Vietnam - Dalat - April 2013

We flew from Hanoi to Dalat which took a couple of hours by domestic flights.  It was an easy trip and we arrived in Dalat in good time.  Our bus was running late to pick us up so we had time to have a wander around the airport.

Our Tour Bus and guide collected us from the airport to take us into the city.  On the way we stopped at the Datala Waterfall and the Buddha Monastery as we had to fill in some time before we could get into our rooms at our hotel.

The waterfall and the Monastery were interesting to look at and also gave us an opportunity to see a bit of Dalat City.

The Dalat Palace Luxury Hotel - our hotel was a big old famous hotel which was one of the old icons of the city.  It was beautiful inside with very old fashioned rooms and fittings which was very quaint.  There was no air conditioning, but our windows opened and they gave us a fan.  The bathrooms were en suites to our rooms with a very high bath that we had difficulty getting in and out of.  It would have been the height of fashion in its day.  The big plus was free Wi Fi in our room which appealed to me.  The dining/breakfast room was a magnificent room overlooking the lake and there were some lovely lounge rooms with deep comfortable leather chairs..  There were no lifts in the hotel so we had to hike up and down the stairs.  The bar and  nightclub area was on the bottom of the hotel - so more stairs.   It was fun to stay there just to get the old fashioned feel of luxury living when house maids were in vogue.  The grounds were beautifully kept and we were walking distance to coffee shops etc.  We had the opportunity to visit the markets after dinner and enjoyed doing some bargain hunting there.

On our second day in Dalat we played golf at the Dalat Palace Golf Course which is across the lade from the hotel and then we visited a Vietnamese Deli, and embroidery shop that had some magnificent embroidery that had to be seen to be believed.  After that we visited the Crazy House which was an experience in itself.

The city area was nice and clean and the parks and gardens around the place are beautiful.  We loved our stay at Dalat and it was very different from Hanoi.