So far on the trip we’ve been sweating it out in the tropical lowlands but we now get a break as we’re driven to Da Lat, in the Southwestern Highlands about 4 hours from Cat Tien.
It’s a long, slow and arduous approach as we wind up from the valley with motorbikes swarming around, the pace slowing to walking and pine trees taking over as the jungle transitions to forest. When driving in Vietnam it is essential to honk continually, sometimes understandably, as each motorbike needs to signal its location in order to survive, other times very annoyingly as buses and truckers plough through the bike swarms with 100Db blasts. 
Arriving in town, you first notice the flowers, then the sub-Disney-esque public ”art”, the florid hotel architecture and the myriad colored lights. As this is Vietnam’s primary domestic honeymoon location, this must be what gets the locals in the mood and it’s undoubtedly distinctive, if cheesy.
Our Airbnb is right in the middle of the action with bars, shops and restaurants all around us so I head out to get some basic supplies but have to quickly retreat, tail between legs, after a minor collision with a motorbike and having made no progress in finding a grocery store. We’re in the oldest part of town and its very old school with butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers plying their trade on the sidewalk with scooters flying by inches away. 
With the lack of English and visible pricing and having forgotten our mobile Wi-Fi, it was a bit much for this rookie. In time, we figure it all out, and even get to be halfway decent at crossing the road, but it was a rough start.
Fortunately, there’s a tourist and veggie friendly restaurant right on our street and we arrange to meet Lou and Anne from Portland there. These are the same folks who used to live next to us when we first moved into our current home 25 years ago! They’ve been doing Cambodia so we swap experiences and war stories being saying farewell to them for this trip. 
We hit up a couple of bars later on but find that the places on our street are heavily geared to 20 somethings so we need a Plan B for the next night.
The next day we walk round part of Xuan Huong Lake, which is right in the town center, skipping the giant swan paddle boats, visit the Crazy House and have a massage at the Feel Good Spa. The Crazy House is aptly named being a Gaudi/Dali/Disney fever dream of a compound designed by female architect Dang Viet Nga. Started in 1990, it remains in a state of flux and she expects that it’ll never be completely finished. 
Very organic and psychedelic and not entirely safe (would never EU/USA meet health & safety standards). If you go to DaLat it is an obligatory stop.
The massage was also a memorable experience: We went with Western methods and I specifically requested “no pain” which is just as well as the petite masseuse went to town on me in the manner of a WWF bout. Abby likes it more forceful so she was still asking for more punishment. Oil, cold compresses, hot towels and stones were all used and the climax was a suplex maneuver that nearly did in my back. $20, including tip, well spent.
Da Lat cable car and monastery is also definitely worth some of your time as you are whisked up and over the mountains and then down the other side towards a lake where a Zen monastery is perched on a hillside. Great setting, temples and gardens – It would be much more atmospheric were it not for the unruly local family groups, but it is a Saturday and they’re taking advantage of the missing Chinese tourists, courtesy of the coronavirus. We have a nice chat with one of the monks who is finishing off his internship and will “graduate” soon. Buddhism is a big deal here, even though the regime downplays it. In fact, when we were at Cat Tien we were surprised to find that the indigenous villages were heavily Catholic, courtesy of the American involvement in South Vietnam. The regime is nothing but pragmatic in that, by the book, its very communist, and there are restrictive laws for everything, but enforcement is extremely lax whether its religion, micro-free enterprise or Internet access. The governments’ priority is to catch up with the West and China as soon as possible, with dogma coming in a distant second.
In the evening, the 100 Roofs Bar is in our plans and it turns out to be the baby brother of the Crazy House with the same kind of organic, labyrinthine design. There’s a cool rooftop bar which, unfortunately closes early, leaving us with the main bar which is overrun with backpackers drinking lousy fruity cocktails while pounding generic EDM negates attempts at conversation. We own up to our age and find a real wine bar(!) and hang out with the cool, nerdy kids there before crashing out.
The next day we hit up some more flower gardens, Buddhist temples, vegan restaurants and quirky bars but our time in Vietnam is coming to a close. 
Da Lat has been a bit eccentric, and worth our time, but we probably wouldn’t return there. Vietnam, on the whole, has been a success, even though we suffered significant culture shock on several occasions. The people were great, we liked the food, the countryside once we got away from the highways, the temples and the karaoke, plus it was super economical. No major stomach issues and no malaria or c-virus (as far as we know so far). The traffic is, simply, nuts, be warned.
Courtesy of a direct flight from Da Lat to Bangkok we’re heading to Thailand, so see you there.
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