Sunrise in Dalat! Well not really. We left Hoi An at 6pm last night on our third overnight sleeper-bus of the trip. We were then dumped in the central coastal city of Nha Trang at 6am, and then thrown on another bus bound for Dalat. We arrived at noon and were all exhausted. Those sleeper-buses aren't the most comfortable or easy of things to sleep in. I nodded off about 11pm, but it was hardly what you would call quality sleep for six hours. When we arrived in Dalat, we walked into the first hotel we saw and fell asleep. We woke about 5pm to the sunset above, and thought we should start our day hehe.

So anyway this is Dalat (or Da Lat) at 1,500m above sea level in Vietnam's central highlands - renowned for their cool climate, beautiful mountain scenery, and copious numbers of streams and lakes and waterfalls. Dalat itself is home to around 200,000 and is much like any other Southeast Asian destination with its chaotic traffic and power / phone cables everywhere.

However, despite that, Dalat has a real European feel about it. Dalat was in fact the playground of the French while Vietnam was a French colony, and with Dalat's year-round cooler temperatures the French built villas in the clear mountain air to escape the heat and humidity of the coast and of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Because of the style of architecture, Dalat is often nicknamed ‘Little Paris'.

Dalat is a built around Xuan Huong Lake - the result of two dams on a nearby river being destroyed by a storm in the 1930s. Most of Dalat's sights are hidden deep in the surrounding pine-covered hills which we'll be checking out over the next couple days. By the way, spot the mini Eiffel Tower on the left hehe.

First full day in Dalat, and the first thing we did was visit this monstrosity. It may look like a real-life Dr. Seuss creation or something out of Alice in Wonderland, but believe it or not this is a hotel - Hang Nga Guesthouse, though more commonly known as the Hang Nga Crazy House. It was designed by way of paintings rather than blueprints as a personal project by a Vietnamese architect who was probably as high as a kite, and was opened to the public in 1990. Apparently it pissed the locals off something awful, and said architect had to jump through many legal hoops to get the project approved.

The guesthouse has ten themed rooms, each one having an animal as its theme. Here we have the eagle room (spot the eagle)...

The tiger room - tiger on the wall there with glowing red eyes and mouth (spooky stuff)...

And some other room that I've forgotten. And the cost of staying in one of these rooms? $35 to $110 for foreigners (compared to the $6 to $10 we've been paying).

This hallway looks like a cave...

This stairwell looks like someone's ear canal...

And this yard features large mushrooms and spider webs etc. all made of stone.

Narrow little staircase up the side of the main building - not recommended for those who suffer from vertigo. So yeah, very cool, but very weird!

From the crazy house we screwed our scooter into the hills surrounding Dalat, and had lunch overlooking Tuyen Lam Lake here (one of many in the area).

This is a gorgeous spot, and sitting here soaking it all in emphasised again that Dalat feels quite removed from the rest of Vietnam (except for the noodle beef soup slop I was eating).

Down the road from the lake are a set of waterfalls buried in this forest. You can hike down yourself...

...or you can take this bad boy! Kind of a cross between a bobsled and a rollercoaster, except you control your own speed. That sign might say "Brake", but only Kristina took any notice of that hehe. Video here.

And this is what's at the bottom - Datanla Falls.

Not the most impressive falls I've ever seen, but bloody nice nonetheless. There are a few other falls in the area, but time was getting on and there was still one more thing on the to-do list.

A cable car through the forest - nice!

The car takes you up to a lookout point at the summit of a hill overlooking Dalat. I was hoping to get some good sunset shots but the clouds got there first.

In one direction it's just pine-covered hills as far as the eye can see.

And in the other direction, Vietnam's answer to Paris.

By the way, Dalat is apparently well-known for a range of teas it produces. Last night we discovered kumquat and honey tea at a restaurant in town, and bloody hell it's good stuff! I don't think I knew what the fuck a kumquat was before coming here, so that's good - I've leant something.

Happy Halloween everyone! Back on the scooter today, and back into the endless pine-covered hills that surround Dalat. While the world's human population apparently reached seven billion today, we were virtually the only ones in these parts. With the population ballooning out of control while parents insist on having more than two children, being here was a nice way to 'celebrate' the occasion.

Anyway, this is Ho Suoi Vang, described by WikiTravel as "Rather unspoiled scenery". True that, and worth it for the drive though there was nothing happening here except for a group of locals taking the piss out of Kristina's accent hehe.

From there we continued hooning through the countryside and along some dirt roads to check out Lat Village whose 6,000 inhabitants are ethnic minority groups. They make a living from growing rice, coffee, black beans, and sweet potato. Interesting stuff, but there was nothing happening here either.

While driving back through town we found this - hundreds of potted plants in the shape of the Eiffel Tower hehe. Le petit Paris :)

And this is the very ornate Linh Phuoc Pagoda, also a good 20-minute scooter ride outside of Dalat. There's a train that runs between here and Dalat on a partially-repaired cog railway that had its heyday during the middle of last century. However for some reason it takes 90 minutes to complete the 8km trip, so we opted for the scooter.

The pagoda was built from debris of glass, pottery bowls, and porcelain between 1949 and 1952. To create something like this must be absolutely painstaking to say the least!

Across the road is the unfinished and equally ornate Da Bao Tower - seven tiers and 27 metres tall. The second floor of the tower holds the largest bell in Central Vietnam at 4.38 metres in height and weighing in at 8.5 tonnes. As the bell turns, it presents images of the four seasons. Tourists are advised to turn the bell to the season they are in, write their wishes on a piece of yellow paper, stick it onto the bell, and then chime the bell three times to send their prayers to Buddha. We didn't do that, but I did give the bell a bloody good bashing hehe. Video here.

If I drove something like this to school I would be so popular.

With that we called it a day, and drove back into central Dalat in time for rush hour (my absolute favourite time to be on two wheels!) and had a beer, because it's nice. Tomorrow we catch a five-hour bus to our next destination of Mui Ne on the coast. From there we head to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and then make a call about the rest of our route. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, we're considering skipping some of the destinations we had originally planned on visiting in favour of spending that time in Malaysia instead. Some of those places have been messed up good and proper by the recent and on-going flooding in the area and so are no longer possible for us to see. So, we have the option of seeing whatever we still can, or rerouting completely to make time for Malaysia.

Another typical commute from A to B this morning, with entire chucks of road missing and wildlife roaming all over the road.

More typically awesome scenery though!

After four hours crammed into a minivan, we arrived at our tenth destination of the trip - the coastal resort town of Mui Ne. This place absolutely reeks of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea. For example, very few locals actually live here - it's nothing but a tourist destination. It's a long stretch of coastal road just like Sharm, and taxis run back and forth tooting their horns at pedestrians to attract attention (and hopefully business). Furthermore, it's all resorts, restaurants, bars and cafes, again just like Sharm.

First order of business was to find ourselves some cheap accommodation.

Second order of business was to hit the beach out back - one of the two reasons anybody comes here (the other of which we'll be checking out tomorrow).

This is apparently the best all-round beach in Vietnam, and a popular spot with tourists and locals alike. This is the South China Sea, and strong sea breezes make it very popular for kitesurfing and windsurfing. And what's more, the water is bloody warm!

I dived right in and flailed around in the massive waves as the tide was coming in.

And Kristina strutted her stuff while I practised my portrait photography :)

Spot the illegal immigrant in the distance hehe.

And that's all we did today - swim and chill at the beach. Nice.

At the moment we're only planning to stay here a couple nights. Aside from the beach and the other draw card which we'll do tomorrow, there's really nothing else of interest around here.

Another gorgeous day in Vietnamese paradise, and another day on a scooter.

This is what gas stations look like here in Mui Ne - just these little pumps on the roadside hehe.

Today we headed out of town and through a fishing village littered with boats on the shore.

A short ways outside of that fishy-smelling village is this - sand. Lots and lots and lots of sand, also known as the "red dunes".

Aside from the beach, this is the other draw card of Mui Ne and (like I mentioned yesterday) makes the whole place feel very much like Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.

So the thing to do here is hire one of those plastic sheets from the swarm of kids...

...and go screaming down the side of the dunes on it hehe. Great fun!

One must always look their finest ;)

After Kristina had a few goes we swapped places. My vantage point was high on an adjacent dune, and this kid had to tow her up there hahaha!

I was far more impressive to watch I'm sure, due to the fact I kept falling off in spectacular fashion hehe. Now, these kids may seem innocent enough, but they rarely are in these parts of the world. I had read stories about the little bastards riffling through your stuff while you were doing your thing on the dunes, and hence Kristina and I took separate turns so one of us was always with our bag. When we swapped places, a group of kids followed her and loitered around her while I was away. As Kristina was shooting me with the camera, she could feel them behind her trying to get into the bag (which was on her back) and had to keep shooing them away. One of them even managed to get the bag open but didn't have time to grab for anything (although the most they would have found was my sunscreen as I keep everything else well tucked away). All Kristina needed to do was take the bag off her back and keep it between her legs, but for some reason she didn't think of that. Regardless, they went away empty handed this time. They must have picked her as the weakest link so to speak as they didn't dare try that shit with me. You can't really blame them though; they know it's wrong but it's how they've been raised - white people are rich so steal from them.

I eventually had enough and we left, covered in sand from top to toe but with all our belongings. We later got chatting to a British couple that we've seen on several occasions over the last week or so. When we told them about these kids they told us that he had his phone snatched by a passing scooter in Hoi An the other day, and she had all her cards and money stolen on a sleeper bus (of which we've been on three so far) while she slept! Someone else we got chatting to a couple days ago mentioned she had her whole bag snatched by a passing scooter in Luang Prabang and hence lost everything including her passport! Today was the 36th day of our trip and the closet we've come to having anything swiped (that we're aware of at least) was by these kids today. In part we've probably been lucky, but we've also been very careful and also well researched. This is an awesome part of the world, but like so many places I've been over the last several years you need to be constantly on your guard, and your trip can be ruined in an instant. It's a shame.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day on the beach, and tomorrow we head to Saigon!