Last Days in Dalat (Jan. 24, 25, 2015)

Jan. 24, 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZAKKERY! YOU’RE ONE YEAR OLD TODAY.

Today I got up, went to yoga, then out for coffee to my favourite place with the WiFi. While I was there, the guy that previously came to see me, showed up again. This time he had his little girl with him, who was about 10 months old. He saw that I was speaking on FT, and popped his head in and started waving to Livi, Zak and Amanda, who I was on FT with. I sang Happy Birthday to Zakki, even though in Canada, it wasn’t yet his birthday. In Vietnam, though, it was! It was really funny. Then he showed Livi some money, not sure why, and waved again and sat with his friends and had coffee. He is really quite nice, and definitely harmless. This time I took a photo with him and his daughter. For some reason, he wouldn’t smile in the photo, but was smiling all the rest of the time. It seems that all the people here put on a straight face when getting their picture taken. It makes this guy look hard, but he was really not at all. 

My friend from the coffee house and his baby.

Then I took the motor bike and went to visit Datanla Waterfall, which is about 5 Kms out of the city. It was another beautiful sunny day and lovely for a ride. The falls were amazing and totally different than Prenn, yesterday. It was a long walk down many stairs to reach the falls but worth the descent.

Pathway down to the falls

Datanla Falls

Close up of falls

On the way back up, I decided that my knees deserved a break, and so I opted to take the cable car back up to the top. As well, I was taking three yoga classes today, and didn’t want to fry my knee for those. It was a really cool ride and some great photo ops.

Looking back as cable car climbed

Looking up as cable car climbed

I found some Bun for lunch, at the market. It was delicious and the market food court was not your average Food Court, for sure.

My Bun lunch

The Food Court

The Food Court #2

Lady selling something to the girl eating

I rested for a while before going to the next two yoga classes. Then off I went and had two excellent classes. Rebecca and Jacek were there and told me that I should come by the house where they were staying, to visit after class, hang out with them and their land lady and her son. I did that, and had a great time. We sat around chatting and having some tea and wine, along with home made cheese, which her son and his wife make for a living her in Dalat. They have a little company called Oh My Buddha which is baking and cheese supply. The son, Jason, was very sweet to share some of his spicy and beer cheese with us, and gave me a homemade chocolate to try. All of them were great and the company with Mary Kay, Jason, Hung, his wife and Rebecca and Jacek were a lot of fun. I returned back around 11:00 and went to bed. 

A really relaxing day with lots of cool people and interesting sights. Hope your birthday was great Zakki. I know your party isn’t until tomorrow.

Jan. 25, 2015

Today I got up for the early yoga class and Rebecca and Jacek were there. They made a special effort to get up early, walk the hour it takes for them to get there, in order to take the class, go for coffee and something to eat with me. They weren’t going to be attending the afternoon and evening classes and it was our last day together. I thought it was super nice of them to do this. We had a really great time and delicious food. Another guy from the yoga retreat, Francois from Montreal, joined us for coffee and ended up showing us the yummy food place just down the street from the cafe. We all sat there for a couple of hours talking, enjoying the food and basking in the sunshine on the street table we were sitting at.

My lunch

Rebecca, me and Jacek at lunch

Then I went to the afternoon yoga class and the evening meditation class. I will be sorry to leave here, as I depart on the night sleeping bus tonight for Ho Chi Minh City. I stay there for three days, then board a flight for Bali. I will be excited to see another, new, warmer country, but will definitely have a hard time saying goodbye to new friends that I made here. I will keep in touch with Rebecca and Jacek and hopefully run into them again.

Me, Hai, and his friends having some dinner

This evening, I went for some Bun with Hai, the young guy from the hostel, and his friends. We had a fantastic last dinner and then I came back to shower and get ready to wait for the bus to Saigon. It was a great meditation at yoga tonight and they were really sweet and seemed sad to see me go. I felt kind of sad too and would happily come back to train with them.