We are overdue for an adventure!

On Wednesday, we hopped in another Grab taxi, this time to the center of the city. We really hadn't seen the city, other than driving by the outskirts on our way to our guesthouse the other day, so we figured we had better go check it out since many comments have been from people saying how much they like Da Lat. 

It cost about 80,000 dong ($3.25 USD, $4.40 CAD) for the 6.5 km (4 mile) one way trip.

We got out on the main road, and walked down to the picturesque lake located in the middle of the city. 

The vast majority of Vietnamese people do not walk! At all. They take a scooter literally everywhere. There are sidewalks in most places here, however the only people you see using them are visitors.

We decided to do the 5 km (3 mile) walk around the lake.

Entrance to the city flower garden.

We may go back there today to check it out.

Nobody walking but us. 

You can rent a paddle boat on the lake.

Really nice walk though. Reminded me of Dow's Lake in our hometown of Ottawa.

We needed some food, and the central area has a wide variety of restaurants including a highly rated Mexican restaurant! And nearby to that one is a highly rated Indian restaurant. But we've been missing Mexico, so we chose the Mexican one.

I tried to get a photo of the tree sculptures at this busy traffic circle.

Another garden that we passed by.

Unfortunately, when we got to the Mexican restaurant, it was closed. Not open for lunch apparently, and it only opens at 5:00pm. I have visions of ordering delivery for our next dinner! Anyhow, we went to our second choice, the Indian restaurant.

We ordered the chicken korma and the spinach cheese paneer and split them.

It was really good, but a little pricey by local standards. With a beer and a lemonade the bill was 340,000 dong ($14 USD, $18.70 CAD) for the two of us.

I realize as I write this that most of you are thinking "holy cow, that's really cheap!". And yes, by North American standards it really is. But when you can get a filling bowl of Vietnamese pho for 35,000 dong ($1.40 USD, $1.90 CAD), you get a more accurate comparison to the local prices of things.

More park space around the lake.

We stopped by a large "hyper-market" grocery store called "Go!". Managed to pick up some tea that Ruth likes, and a few more breakfast items, although their granola selection was both sparse and expensive. 

Back at the guesthouse, we did some more onward travel planning.

Vietnam is a much bigger country than you would imagine, although very narrow in places. We want to get to the northern part (1,700 kms, 1,050 miles north of here!), and our original plan was to do it by long distance bus, but it's not as cheap as we thought it might be, and it's very time consuming. Many people do the major routes by overnight sleeper bus, but that entails getting to a major center to be able to catch the bus. 

So I started thinking about flying up to Hanoi from here since we've only got about two weeks left in Vietnam. Then I found a direct flight from here to the city of Vinh, which is just a bit south of Hanoi. 

Vinh is not high on the tourist route, however it is the starting point for the rarely visited Pu Mat National Park. As I did some more research, I decided that we are overdue for an adventure! Most tourists who do manage to visit this park do so as a guided tour from either Hanoi or Vinh. But we're going to try to do it on our own. 

So, we are flying Saturday morning from Da Lat to Vinh. Hoping to take a bus up to the town nearest the national park on the Sunday. We'll see how it goes!

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Nice price drop on this Greenworks Cordless Electric Lawn Mower.

And in Canada...

Samsung Galaxy S24 Series.