Trip from Dalat to Hoi An in a private car with driver.

To our surprise the sun rose at 5.15 am on our first morning in Da Lat... what a change to the late sunrise near the Equator in Singapore.

After a good breakfast at the hotel, we were ready to leave for our private car adventure with our driver Huy. But... my fate decided otherwise. I hit my shin and with my old age thin skin, managed to make quite a gash. We decided to seek some medical help and found a first class, totally modern hospital with a nice French speaking doctor who took care of the problem and ..... we were finally off.

Again we saw beautiful waterfalls, Vickie rode an ostrich and after a nice ride through green hills we ended up at Lak Lake Resort and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset.

The folowing day we rode elephants (partially through the lake), saw the last Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai's hunting castle (he died in France in the nineties) and drove to Banmethuod where we enjoyed a lunch of self made tasty and healthy Vietnamese spring rolls. In the afternoon another set of gorgeous waterfalls, a visit to an ethnic minority museum and some fun with village children completed the day.

On the third day we headed to Pleiku (of Vietnam War fame) and Kontum. On the way we saw rubber plantations, a cashew nut farm, cotton trees but also lots of denuded hills thanks to agent orange!

Another visit to an ethnic village (the Bahnas), an orphanage and finally a dinner of porcupine, barbecued by our driver at the table
ended that day.

The next and last day of our car trip took us through much of the war area and close to Laos, lots of war memorials and the Ho Chi Minh trail which is now a major highway!
Also lots of jungle, ethnic areas and innumerable private cemeteries (Sometimes we wondered whether there were more cemetaries than houses in Vietnam!)
Finally arrival at Hoi An, a historic harbor town.