A Sunny Day in Dalat (Jan. 21, 2015)

This morning I got up bright and early, feeling really good, and went to yoga. I took my computer with me, as suggested by my brother, to use in a cafe to see if the internet was better. Yoga was great, and so was the internet. A whole new perspective today. Yeah! Everything is working and no viruses. Whew. Thanks to mom and Jon for listening to me and helping me not to freak out. The day looks much brighter today, because of the sun and the fact that I haven’t been infected and my dear laptop is still working perfectly.

I went to that Audiophile Cafe to work and drink coffee. What a great place to listen to jazz, do my blog and research where I will be going next and looking into the areas to stay and where to book. 

My next stop is Ho Chi Minh City, which I think I will go to on Sunday night, instead of Friday night. I’d like to do a bit more yoga, relax in this smaller town a bit longer and just take it easy. That will leave me three days to look around Ho Chi Minh which I’m sure will be long enough. It’s a lot more expensive, busy and work to find my way around. So I will investigate whether I can keep the bike, the hotel room and book the bus ticket for Sunday night, on the sleeper bus.

I fly to Denpasar, Bali on Jan. 28th, Julia’s 50th birthday! Wish you were coming with me Jules. Anyway, I have started looking into where to stay and what to do on the Island of Bali. It seems quite a bit more expensive, but looks lovely. I may just stay in Denpasar city for a day or so, or look into booking a flight to Gilli Island which was suggested to me by Jordana as being amazing. I saw a place to stay that wasn’t too bad, so I may do that, and take it from there as to where else to visit. I see that Ubud in the centre of the island is popular, but I’m not too much into the super touristy spots if possible. I’ll do more research and see.

So when I got back to the hostel, I met one of the young guys who works here at the door, with his IT friend. Both speak great English, and I told him that my problem was the internet speed and not a virus. He said that it was because there was a damaged line under the ocean, which I’ve heard before. Hai, the guy who works here, had told me to go to yoga and do what I wanted, then when I returned, he could call his friend if I needed help with the computer. I went for coffee, and returned a bit later than I had expected, to find him and his friend Sang, here waiting and then going for lunch together. I thanked them and said that I had hoped he hadn’t come here just for the computer. They said ‘no’, that they are best friends and were going out for lunch regardless. They were going for dry noodles and invited me along. I happily agreed. Hai drove my bike, with me as a passenger, and Sang rode on his own bike. It was a great afternoon chatting with them (they’re both very artsy, and about 22-24 years old). Both of them were brought up in musical families and are pretty mature for their age. We chatted back and forth and they asked me lots of questions and I asked many of them as well. It’s so interesting learning about another person’s culture and true way of life. We went for coffee afterwards before returning to the hostel. Hai was only on a lunch break, so we had to get back. 

The Coffee House

Our coffee delights

L to R: Hai, Sang, Me

My dry noodle lunch

View from the cafe

After that, I rested, then went to the 5:30 meditation class, worked on my computer and went to bed. A fantastic day with lots of new friends and experiences.