Wednesday 15th. Waiting for the bus to Dalat.

Yesterday morning we went out birding before breakfast again. We walked along the road as far as the Uncle Dong tree, and saw quite disappointingly little considering how early we'd gone out. The gibbons were barely singing. But just before the Uncle Dong we saw a Siamese Flameback c*** with two hens. It's a gorgeous black pheasant type bird with a sickle shaped tail, a funny bobbly crest and iridescent gold feathers sometimes visible on it's back. Even the hens looked handsome. That was worth getting up for.

We went back to the Lodge for breakfast and set out walking again a bit later. We walked along the Botanical Garden track and it was lovely. Mostly fairly open forest with bamboo, and there were butterflies everywhere. I'd photographed the Lodge's common butterfly identification sheets, so we were able to put a name to some of them.

We reached the Heaven Rapids by lunchtime. Walked through a bamboo grove down to the rapids, ate lunch and had a snooze on the rocks. Saw a possible stork-billed kingfisher flying upriver, and what might have been two wood sandpipers opposite us. A douc monkey was in a huge tree not far away.

We continued walking along the track, through some of the most beautiful forest I've ever seen. Towering straight trunked trees filtering a soft and golden light. Pity it was so bloody hot and humid. We saw brilliant vernal hanging parrots: budgie-sized, dazzling green with vivid scarlet rumps and no tails. Also a tiny and cute heart-spotted woodpecker, special for Valentine's Day. Plenty of hornbills near the junction with the road again at dusk - I think they must roost communally around there. The only people we met all day were a couple of elderly American birders with their guide. No motorbikes! It was blissful.

We had dinner at the Lodge, alone except for one Vietnamese couple. I had 3 courses and drank a bit more beer than normal, it being my birthday, but the food's not great there - greasy, expensive and not much of it. The wine costs more than at home, so we didn't touch it.

This morning we were out at dawn once more. The gibbons were singing full force, and we could hear a single wild one in the forest to our left as we walked to the HQ. Got some great views of a big douc monkey eating leaves and swinging through the trees. Then we met a party of English birders with Xin as their guide. One of them we were talking to was from Pocklington, and his friend was from Cottingham, both towns within 10 miles of where my mum lives in the East Riding. Small world. They were seeing birds all over, of course. We really are part-timers at this game, Robbie and I. At the HQ there's a bear sanctuary for endangered sun bears. We've never seen the bears in the enclosure, but the viewing platform above it makes a good spot for looking for forest birds. We saw an Asian barred owlet from there.

Returned for a big greasy breakfast, which I'm now regretting as the bus weaves it's way lurchingly along the highway to Dalat. The hotel shuttle buggy took us back to the ferry crossing at the HQ, and taxi was waiting for us on the other bank, all just as arranged by Sagotour back in Saigon. This country is very good at some things. The taxi dropped us in the grubby nowhere town on the main highway, and we waited nearly an hour outside a mobile phone shop until our bus turned up, the manageress vainly trying to sell us onward bus tickets from Dalat, keying out hilariously inaccurate messages on a google translation app on her big-screen computer.

Later.

We're on the bus now. We've just had a lunch stop at a very pleasant bus rest stop. It had a Japanese water garden with a waterwheel and goldfish pond. There was a fight started at the cafe across the road when we arrived. One guy was swinging a heavy stick, then a waiter from our restaurant went running across the road to join in and was sent packing by the manager of the cafe opposite. Family feud? Bitter rivalry between neighbouring eating establishments? Who knows... We chatted to a Vietnamese American from Oregon, over here to visit his family.

Later this evening:

We arrived in Dalat at about 3.30pm. The bus had climbed up a winding mountain road with great views and quite a lot of forest on the steeper slopes - although mostly secondary forest (that's what's left after the old forest has been logged for timber) and plantations of non-native trees by the look of it. We saw several giant Buddha figures, and big new churches and pagodas, some still under construction. The churches are all ultra modern in design and the pagodas ultra traditional, emblazoned with dragons. I get the feeling that Buddhists and Christians are fighting a battle for souls through architecture in this country.

Then we crossed a plateau for a couple of hours where they were growing both tea and coffee. Lots of houses had coffee beans drying in their front gardens. I don't think I've seen tea plantations since I was in India 24 years ago. They look like vast rows of neatly clipped privet hedges.

We passed through several towns, then we were climbing again along a winding mountain road up through pine forests with crags and gullies. At times I'd think we'd been teleported to the Scottish Highlands, until I'd see a clump of bamboo.

Good old Phu'o'ng Trang buses provided us with a free shuttle to our hotel again (I'm even moren convinced now that the driver in Saigon last week pulled a fast one on us). And what a hotel it is! The Best Western Dalat Plaza Hotel. We'd booked it on Expedia and kind'a assumed it was a fake Best Western because copyright piracy is the norm in this country, but I think now it must be the real thing, because it's like a 5 star hotel back home. Spotlessly clean, huge room, great view out over the nicest part of the town, and B&B for a trivial £25 per night. We've spent the evening grumbling even more about the rip-off Forest Floor Lodge. (We left a little note to the management about the state of the bathroom when we left...)

I love Dalat already. It's a big town and it tries to be Las Vegas with its neon lights, but it's got a relaxed feel to it, a real mountain retreat. There's scooters here of course, but they don't ride on the footpaths and you can cross the road without dying if you stay awake. There's a nice looking park across the road from us, and a huge lake just up the road, and there's flower beds all over. Roses! And it's cool! We went out this evening wearing the jackets we'd thought we'd pointlessly lugged all over South Vietnam. Hoorah! My only grumble is that it was pouring with rain when we arrived.

We walked the streets for a long while before deciding on a restaurant for dinner, but we hit on a good'un. Da Quy (Sunflower) restaurant. They've got a whole page of veggie dishes on the menu for my little veggie friend, and my chicken and chinese mushroom dish was exemplary. We downed a bottle of Dalat red wine which was only 125,000 Dong (about £4). They mix the local grapes with mulberries. It's not fine French wine, but it's light and perfectly drinkable. We bought a bottle in a shop to drink in our room and it was only 45,000 Dong.

We walked home through the central market which was still going on at 9.30pm. Lots of food stalls selling sizzling I-don't-know-whats. I'm happy and relaxed this evening.

...OK, some readers will know me well enough to understand that's code for “Full of wine”.