From the Mountains to the Coast : Dalat and Tui Hoa Vietnam

We are working our way up north in Vietnam and we have seen so much that even a short week ago seems like another lifetime.  When we left Saigon we took a sleeper bus to the mountain city of Dalat on our friends Max and Arlene's recommendation who had spent time in Vietnam last year.  We were not disappointed!
Dalat is known as the City of Flowers and with thousands of acres covered with bamboo framed greenhouses growing flowers and vegetables it is no wonder why!
http://wikitravel.org/en/Dalat

It is also a very popular honeymoon city especially for people in the Saigon area and we had the good fortune to spend time with a newly wed Vietnamese couple while visiting one of Dalats most notable sites.

A 30 minute small gauge train ride to Trai Mat a village near Dalat takes you to one of the most surrealistic temples we've seen  ~ Linh Phuoc Pagoda
(and there are ALOT of temples all over southeast asia! )

 

 

 

 

 

A Gondola ride to the other side of the City of Dalat

takes you to the Truc Lam Zen Monastery

 

                                          Gondola over to Truc Lam Zen Monastery

                                                       Gardens at the Monastary

Stairs to the Temple

 

Leaving Dalat we took a wild bus ride through the mountains back to he coast ~ arriving at Nha Trang after 4 hours.  We had to hire a car to take us up to the town of Tuy Hoa ~ as we missed the last bus for the day. Buses and trains all over southeast Asia are inexpensive -  but if you hire a car or taxi -  it can get costly and this 2 hour hair raising trip along the coast set us back $80 ~ but we had splurged on our next hotel (already paid for) and had to go for it.

Turned out the hotel we booked wasn't exactly in Tuy Hoa - but at the end of a long gravel road way out of town and when we got there we all (taxi driver included) thought the place was deserted.  Fortunately we were able to find someone there and ended up having a great time ~ no one else was staying there and the place is actually a group of bungalows set back from the ocean and we walked miles on white sand beaches never seeing another person.

 

                                                        our bungalow on the beach

 

                                                      Beer and Banh Mi on the Beach

                                                                     Beach Scenes

Our host "Helena" and her Staff
 

 

 

The next day the owner (Helena) helped us book a tour for the day (5 hours for $25 ~ go figure) and saw some amazing scenery and temples.

A must see is the point 20 km north of our hotel called Da Dia ~ a unique basalt comlumn extrusion into the ocean ~ called the "Place of Plates" because of the unique fracturing ~ make even more beautiful by the "basket boats" scattered across it and the fishing fleet out in the ocean~

 

After Da Dia we visited the beautiful Tu Quang Pagoda and a 900 year old Cham Tower outside of Tuy Hoa.  The Champa Empire ruled in Central and South Vietnam from the 7th century to 1832.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champa

 

on the way to the temple I had to give these folks a hand throwing hay

 

                                                                       Big Buddha

 

Cham Temple

 

 

We are in our last week of Vietnam and will have lots more to show and tell -  but we are also getting excited to hook up with Stuart and Sara back in Thailand on February 19th!

Thanks for listening and we will keep you posted!

 

Don and Carol