Da Lat, Vietnam Day 24

Glad to be here in Da Lat. We woke up excited traveling further down south but this time we were going inwards towards mainland instead of further down the coast, it was great not to be jumping on a night bus again as we are only 3 hours away from Nha Trang! The bus was obviously a lot smaller and the journey was much more enjoyable, we had more to look at through the windows compared to the night bus. The journey was very green as we passed through extremely rural towns driving through the mountains.

We learnt from our mistake in Nha Trang and booked our stay in Da Lat before we boarded the bus. We arrived at the bus station in Da Lat around midday and we were a 10 minute drive from our home stay obviously meaning we had to get a taxi so we waited nervously in the queue considering our previous experience. We were pleasantly surprised with how kind our taxi driver was who looked like a Vietnamese version of the Rock. Thankfully taxis here in Da Lat actually use their meters instead of having to haggle a price, what a relief and we weren't going to take any more chances too so we noted down the drivers number for us to use again.

This is our first home stay experience and we were instantly very impressed. A home stay is a boutique hostel run by a local Vietnamese family and Mooka's Home had it all - a dog, a cute baby and husband & wife. The place was very relaxing and clean, they make sure we take our shoes off at the door which made us feel more at home. After settling in we had a stroll down the hill from our home stay to check out Da Lat city and have some lunch (Check out meal 28 on our Eat page).

Our first impressions of Da Lat are very positive, the locals are extremely friendly, the food is great and the weather is much cooler due to being in the mountains. Later that night we chose a restaurant we found on TripAdvisor and in fact it was number 1 in Da Lat and funny enough it was an Indian cuisine, we thought if we were to go we should walk there so we had a 20 minute walk through Da Lat and then didn't feel so guilty ordering a Chicken Tikka Masala! - One of our favourite meals of all time!