Dalat Christmas Break

A four night trip to Dalat for Christmas in the well posh Sofitel Dalat Palace was a nice break from Saigon. Vietnamese people tell me it's very romantic, certainly unheated rooms do encourage cuddling up, but I enjoy it for the cool air during the day and the kitschness.

First, here's a picture of the cool air:

And now some of the kitsch:

Dalat makes a wine, and from the bottles they have also made a Christmas tree which will also double as a general purpose tree for the upcoming flower festival.

One of the "romantic" attractions of Dalat is to take a swan pedalo onto the lake.

You can take your swan for a tour past the potato crisp heart:

Or gaze at the Dalat Eiffel Tower courtesy of the Post Office:

Pony rides are popular, so is taking pictures of people taking pony rides. Look carefully (you might want to click on the picture for the full size on flickr) you should be able to see the best combination of hats in any one picture ever.

A stetson, a non la or cone hat, a sun hat complete with face protector if the hat doesn't provide enough coverage and, being Christmas, a santa hat. There's also a hat on the guy on the pony that I don't know the name for.

Merry Christmas

Nha Trang again

I accompanied a class of students to Nha Trang for the annual school trip so there wasn't much time to enjoy myself and wander off for photo opportunities that weren't full of students making their special camera poses.

I unexpectedly liked the Oceanographic Institute with the exception of the too small enclosure they have for the seal. The specimen room was stunning, I expect places like this exist in every research establishment but doubt they are open to the public. Row upon row of pickled sealife of all types.



You can never have too much plankton in my book.



Vinpear Land, apart from the animal show mentioned in an earlier post, was fun. The major hit was the Pirate Ship alternatively dubbed "The Seasickness Machine", you can see why.



Also on Vinpearl I saw a particularly Vietnamese take on Snow White:



She was accompanied not only by the dwarfs but by a tribe of small bouncy animals:



There were a few moments of peace at Po Nagar towers





But mostly it was wiping off bird pooh, prying students out of cafes and headcounting, headcounting, headcounting. I think we all had a good time of different sorts.

Laos

We had an amazing trip to Loas flying into Vientiane from Saigon via Cambodia. We liked it so much that we left a lot unseen as it's fairly obvious we're going to go back.



The architecture and statues are stunning, I filled two memory cards on the camera. If you want to see them all (and frankly I can't think of a better way of spending four hours than looking at someone elses holiday pictures) click on any of the pictures to go to Flickr.

Food is fresh and tasty, there are a lot of higher end restaurants in Vientiane and Luang Prabang but we honestly didn't have one bad meal no matter where we ate. Well, there was the weird sweet curry in Vientiane but that was par for the course because it was Stephens birthday and he always gets a dodgy curry on that day.


There were men in santa hats.


Around every corner was a classic image.


Honest Tourist Attraction notices



and we even found a bar dimly lit enough to feel seedy





The lasting memory though has to be spending two days with elephants. More on that in a later post. Meanwhile here's my elephant having a snack.