24th February: Dalat, Vietnam

We’re 1,500 metres up, here on the Langbian plateau. Da Lat was originally built by French colonialists at the start of the 20^th century, as a retreat from the heat of the lowlands, which perhaps explains the number of churches (and general chaos in terms of town planning!). The town is set on a number of steep hills, often meaning that two places which look close together are often actually quite a walk apart as you need to head up and down different valleys.

One of Dalat’s nicknames is identical to that of Kunming – the City of Eternal Spring – which is fitting as that’s the last place we saw this much cloud! Both areas share a temperate subtropical highland climate which makes for fantastic fruit and flower growing conditions. It’s currently dry season and February only sees an average of two wet days per year. It seems that this year might be the exception, however, as it spotted on and off again throughout the day.

Today was a chill out day, so we popped between various cafes and restaurants, wandering the hills in between. First up, a vegan banh mi from a street stall, the crispy bread filled with herbs, seitan, and mayo for 65p. Across the road, we sat in a very quirky café for coffee and smoothies. The place was filled with all manner of antique items, and we sat on an old children’s cot and had a sewing machine for a table!

After a bit of meandering through alleys, which we finally found after getting lost along busy roads on the blustery lake shore, we happened across one of Dalat’s famous bakeries. My sweet treat was a lovely Vietnamese honeycomb cake, which was super heavy and coconutty. Kaja plumped for a straightforward chocolate muffin. I was struggling a bit, so we went back to the room, this time via a nice route through alleyways full of flowers. After a bit of quiet time, dinner was the same as yesterday. We can’t say no to a buffet on our doorstep!