Hey, guys! We woke up early in the morning and packed our stuff, then said goodbye to our Air B&B apartment and boarded a sleeper bus. I had not been on a sleeper bus before and had only ever heard of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, so the tightly cramped rows of three bunk beds per row, all squeezed into the size of a regular bus, were slightly unexpected. However, the five-hour ride was exactly like a ride in the Knight Bus; constricted and uncomfortable. This said, I was actually reading for the majority of the drive and was able to block the traumatic experience from my memory! I’m just kidding. Anyway, once we arrived at our hotel, we had to move to another hotel because there had been a mixup between the hotels, and then we explored the town and worked on homework. After a slightly-less-cold-than-lukewarm shower, we watched two episodes of the TV show Weeds and went to sleep. Aba and Troy let me and Asher sleep in the next morning, so they only woke us up at 12 pm. There was a complication with our rooms so we had to move rooms again, and we did some homework and walked around the town again. I didn’t mention this before, but a typhoon just passed and the weather is still a bit funky. The waves were crashing and they got very tall, and we were really able to see the amount of litter and trash and unbelievable amounts of junk and styrofoam that was rising and falling with the waves. Though it had drizzled the day before and the sky was grey it didn’t rain, but as we were heading back to the hotel, it suddenly started pouring! It didn’t drizzle or anything! One second it was dry and the next second we were soaked!! Anyway, we did some more homework, and when it cleared up we ate at a restaurant for lunch. Aba told us that the reason we even came to this town was that the area has sand-dune-sledding, but, sadly, we weren’t able to do that because of the weather. We were planning on swimming in the hotel pool, but we did more homework instead and took showers. We watched a stupidly hilarious movie called “Couples Retreat”, blogged, packed, and went to sleep. We woke up early expecting to board another sleeper bus for five hours, but instead, we drove to the next village in a normal bus. I read a lot and ate some Oreos, and there was a baby in the row in front of us that was making cute baby noises! When we arrived at Da Lat, we checked into a really cool hotel called the Duparc hotel. It is very old and has never been refurbished, so the building has a nice haunted house-y feel to it. The bellhops even wear old-looking uniforms! Also, the elevator is amazing because you can see how it works when you walk down the stairs. After we unpacked, we went to a place called the Hằng Nga Guesthouse (or the “Crazy House”. It is a hotel, but tourists come more often because of its funky architecture. It was very cool and kind of reminded me of Meow Wolf in Santa Fe.
We ate lunch and then went to the market. There, we saw many types of fruits and a lot of other things. Even though we didn’t go in, Aba pointed out the section where cats and dogs in cages are sold. Just then, a dog howled. We also saw fresh fish and I noticed that some of the fish were still alive and flopping around to try and find water, which I thought was cruel and unnecessary.
The next morning we woke up early for breakfast and then drove to a waterfall with our guide, Luu. It was very wet but also fun, and we even got to climb behind the waterfall!
We then went to a place where weasel coffee is made. Coffee beans are grown and fed to weasels, who poop them out, then the beans are dried and made into coffee. We got to see the weasels, and I noticed several with symptoms of zoochosis.
We tried some of the coffee, but I was saddened by the way it was made, thought the taste actually wasn’t bad. Next, we drove to a rickety-looking roller coaster that was actually so fun that Asher and I went on it twice! We shared a car, and it was probably the highlight of my day. I love you, Asher!
After the roller coaster, we drove to a phenomenal monastery where we met a very talkative and sweet monk. He gave us six free books and introduced us to a puppy! He had been left in the parking lot and the monks had been taking care of him ever since! Another monk even gave me a CREME PUFF to feed him!
We went back to Da Lat and ate lunch. We did homework at the hotel until dinner, when we went out, and then came back and did homework and blogged until we went to sleep. The next morning our bus was late, but nevertheless, we commenced on our next five-hour drive. When we arrived at our seaside hotel in the beach town we decided to swim in the hotel pool before starting homework, but we ended up lounging by the pool instead. We did homework until dinner, with a small lunch break in between, and ate at a restaurant. We had unknowingly decided to eat at a hookah bar, but the food was very good. The host and owner of the establishment was Russian, and after living 15 years in Germany with his Vietnamese wife she had decided to move to Vietnam. He had a very thick accent that was so out of place when I first heard it that I had to stop myself from laughing! In addition, it looked like he had just rolled out of bed: pajama bottoms and a baggy t-shirt combined with a messy grey man bun. He took us to his wine cellar and showed us some dried meat, and after eating we left. Asher had a Spanish lesson at 9-o’clock and we slept after it was over. I woke up earlier than Asher to get a head start on homework, and when he woke up he joined me. We have this truly evil assignment assigned to us by our online school that is very long and tedious and hardly any time to finish it! Anyway, at a more reasonable hour, we went to eat crepes at a restaurant nearby and then resumed homework… while eating a mango. We went out again for a delicious lunch at a very nice Mediterranean restaurant and then ate dinner. Before we went to sleep, I started working on Dad’s Christmas present! 1-26-23 4 9-21-4-14 26-1-12-6-2-3-13-6 18-4-26-5-24 18-1-26-24 4 9-1-22 18-3-19-6-13 7-4-13-6!
Ella