightly more upmarket Blackpool crossed with an apline town. Nice enough but a little naff in places. Weather certainly more pleasant and much cooler, so jumper time in the evening.
Grabbed a taxi to the base and climbed Lang Biang mountain (about 2,000m) which gave us great views of Dalat and the surrounding areas. Wasn't that tough (there's a road to the top) but was nice nonetheless to get some more fresh and air and a bit of a sweat on!
Next day we had a full day tour booked with the Easy Riders. "Wing", our head honcho Easy Rider took us on a 60km tour of local area. (Vic and Joe had recommended a couple of other Easy Riders to us and we did meet one of them but unfortuantely they couldn't take us). Was brilliant to get out and see - minority villages, coffee plantations, silk worm factory, great views, vegetable and flower farms etc etc. Both really enjoyed being on the bikes.
Plan was then for Wing to take us to Ho Chi Minh city as part of a 4-day tour. However, whilst the biking was cool, it wasn't great in my old hip-department, so unfortunately and sadly we had to cancel the biking trip to HCMC. However, Wing suggested that we still did the tour, but that we did it in style (and obviously more comfort!) by hiring a 4x4, so that's what we did!
Wing and the driver (Toan) collected us the next day in the pimped, blacked-out Isuzu and we headed off from Dalat on our 4-dayer to HCMC.
Spent the first day doing cool stuff - took a cable car ride (thankfully the cable car was made in Austria and installed by Germans!), saw a couple of pagodas, plenty of waterfalls, more coffee plantations, bit of walking, silk factory, mushroom farm, chilli farm as well as the ubiquitous minority village/s. Funniest thing was when we got chased by a cow! Gemma was off like Forest Gump over the road and behind the armco! Both really enjoyed the day. Shame the Easy Rider's choice of hotel that evening was a little poor.
So, today! A pretty relaxed start saw us on the road again for another day of "off the beaten path" Vietnam adventures. More waterfalls (bigger this time!), further minority villages, saw 2 snakes, saw some war type stuff including couple of bridges that had been given the once over by the Yanks. Ended up in Dak Lak this evening and pleased to say the hotel is much better (we wait for tomorrow's "Gemma breakfast score")!.
We've now managed to get our fingers out and sort out our plans for early-Oz. We arrive in Sydney on 13th December and fly straight out to Cairns. Then plan to drive down the east coast to Brisbane and have booked return flight from Brisbane to Sydney for 23rd December. Christmas in Sydney with Lol & Paul, Ali & Tony and Kate & Chris. Will then sort out our plans for the last week or so before we fly out on 3rd January to New Zealand.
OK, that's me done. 2 more days of Easy Ridering to go before we arrive in HCMC. Have booked nice looking hotel for a couple of days there, so will sort out plans for maybe seeing the Mekong Delta before flying to Cambodia and then back to Thailand.
So that's us! We're both well and still enjoying the whole experience. The good food and beer has stretched the waistbands a bit and we've both still got white legs but hey-ho! Great to hear from people on the email, text and blog-messages. Also, massively thrilled that, since our last Blog post, Andy & Samantha have been joined by little Isabella Leonora - we can't wait to meet her when we get back (and I can start doing the Godfatherly thing!).
Byeeee,
Andy (& Gemma - who is currently glued to the film "Knowing" on HBO, complete with Vietnamese sub-titles!). xxxx
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