Reed About Beer: Dalat, The Central Highlands of Vietnam (Couple of Nights Off the Beer)

We arrived in Dalat in the early evening with some nice cooler temperatures being up in the hills. We were dropped off at another Sinh tourist hotel but this time we were pleasantly surprised as the staff at the Trung Cang Hotel were really helpful and friendly and we ended up paying $12 a night for a luxury hotel room that included a free all you can eat buffet breakfast, it was time for a good feed. A sunset stroll into the centre of town, you could see the lush green hills that surrounded the town but the place itself felt different to most of the highland places we have previously visited.

Trung Cang Hotel

For us this room really was welcomed luxury

Not sure if it was due to the Vietnamese holidays but the place had the buzz of a local tourist destination. We found some street food for dinner which we’ll get to in the morning... and we walked through the local night market where we sampled some local doughnuts that we ate overlooking the large lake in the centre of town. Sat there it had a feeling of the Lake District in the North of England. Pretty tired from the journey we were excited to sample the fluffy pillows in our posh hotel room watching a film on the laptop, a comfort well needed when backpacking.

The food that would poison me 12 hrs later, Like something had died inside me...

The buzzing central night market

Cakes, cakes & more cakes rude not to...

With being in the highlands there was plenty of trekking and the place was famous for the Easy Riders, which were local motorcyclists on Harley’s that would take you out for the day or you can hire them to drive you around Vietnam. Really friendly guys and you can imagine the trips being amazing. With Kate still under the weather and for the first time my stomach had been hit by bad food from the previous night we opted out of trekking and being brave we took a relaxing stroll around town. It was a pretty chilled day stopping for drinks. We saw the Pagoda, the Eiffel Tower, the Cathedral (from a distance) & the central market where every stall sold the same stuff mainly sweets.

Where to find the Easy Rider's if not on every street corner

Inside the local Pagoda

The town of Dalat

Dalat's Central Market

Every stall inside the market sells the same ----! Somebody needs to specialise in something different

What the locals call the Eiffel Tower. A welcomed landmark for not getting too lost

The Cathedral Tower from a distance. Couldn't be bothered getting any closer

The Giant Lake in the centre of town. A really nice place to sit back and do nothing

Included some token Swan Peddle Boats

We even watched another film because we could before braving another dinner which was pretty poor. For some reason the local food in Dalat that we had wasn’t great, thank god for breakfast and the cake shops especially Le Petite Patisserie where we just had to buy marble cake and muffins to enjoy at the lake. Amazing and why didn’t we just eat cake for dinner?

Le Petite Patisserie

Not quite Paris but pretty pleased

It was a nice place to see and nice to visit the highlands of Vietnam, maybe we were still spoilt with the memories of Darjeeling as it didn’t fascinate us much. We like to enjoy the local towns that we visit and for travellers this seems to be a place more to discover the surrounding areas rather than the town itself. For us personally Delat was all about relaxing by the lake eating cake. Maybe the illnesses were taking there toll for a few days and we were both lacking energy. This must have been the case because I didn't even feel like having a beer which is sacrilege.

It was time to head further North and back to the coast to visit the town of Nha Trang. The next morning we made sure we got our moneys’ worth with the breakfast buffet before heading out and we couldn’t believe we had the same mini bus and driver and the AC still wasn’t working. Hoping people would open the windows we boarded the crowded bus. The scenery heading out of Dalat through the central highlands was truly amazing and made you think that a visit to Dalat is worth it if you get out into the surrounding areas with the help of the Easy Riders. We were however in luck on this day as the journey only took three and a half hours instead of the expected five hours. Maybe the fast hectic driver was not all that bad!