Da Lat - Last Day

Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Posted by TwoLively

This morning for breakfast, my sister-in-law, The Travel Agent, saw something on the menu that she knew I would like (the menu was written in Vietnamese.) It was sort of a spicy beef soup served with a crusty french bread baguette. She was rather disappointed because her mom makes it as a thick gravy, instead of a thin soup--but, since I've never had it to compare, I thought it was delish!

We started by going to Flower Park...which is a park...that has...flowers...as the name implies. Boy, there were a lot of stairs! The flowers were very pretty. The poinsettias had silver droplets of water on their red velvet leaves--so beautiful!

We visited Datanla Waterfall, which features an attraction called Coaster Bob. We weren't really sure what kind of a ride it was--but, we knew the ride led down to the waterfall, and it was either a) take the ride or b) take the stairs. Hello, no-brainer! To our sheer delight, Coaster Bob was an amazingly exhilarating, thrilling (German-made) bobsled ride. The track was 800m long, and it curved and winded down through a forest. Each coaster rider controlled the speed of their individual coaster with a lever-breaking system. The bobsleds could go up to 40km per hour, but felt much faster! It was sooo much FUN--Tootsie proclaimed it was the best thing she had ever done in her life! We rode the ride twice (and, if The Travel Agent, and Glinda weren't waiting at the top for us, I'm sure we'd STILL be on the ride!) The scenery was beautiful, and as the mountain air rushed by, it made you feel so alive! On the second ride, my seatbelt came undone, which added a whole 'nother element of thrill to the ride. Today was the one-year anniversary of my pacemaker/defibrillator combo, and what a memorable way to celebrate (technically, my doctor said I'm not released to ride rollercoasters--sudden thrills can "give me a therapy" aka shock the hell outta me--but she never said anything about riding bobsleds... ;)

We had so much fun riding Coaster Bob that we almost forgot to gaze at this:

Waterfall view ~ MarcoPolo with some sort of Yeti creature (locals--before and after us--posed for free, but good ol' MarcoPolo had to pay for his pose! Sucka!)

For lunch, we stopped at a restaurant that advertised they served Western food (liars!) MarcoPolo ordered "chicken legs." We assumed--falsely--that it would be the delicious pink glazed chicken that The Travel Agent's mother makes. His dish was the last to arrive, and it was a plate of....chicken FEET! Boney, clawey, grody, tangled chicken feet! There are some women who can visualize their way to a pain-free birth; bring on the Morphine, 'cause I'm not that kind of woman! I tried so hard to pretend there weren't chicken feet on his plate. I even tried looking away. Nevertheless, I started gagging and retching (which the kitchen staff found amusing!) BTW: MarcoPolo said there was no meat; it was like eating crunchy chicken skin. However, the flavor was one of the best flavors he's ever tasted in his life!  

Bon Appetit! These pictures were taken AFTER I left the table... (Look at how the feet are slightly padded. Gross, no?)

Food is always a crap-shoot. Tonight we went to the Chocolate Cafe, a Western cafe, for dinner. They offered croissant sandwiches, crepes, Vietnamese food, pizza...something for everyone (avocado shakes were even on the menu, except it's out-of-season.) The prices were reasonable, and the food quality and presentation was fantastic! I ordered shaken beef, which looked exactly like the food I had for lunch, which went by a different name (not that I'm complaining: it was yummy at both places!) I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what you order: restaurants in Vietnam will give you what they want to give you! Oz told me that the next time I order, I should ask for "the usual" -- that, or shut my eyes and randomly point at something on the menu. To our surprise, rice rarely comes with our food; it has to be added ala carte.

Random Things:Tonight as we were walking along, MarcoPolo saw the sign "photocopy" and thought it read "pho-to-copy." We better get home soon because we're losing our language!

Tootsie tried to thank The Travel Agent's Sister (in Vietnamese) and used the wrong inflection (her voice went high, instead of staying level), and accidentally told her, "You don't have lice." Um...yeah...that too!

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We are leaving DaLat tomorrow at 5 AM, and heading back to Ho Chi Minh (Sai Gon.) It's about 120 miles as the crow flies...4 hours by train...and 7-9 hours by car, depending on traffic...so you KNOW we're looking forward to it! We'll stay in Ho Chi Minh, while The Travel Agent and her siblings will go back to their parents farm. We'll be taking on Sai Gon...gulp...alone (so there's bound to be some adventure there!) We'll stay there for about 3 days, then we'll meet up with the family for New Year's festivities.

--TwoLively