We had heard so many good things about Dalat our guide book says "The town is dotted with elegant French colonial villas, and farms are thick with strawberries and flowers...Dalat is small enough to remain charming, and the surrounding countryside is blessed with lakes, waterfalls, evergreen forests and gardens." We couldn't wait to head inland to the highlands for the cool air and the beautiful outdoors. It is a Vietnamese honeymoon destination as well so it must be lovely and romantic, as many taxi drivers have told us. But Dalat was not the place we thought it would be. It is possibly the strangest place we have been on our trip yet.

The journey over was definetly a sign of the things to come. After paying extra to hop on a tourist bus over to Dalat for the 3-4 hour journey, we expected to be relatively comfortable with air con and some like minded people. We didn't think it was too much to ask for! Well we hopped on our large and empty coach assuming that we must be picking up more people. But the coach headed out of Nha Trang centre and didn't stop. It is low season so we didn't mind at all and started to get settled for the journey. Just outside of Nha Trang the coach pulled over and some grubby looking local blokes hopped on together. We both thought that it was strange, but with so much space we weren't sitting any where near them so it wasn't like we would be bothered. Then the driver decided that what we all needed for 3 hours was to listen to the same Vietnamese woman singing karaoke songs in a shoddy music video on repeat!! We started thinking we had heard her songs on the radio somewhere at home before we'd realised we'd heard it 2 times already on the coach! Then to top the whole experience off the locals decided to have a good wee against a tree and smoke out of the open coach door while it was moving. I mean we could have just got on the local bus for that experience!

It should be mentioned that it was a very scenic journey looking over hills and rivers, with dark vegetation and small vegetable farms. The locals were wrapped up in warm clothing and lived in wooden colourful houses in small villages. But we didn't feel overly comfortable getting the camera out to capture it all. The view changed as we entered the city with large areas of forest felled for plastic greenhouses to be put up, that just didn't look right at all.

We jumped off the coach and checked into our hotel. The man took us up to our room on the 4th floor, he opened the door when he then realised the room was occupied. We just thought it was amusing and he took us to another one. The room was large with dark wooden furniture and a basic bathroom, nothing to rave about as such. The hotel had an odd layout with a restaurant on the first floor which was empty and appeared to have a bed set up on the floor when we looked in?!? Then there was another resturant where we had breakfast underneath the hotel, you had to go outside to access it. In the mornings we were woken by a strong smell of cigarette smoke in our rooms, even though it was a non-smoking hotel. One evening when we were relaxing watching a film another couple was shown into our room by another hotel worker. The whole place was very strange, and amusing to look back on now.

Aside for the hotel we were looking forward to exploring the centre of the city as we were a few minutes out of it by foot. On the first evening we began walking into the centre in the dark , always a bad idea as you generally don't feel safe or comfortable in new surrounding. We decided to headed back as we couldn't find the area we wanted and had dinner in a American Rock cafe with a French interior just down the road from the hotel. It was another strange place but we loved the music even if the food wasn't up to par.

The next day we decided to head out and actually find the beautiful French colonial villas and strawberry farms of Dalat. As we obviously just didn't go to the right place last night. That didn't change anything, the actual town reminded us of Sri Lanka with dirty shops lining every street, the odd western looking place here and there. The building were either in the process of being built or needed renovation. The whole place looked grubby and messy, nothing like what we had been told there was hardly a tree or hill in sight. Okay it had a big lake in the middle but that was surrounded by a noisy busy road. The only building with the French colonial look were the odd hotel scattered around. The visitors we saw never seemed that impressed. We eventually found a nice cafe to relax in that was recommended on Trip Advisor and had our evening meals there to escape our disappointment.

On our last full day we booked a minibus tour that would take us to the city attractions. We thought we were not looking in the right places and it would be easier to be taken to them. So we gave Dalat a second chance to impress us.

We crammed into a full minibus and headed out for the day. First stop the Waterfalls, we had been told there are many around Dalat with it being in the highlands, we were looking forward to it. The waterfall was lovely but it was ruined by the Cowboy and Indian theme, with statues and costume dress up area for visitors. Not to mention the rollercoaster down the hill to see it. It would have been nice to appreciate it without all the plastic extras.

After we headed to a lake, which was actually looked more like a reservoir surrounded by a golf course and a bit of rubbish and graffiti. To give it its due it did look slightly South Lakes in one section. We also saw two Buddhist temples that we did enjoy, looking over small rivers and ponds. Although some people on the trip weren't interested, but each to their own. The Summer Place was the next unexpected surprise. This was owned by the late king of Vietnam, we were thinking history, grand designs, large spaces, jewels and armour. Nope! Instead we were greeted with a interesting concrete looking building which was sparse and had old 60s furniture inside. We also visited a Flower Preservation Centre, which was actual a garden centre for plastic and real plants. As well as a shop to taste test the local produce including artichoke tea, weasel coffee (weasels eats coffee, weasels poos out coffee, you drink coffee) we didn't try that, and other strange stuff.

Finally we visited a place we had heard about, The Valley of Love. You may have many ideas in your head, but what actually awaits you in this place, vistas, flowers, romance, nature..... And a sprinkling of cheesy plastic tat. It was a nice green park on a hill which over looked a man-made lake, which had a giant tap statue in?!?!. With paths leading different ways and a few flowers and trees around. Okay now throw in giant plastic huge love heart statues, metal colourful butterflies, Cinderellas chariot, bench's of people kissing, giant swan boats on the lake, love mushroom seats, mazes and much more! It was cheesy mental insanity! We walked around cracking up and then seriously worrying about the mental health of Vietnam's idea of love. It was a very strange place!

There was another similar place called the Crazy House, which was a house made out of concrete in crazy and weird formations. Our guide book describes it as Gaudi on acid, but I'm going to assume that Gaudi would not want to be associated with this atrocitie.

The whole place is just so strange, there is of course areas to white water raft down and climb, but after researching it we found that there are much better place to go for outdoors adventure activities. We also questioned whether there would be any safety measures or protocols put into place in a country where crossing the road is a detriment to your health.

Its a shame that we took so long to travel here (10 hour overnight train to Nha Trang and a three hour bus journey) to find it was big disappointment, but you can't always find amazing places you love. We wondered if it is a different place when it's in high season with all the flowers growing and the honeymooners everywhere, hopefully it is or all these blog writers have a serious problem!