20th and 21st of September, 2024.
Hitchhiking in Vietnam: Dalat
A grandfather and his son pick me up just in time as another car was coming back for me. Murphy! They drop me off at the centre of Dalat.
It is raining and that would be the weather for the next few days (or weeks), as it has been for the past few weeks already. Basically, this is the worse time to come and visit Dalat. The weather here is different from the rest of Vietnam, yes, mostly rainy and mountain weather, but it’s worse now. Somebody told me that Dalat’s weather is very similar to New Zealand’s weather.
I get connection in a hotel and get proper directions to this clay park which is out of town. But as the day walks towards it’s end, I must find a place to stay for tonight. I run out of options, for both a church (where there was nobody around), and a pagoda which refuses to have me (so not a pagoda but a business place, as you already know it).
I am socked, as I’ve been walking around for hours under the rain. And after hitchhiking at night, I manage to go back a bit nearby town, where I can perhaps ask for shelter with some locals.
Many people are still scared of me, as it happens 50 – 50 in Vietnam: half of the people are scaring shit of me; while the other half welcomes me up immediately.
I ask in this house where there is some covering in front, if I can camp there. They are half way nice and tell me I can have my tent by the cafe just beside their home. It’s covered too, so I am happy with that. I manage to take all my wet stuff around and let it to dry. Or try to. The husband brings me a hot cup of tea, which is nice. I don’t have really any food but I have some dry snacks which Phuong bought me earlier at the cafe, and that saved me!
My things don’t really dry overnight, as the weather is very humid. In the morning, a young guy comes to open the cafe but luckily I am already all set when he arrives. I ask him if I can leave The Hulk in his cafe just to go to the clay park and come back in a few hours for it, and he agrees with it.
I eat two oranges I have and some more snacks, and under a little rain, I walk towards a hitchhiking spot.
It will have to be done, most likely, with motorbikes, as I don’t really see many cars coming this way. It’s not far away so it’s fine. The rain comes and go but it’s very thin mostly. After a few motorbikes, I finally arrive at the Clay Sculpture Tunnel, but not before one of the ladies who picked me up with the bike give me a rain cover, one of those plastic “ponchos”. How considerate!
I had forgotten you must pay a ticket to visit. I try and ask if I can visit for free but they don’t let me. I think it’s curious how that worked pretty well in Europe, and many times in Africa, but not at all here in Asia. They really must believe that we all are sitting in money on the West.
At least the views to here were nice, and now the walk back is also. It’s raining again but I didn’t want to wait. Plus I have my poncho now!
The next stop should be a lavender fields, this time for free, and that’s what I show a man in a motorbike. But he must have thought it was a different place because he takes me near town, and from there he is intending to take me in another direction, when I know for a fact that it was somewhere else. But I guess I was not in the mood to keep exploring anymore, so I just go back to grab The Hulk.
I get a lift with a very enthusiastic and happy to help senior man. He drops me off in the centre again, as I intend to ask for some left-overs breakfast in the big hotels there. At the first one I ask, Dalat Plaza Hotel, I am most welcomed by the reception lady and then the restaurant manager, a lovely woman who immediately show me to the restaurant, and order me an omelet, baguettes and sliced bread, two different types of jam (strawberry and blackberry, both delicious!), and a huge glass of milk. I am in heaven! What an amazing human being she is!
I try to visit the Cathedral but it is closed. I try to visit the train station but you must pay an entrance fee. For the train station! And they have the audacity to say it is for the costs of restoration. Bullshit! Why would foreigners pay for the restoration of a public building? Isn’t that the responsibility of the Vietnamese government? Bullshit! All the other tourists were happily paying. Sheep!
That’s me done with Dalat, so after a photograph from the outside of the train station, I walk towards my hitchhiking spot.
As it is around noon now, I make the decision of going back to Phan Rang, which will take roughly two hours, and with luck I can spend the night with my delightful friends Phuong and Pi. I message them before leaving Dalat and they tell me I am most welcome! Yay!
After walking for a while, as soon as I put my backpack down, Lan stops for me. He has a fancy Toyota, which resembles a Mercedez actually, and he is kind of fancy himself, perhaps because he works in a bank, the biggest one in Vietnam, but he is also lovely. He is going to visit his girlfriend in Phan Rang, and she happens to live in the same residential buildings where Phuong and her family leave. We chat all along the way and he invites me for Com Ga, a very traditional Vietnamese dish, which consist basically of chicken and rice. We also have some pork tofu, prepared in banana leaves. Everything is nice.
We arrive at Phuong’s home, which is right above her shop, around 14.00 hours. It is so good to see them again!
10 Years Around the World 