After a 13-hour-bus ride over night we arrive in picturesque, charming, lovely Hoi An or "town of lanterns", as it is also called, and for good reason. You know I love lanterns! :-)
Lots of Chinese and French influence...
... and beautiful side streets...
... and little restaurants...
... and cafes...
(take a freshly baked donut from the market...)
... and art shops...
... and more artshops...
... and souvenirshops... (spot the cat)
... pottery... and many other captivating foto motives.
On arriving in charming beach town Nha Trang it's raining, but much warmer than in Dalat.
So we first visit the "historical village" with amazing embroidery!
All of these "paintings" are embroidered!! (German: gestickt!) By hand!
Not that I find them very beautiful but what an impressing handiwork.
Looks just like a photograph, doesn't it? Quite impressing.
It's still windy and rainy, and the waves are pretty high. No, we didn't go to "Vinpearl", the disneyworld-like water park on the island (you can just see the "HOLLYWOOD"-like letters on the island). BUT we spend a wonderful rainy afternoon in the MUD BATH, with hot mineral water tubs, a warm mineral waterfall, whirlpools and of course: tubs full of mineral mud, under bamboo umbrellas, around you it's raining but you're relaxing in wonderful pools... that was really nice.
Everything looked a bit miserable in the rainy weather (here the little side street to our hotel), but just when we wanted to leave to Hoi An, the weather cleared and we enjoyed 3 more days of beautiful sunshine:
And of course we enjoyed enchanting and exciting food again! ;-)
Yes, you see right. Frog. ;-) It's really delicious, it tastes like a mixture of chicken and fish (not too surprising given how frogs live on land AND water...), first bites like really tender chicken and then falls apart on your tongue just like a nice white fish and becomes a bit more chewy, just like fish, but without the "sea" taste to it.
Zuccini flower salad!
And more mussels, cockels and clams, deliciously cooked with garlic butter and spring onions.
Communistic posters.
Nha Trang at night.
The green highlands: sun, mist and rain clouds keep chasing each other.
Da Lat - "Le Petit Paris" (they've even got an Eiffel Tower...) or "City of Flowers".
You can ride a horse or paddle a swan shaped boat on the lake...
Or visit some unexpected sight at the Flower Garden.
Or drink a hot soy milk and nibble on (cooked) peanuts.
Banh Mi - deliciously filled baguettes! Holger eats about 3 of these - every day.
Our nice hotel room (10 Dollars) and our view:
Da Lat Market
You can get every kind of dried fruit you can imagine - apricot, kiwi, mango... but also flowers (top left), persimons (front left), tomato (middle left) and: sweet potato (front right)! We tried everything (of course!), and artichoke tea.
Steaming food stalls and couldrens full of hot soy milk - together with the cooler temperatures (15-24 degrees Celsius) and everyone wearing colourful woolen hats and scarves we felt like at a Christams market of some sort....
Elephant Waterfall.
Dragon Pagoda.
Coffee plantation
And yes, that is - the weasel poo (weasel sleeping in the background), that they extract the digested coffee beans from and roast them. And: yes. We did try it. And you won't believe it, it really tastes good. But. It's a weird image. AND costs 30 Dollars for 100 g.
My highlight: Da Lat's "Crazy House", an inspiring creation of architect Dang Viet Nga, who is the daughter of a former Vietnamese president, studied architecture in Moscow and obviously enjoys Antoni Gaudi's work at least as much as we did in Barcelona:
For about 30 Dollars p.p. you can spend the night in one of the many themed rooms - like the Eagle Room!
I'm sitting in a Dali-esk Giraffe here - complete with drawers. I loved this place!
Breakfast!
Vietnamese "Art Galleries" are full with socalled reproductions: in great detail and stunning quality you can get a Warhol, Klimt, Van Gogh, Picasso - or the Mona Lisa - from about 30 Dollars.
