March 23 to March 25 Dalat:

We took an early morning flight from HCMC to Dalat, a town in the central mountains only 200km away. After checking in we took one of the area attractions – a 2.5 km cable car to a picturesque lake in the mountains. Dalat is a honeymoon town and there were several young couples strolling the grounds. We then went to the Datanla waterfalls a little deeper in the woods. Unfortunately we’re Canadian and the falls were not just unimpressive - they were downright ugly. There were concrete bridges over the stream, vendors selling ice cream and souvenirs, roller coaster rides through the woods surrounding the falls, and cowboys, whose pictures you can take for a fee. The nicest thing about the place was the smell of pine trees – a very pleasant aroma after 3 days in HCMC. In the afternoon we visited a nice pagoda and on the way back we took an alleyway back to the hotel. The alleyway was narrow, maybe 10 feet wide and wound down a steep hill for 500meters. We were amazed by the world behind the street. Small narrow houses at every angle, larger richer houses, patios with a view, and the constant motorcycles, going up impossible inclines. (Note: Vietnam is one of the safest countries in the world to travel in. Joan and I have no hesitation taking back alley or narrow streets during the daylight.)

Wednesday we took in the plant garden in Dalat and then we tried the special train to Trai Mat. This is an old narrow gauge railroad that runs a tourist train 4 times per day. We showed up for the 10 am train and when we told them we wanted tickets they sold them to us. Then they sold tickets to the other 4 people that were waiting. We made up the magic number of 6 passengers required for the train to run.
The train runs 8 km through the vegetable gardens that surround Dalat. The rails are on a ridge and we got alternating views of the valleys on both sides. The valleys are tiered and the fields varied with hundreds of greenhouses spread everywhere. Like every moving vehicle we have been on in Vietnam, the horn is the first thing the operator learns to use. The world knew we were coming. The train went through level crossings, house driveways, front yards, back yards and even separated the café/bar from the road. (I know it’s a bar because the motorcycle driver I hired the next day was drunk). The only crossing gate I saw was a manual one right in Trai Mat. After a 15 min ride we stopped in Trai Mat. The main attraction in Trai Mat is supposed to be the Chua Linh Dhuoc Pagoda, but I think the growing fields are nicer. But we only had a 30-minute stop, so back we went with the conductor tooting the whistle at all his friends again.

Thursday: The brief train ride to Trai Mat had whetted our appetite, so Thursday we got up early and by 7:30 we were on the local bus to Trai Mat. This was another example of Vietnamese thoroughness. The hotel clerk told the taxi driver where we were going. The taxi driver drove right into the bus yard and stopped beside our bus and said something to the conductor. The conductor sold us the right tickets and told us where to get off. The train ride had cost us $5.00 return. The bus cost us $ .50 return. The bus has better entertainment value too. I get a kick out of watching the conductor haul the passengers aboard. The bus doesn’t do a complete stop even for the little old ladies. I think bus passengers wear long sleeves so the bruises don’t show.

We visited the Pagoda and then we took a long walk in the fields. The fields are on the hills and each field is carved out from the hill. Somehow the farmers get irrigation to each field and grow veggies or flowers. There are paths through the fields but they twist, drop and rise with the hill and often dead-end into a field. Whenever Joan and I hit a dead end some farmer would wave at us and point which direction to go. There are some houses in the fields but they are rare. The land is for farming and the Vietnamese do a good job.


A Cao Dai temple dominates the whole valley. In order to get up to it we got 2 motorcycle taxis. This is when I got my drunken taxi driver. I negotiated with the first driver and he understood where we were going. I think he was going to take the 2 of us on one motorcycle but Joan wouldn’t agree. So he called his drunken friend to take me. Joan was long gone before I was sitting on the back of his friend’s bike. Off we went and he went right by the temple cut-off road and headed for a town called Cao Lat. I tried to stop him but he convinced me his friend was right ahead of us. One kilometre later I insisted he turn around and when the temple came into view I kept pointing at it. When we got there Joan was sitting in the shade.
We toured the temple, which wasn’t finished yet and then walked back to town for lunch and tea. After tea I asked the waitress where to find a taxi. She made a call and her friend showed up. It was the first female taxi driver we met in Vietnam. The driver didn’t speak English so the waitress translated the destination and off we went. The driver got lost and stopped for directions. When she discovered she had to backtrack, she seemed anything but happy. We covered 5KM on a terrible dirt road down a steep hillside and arrived at Tiger falls. All the way there the driver never said a word to us. We visited the falls and they were nice - clean, pristine and no vendors.


We came back to the taxi quite happy. At this point Joan tried to communicate with the driver about stopping on the way back to take pictures as we had passed beautiful vistas of tiered gardens on the hillsides. Whatever Joan said - it worked. Not only did she stop, she got involved in selecting the right viewpoints and she smiled a lot. We were all quite happy when we got back to town.

PS from Joan-this was really a perfect day- experiencing public transport, having all the time we wanted to explore Trai Mat, having the very helpful café waitress organize our trip to the falls and enjoying the input of our taxi driver on the way back as she started to choose our best viewpoints. She not only chose where to stop but walked the hillsides and pointed when she had discovered a better view. She smiled so much when she realised how much we appreciated her help.
The only glitch to the day was wondering where the heck Tim was when he should have been right behind me at the temple. After waiting about 10 minutes with my driver, I paid him and indicated that I wanted him to go back down the hill to find Tim. Did not see my driver again, but Tim showed up after 20 minutes, much to my relief.

Bangkok: March 18th to 20th

This city is a sensory overload. It has extreme everything. The weather is hot, sweaty and extremely smoggy. The city is large, crowded and full of poverty, but it has the gentlest, kindest people in Asia. The temples here are so ornate, so golden and in such good repair it’s impossible to concentrate on taking one picture at a time. Every time I turn my head to check if I can back up, I see an even nicer picture. There is a lot of beauty here.
We arrived early Thursday morning and took a Tuk-Tuk to our chosen hotel. It was a nice oasis on a canal about 100 meters off the street. Even before we saw the hotel, men were grabbing our luggage and helping us to the entrance. Before I had arranged a room both Joan and I were served a refreshing fruit drink. Throughout our stay we were impressed with the genuine smiles the staff always wore.
We immediately set off for our first temple. Within 2 blocks we had walked into the large demonstration of Red-Shirts who, the day before, had painted the government buildings with blood. This is when marriages break down. I thought the demonstrators looked harmless and Joan was not walking through the middle of a demonstration in Bangkok, Thailand. So we sort of, kind of, went around the demonstrators and riot police and I kept my camera out of sight. (The riot police were good at directions too). While we were there we kept encountering demonstrators. They were from the north and they seemed to be taking in all the sights of the city, just like us. They were always friendly.
We only had 2 days but we saw 5 temples in all. They all were beautiful, but the Grand Palace was just plain over the top. It was 5 acres of spires, gold leaf, jewels, tourists and workmen. I liked the workmen the best. They worked without any safety devices on 30-meter high roofs.


PS. from Joan –I think that our timing in Bangkok was good- we arrived after the first big demonstration and left before the second one was to occur. I got used to seeing the protesters around (eating, chatting, sleeping in the shade) but we did try to avoid the main street they were occupying.
The beauty of the temples in Bangkok was truly awesome.

Phuket Island, Thailand

We took a flight to Phuket Island in Thailand on Sunday night. Our intent was to have 3 peaceful days at the beach. My original thoughts of Phuket were of long sandy beaches and quiet, idyllic resort towns Those ideas changed as we read the description in our guide book and heard from others including Stephanie, Andrew’s girlfriend, that they were not keen on Phuket.


We took a minibus with about 8 others down the island to our hotels. We stopped at the town of Patong after midnight, which we had read was a party town and indeed, it was raucous as we dropped off some passengers there. Our town, Karon, was next and as we pulled into the hotel, which was supposed to be on the beach, it seemed to us that we were opposite a seafood company. However, as we saw next morning, our open-air breakfast/dining area was indeed just across the road from the beach, the road being, however, the main road down the coast. The beach was long and pretty with 2 rows of beach chairs on its entire length. The town was a tourist maze of hotels of all calibers, shops and street stalls selling anything you could need, restaurants for all tastes, tattoo parlours, massage parlours etc., etc.

In spite of Karon not matching our expectations, we did have a relaxing visit. Our hotel consisted of small bungalows set in a tropical garden a bit away from the road. The rooms were clean and adequate. The hotel had a pool and Tim and I moved each day from the pool in the morning to the beach in the afternoon. The weather was hot and the sun constant. On Tuesday morning, we hired a tuk-tuk (a little minibus ) for 3 hours and went down to the end of the island, stopping at other beaches along the way A couple were smaller and quieter than ours. We were a bit annoyed at our driver in the end, as he refused to do a round trip around the tip of the island and instead brought us back the way we came. No tip for him!
On Wednesday morning, Tim went on a 6-hour snorkelling expedition to two different islands. He enjoyed that trip very much and saw a lot of fish. I walked in town, read and swam.
We enjoyed some good meals both at our hotel and in the town. We left at 5 a.m. on Thursday morning to fly to our next destination, Bangkok.

PS I used my Olympus 850SW underwater camera for the snorkelling trip. It was the very first time I had taken it underwater. I had checked and cleaned it the night before but within 20 min of being in salt water the viewfinder went dead. However it still seemed to work so I kept taking pictures blind. They actually were recorded, but the camera is a probably a write-off.