The Crazy House and the Cathedral

We said goodbye to Nha Trang this morning, getting a 7:15am bus to Da Lat. We were expecting a sleeper bus and I was almost disappointed when a normal coach turned up. The journey was a lot shorter than we had expected, arriving around 12pm, instead of 2. It was not a particularly smooth journey. The roads over the mountains were in awful condition and the driver was swerving across the road to avoid potholes, in a manner that had me convinced we were going to die, going round blind corners on the wrong side of the road.

On the way we had two toilet stops. The first was at a service station which was actually quite picturesque. The second stop, we pulled up to the side of the road on the side of a mountain, the driver got up and got out the bus, shouting toilet as he went. We watched him go over to the grassy verge on the other side of the road and find a spot to have a wee on the side of the road. Everyone was a bit stunned at first, but eventually a couple of others, Lauren included, decided they couldn't wait and went and squatted behind various bushes at the side of the road. Once everyone was done they all got back on board and off we went.

When we arrived in Da Lat we decided to get a taxi to the hostel as it was a 20 minute walk and it was so hot. The taxi cost less than a pound and we had no trouble getting into one as there was a whole load waiting at the side of the road for our bus to arrive.

We checked in straight away to our room, which is a twin ensuite, costing us $6 each a night. Then we went for a tour of all the sights in Da Lat the hostel recommended to us.  There was a whole 3 sights. The first was a bizarre house designed by some female architect who is now in her 70s. It's been credited as one of the top ten most bizarre buildings in the world. We didn't really know what to expect when we were told to visit the crazy house but we went to check it out anyway. It was basically a series of houses/rooms built in the shape of trees with random staircases leading off in random directions to random levels. You have to see it to understand what I mean. We did get quite a good view of the city from the top floor though.

Next we wandered along to the cathedral which was quite a nice building. We weren't able to go inside but we had a walk round the front. Then we went to the market which was a bit of a disappointment. Every stall was selling the exact same and it wasn't anything interesting.

After the market we arranged a trip for tomorrow and then made our way back to the hostel. We relaxed in our room for a while before heading out to dinner. I had chicken in mushroom sauce and Lauren had pizza. Then we went back to the room, showered and packed our bags for tomorrow.  It was a fairly relaxing day.