Our Asia Trip Diary – Part Seven
Monday morning we wake up in Da Lat. Da Lat is located in the mountains, so it is quite chilly here comparing where we came from. We explore the neighbourhood of our guesthouse and walk to the lake of Da Lat (which is not that special). In our street, there is a cute coffee place where we can play board games. That’s where you can find us all afternoon.
For dinner, we order fast food, not a usual thing for us. We’ve been struggling with eating in Vietnam. I think we’re just very unlucky when ordering food and the last few days we’ve both been very sick so couldn’t eat properly. Marnick lost almost 10 kg because of being sick, so we decide we deserve some fast food.
On Tuesday we rent a scooter and hit the mountain roads of Da Lat. In the morning we have a cool activity we’re driving to. We’re going on an alpine coaster! This one is located in a nature park and there are a lot of Vietnamese tourists here. We feel like we’re in the Ardennes of Vietnam in autumn break. We have a great time on the alpine coaster. The cool thing about it is that you go all the way down and stop to get out at a waterfall. After seeing the waterfall and trying to shoot a shitty bow and arrow, we take a cart back up. No walking is needed, which we secretly don’t mind at all.
At noon we go to Da Lat Market for lunch. There are a lot of stands but we don’t find anything to eat as a proper meal. We drive a bit further and find a place where we had a good dish. Don’t know the name, but we got a baguette and a small soup that was well-spiced.
In the afternoon I take a nap before we scooter outside the city for some mountain views. The views were quite disappointing, we were driving through greenhouses all the time. We drive back to the city and go to the night market. Here we finally find some good foods! There are all kinds of small restaurants, and stands where they BBQ any meat you pick and all kinds of fruits. We’re so happy!
Wednesday we take some time to get all our expenses of Indonesia together in our favourite coffee place. This took more time than we thought, but we’re happy that we keep an overview of all our travel expenses so we have a good view of our travel budget. If you’re interested in this topic, we’ve written a whole blog post exposing our Indonesia travel budget.
We’re taking another sleeper bus, this time at night! So crossing our fingers that we actually can get some sleep on this +12 hour drive to Hoi An.
Thursday at 7 am, we are dropped off somewhere close to the old town of Hoi An. We both did get some sleep and we even have the courage to walk half an hour to our next guesthouse. On the way, we stop for some beef noodles. We can only enter our room at 12 so we go into town. Hoi An is a very cute old town and we stroll around the market. We’re getting approached by different people offering us boat rides or tailor-made clothes. The town is also covered in lanterns, so cute!
Although we are both quite tired, there is so much to see that we quickly made 20 000 steps. And that was before the sunset. Then the town gets magical with all the lanterns lit and the little boats on the water. We’re in love with this town!
On Friday we have a slow morning. The fatigue sets in and we stay in until 11 am. That’s the first time since we’ve left Europe. We go out to find some brunch and walk to find the best ATM in town before we’re heading back to our room to take another nap.
This night we’re going to find some food at the night market. This one is only around the corner as the guesthouse we’re staying in is in the middle of the old town. Location is so important when booking an accommodation! We sadly have some bad luck again with our food choices, so we have some banana pancakes on the market afterwards.
We go back to our guesthouse early. Tomorrow we’re flying somewhere very exciting for a city trip, so we have to pack again. This time we’re flying carry-on only so it will be cramming.
Saturday we get picked up by a taxi to drive us to the airport. That’s where we are now, uploading this blog and planning some more for our city trip! Can’t wait to write about this next week!
