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We left the Best Western on New Year's Eve, as prices doubled during the holiday season; it was time to watch the budget. Our new hotel was a bit of a disappointment after our luxury. It was very noisy with our neighbours getting up at 6:30 and having loud conversations in the hallway. Also there was no top sheet on the bed just a furry blanket - which caused me to sneeze. Anyway, I'm not one to moan - hee hee. It was a nice airy room with a balcony. We asked around town to see if anything was happening for Tet (lunar New Year). The lady in the Tourist Information and Support Centre didn't speak a word of English and my basic Vietnamese wasn't helping. The owners of our favourite restaurant said that Tet was a quiet family time, so there were no celebrations. We went to bed early feeling a bit deflated. At two minutes to midnight we heard the fireworks start, we couldn't see a thing from our balcony. It sounded like the best firework display we've never seen. The view from our Best Western room would have been amazing. Bummer! The other Tet activity was the ceremonial lion dance - for good luck and to ward off evil spirits. People put money into the lion's mouth to make it dance whilst a jolly fat man waves his fan and the drummer plays the beat. I was in the hairdresser's when the lion dancers came in to do a dance for my stylist. Well it was good luck for me too; £8 for a cut and colour!! A slightly bizarre experience at the hairdresser's. He didn't speak English so rather than mime or try and find out what I wanted he just started cutting. He was using a cutting comb (a bit like that Billy Connelly routine, if you remember it). Anyway, he did an awesome job. We had two adventures in our last week - Elephant falls and Tiger's Lair falls. We took a bus out into the countryside, it took an hour to get to Elephant falls (Thac Voi). The people on the bus were really friendly and helped us get off at the correct place. We climbed down from the top of the falls, it was very slippy and dangerous. There was a narrow passage to climb through to walk behind the falls, which was cool. At the end of the climb down, the view was spectacular, interesting rock formations, spray and it was unspoilt by toursity gimmicks - have a look at the photos and videos. For Tiger's lair falls (Thac Hang Cop), we travelled on
New Year's day on a local bus. Tet is like Christmas day, everyone stays in with the family and then visits others later. We were surprised that there were any buses running. The bus took us out to the forest, just after Trai Mat where we had been on the Dalat train. It was a lovely walk through the woods, shaded from the sun and with a lovely cool breeze. The falls aren't on any of the tours, so we enjoyed them with only a local family. The falls drop over a series of cascades and it is around 100m from the top to the bottom. Not as impressive as Elephant falls, but they are in a nice setting. It was an hour to walk back to Trai Mat for our favourite coffee in Cafe 140. We sat there for a while waiting for the return bus to go past. After two coffees and forty minutes of waiting, there had been no sign of a bus. We would have to walk back to Dalat 9kms away. We were exhausted, but that's what adventures are all about. Well, we were running out of things to do in Dalat - we had exhausted the tripadvisor list of attractions so it was time to do the swan pedalos on the lake. After a minor domestic over my steering, Paul took over, only to discover that it was a loose rudder causing the problem. So it's off to Nha Trang another beach resort next. Thanks for following us and for the lovely messages.
- comments
Lynn One is hoping they were plastic swans lol! Just does not fit my images of this rustic place that time and Western 'progress' has not influenced. All sounds amazing-photo of the reasonably priced cut and colour please -may soon be cheaper for me to travel out-my last was £91!! All well in TJ land - loving the internal politics if working for a county council that is actually a good 10 years behind LR, challenges abound to keep me smiling!! Keep trucking my lovelies xxxx