Once we left Saigon / HCMC, we headed to Da Lat, one of the colder cities of Vietnam. The plan was to go to Da Lat and Nha Trang, and then continue going up north.
We have lived in England for more than 16 years and expected that the Da Lat weather, at 1500 meters above sea level, would still be "British Summers" for us, however this wasn't warm anymore. More than the temperature, the wind wasn't conducive for walking outside without a jumper & a jacket, we felt a chill in the air now. So, finally we looked for our jackets that were tucked under the bags.
We visited lakes, mountain cafes, temples, gardens, and food places in Da Lat.
The below photo is of the lake near the Truc Lam Buddhist Monastery. The monastery is very beautiful and we visited on a beautiful day.
The Buddhist Temple at the Monastery.
We did feel that the trees and leaves had changed from what we saw in Saigon.
Da Lat is also famous in Vietnam for the flower gardens. It is also lucky with the weather and sunshine it gets throughout the year. It's also called the Land of Eternal Spring of South East Asia. It didn't feel tropical at all.
We visited few coffee shops in the hills too. This one (photo below) had a lovely view.
Visited few more temples and it started getting quite windy and cold for us.
While in Thailand the temples were quite different and they went high. However, here in Vietnam, the temples had a Chinese feel to their structure.
Even the gardens around the temple gave us a Chinese feel.
The streets of Da Lat. Some of the guys we met here mentioned that Da Lat is the most popular destination for the Vietnamese during holidays and weekends.
On one of the cold days, we found a lady selling pakoras on the street. "Chai & Pakoras" is probably the thing to do in India on a cold wintery day. I had banana & spicy corn pakoras and Trupti had spicy corn & potato pakoras. The smell of fat and oil was lovely on a chilly day! 😋😋😋
Da Lat also has a very beautiful lake. Again, it's a small city, but the cleanliness is unbelievable in South East Asia. Hats off to them.
It also had the first railway line that was set up in Vietnam. The line ran for 40 kms in 1920s, however it is now only a touristy thing. The line runs from Da Lat to Trai Mat, which is about a 7 km run and take 30 minutes. We found a lot of Koreans on this train journey.
Blue skies & train journeys!
The station also has a massive tap without a pipeline. If only this was available everywhere on the planet, it could solve the water crisis.
In Trai Mat, we visited the Chùa Linh Phước pagoda. This was over the top decorative and we had not seen anything like this before.
Too many colours and a bit too many statues for me personally.
The Buddha idol inside was the must peaceful one, in and around the Pagoda.
Gaudi meets Pagoda meets Bhavdeep.
Gaudi meets Pagoda meets Trupti.
We also had Vietnamese Pizza. It's basically rice flour roti with eggs on top and some meat! It's simple, but the fun of it is when you cut it with scissors and have it outside on a cold evening. They cost ₫40K!
We ended up having 4 between the two of us.
Next we went to Nha Trang. The journey between the two towns was lovely.
Nha Trang has a huge beach and very vibrant tourist culture. However, we encountered rain & more rain.
On one of the days when it didn't rain, we visited the City Church...
... and the sun was shining on the righteous.
We ended up clicking some photos and
We were close to the Lunar New Year and wherever we went, we saw places getting ready for new years celebrations.
We loved the lanterns.
Even our hotel had a nice set up for welcoming the new year.
As we were leaving Nha Trang, we saw more sunshine. The train journey from Nha Trang to Da Nang was average.
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