Stray - Ho Chi Minh City to Dalat

Enjoying the comforts of Starbucks and western shopping, Freddie decided to 'hop off' in Ho Chi Minh City, leaving us to wonder if it could be just us heading further into Vietnam on the Stray bus. However when we met our new guide, the loud and energetic Wu from Hanoi, we met four other travellers with him; Sally and Shoma, friends travelling together from London; and Poppy and Dan a couple from Ashford, Kent (dangerously small world)!

The bus took one of the best roads we have travelled upon since leaving home, with smooth jet black tarmac and bright galvanised crash barriers (Wu explained it was newly built in the last year), which is oddly something you become excited about when travelling along thousands of miles of suspension and spine rattling road.

With the city behind us we began a steady climb up through the highlands and onto winding mountain roads, the sides steeply falling away into lush green valleys. Vietnam is the world's largest exporter of coffee after Brazil and the scenery was plastered with budding plantations, which the region is well known for. The prosperity of those working on the plantations was noticeable in the size and grandeur of the roadside homes, their multiple colourful and ornate stories looking out across the valleys.

In the towns, groups of children played music and danced in the costume of a large colourful dragon as part of the mid-Autumn festival, which gives thanks for a good harvest. We heard the deep thump of the drums and the splash of cymbals before the bright red and gold prancing costumes came into view.

Dense dark cloud gathered and rain began to lash against the window panes of the bus. Soon we were driving through a brown river as the hillside's soil was washed through the streets, the drains choked under the sheer volume. A local man vainly sought to pick flotsam from a drain grill as scooter riders huddled in their ponchos against the spray off the ground and from above. Children performing for the mid-Autumn festival sheltered in shop entrances, their music abated and their dragons sleeping.

Shortly before arriving in Dalat we visited the Datanla Waterfall, where the scenario of walking through falling water, to look upon more falling water, was reminiscent of our visit to the Tad Ngeuang waterfall in Laos. Ducking under the besieged awning of a coffee shop, we waited for the torrent to ease before walking down with our umbrellas.

Dalat is known as the honeymoon capital of Vietnam, it's altitude providing an escape from the humidity that invited the French to build the town as a resort in the early 20th century. The town has certainly retained its French character, it's hillsides filled with pine trees whilst the town is bedded in gardens and a lake where swan-shaped pedalos roam. There is even a radio mast shaped like the Eiffel Tower. Czytaj więcej