Wake up in Vietnam: Settling in

We've been up in Dalat nearly 2 weeks now and the weather has stayed pretty much the same. But thats not a bad thing. Each day the temperature is about 25 and at night it only gets down to about 20 in the house and a bit less outside. We put on jumpers but a little walk up the road to a cafe and its time to return to T-shirts. Its also sunny each morning (with the occasional early morning fog) and the clouds gather around lunchtime then drop their load randomly but efficiently. Some days we miss out on the rain and only hear the rumbling thunder. On other days we're right where the clouds decide to burst and after a few 'early warning' droplets, the rain thunders down for an hour or two. Either way, huge cumulonimbus (I'm currently learning about clouds through the web) clouds sit overhead, picking up the setting sun and eventually disappearing to reveal starry nights. Sorry to harp on about the weather but anyone thats seen me in hot countries knows I don't like humidity so I was so very excited that Dalat was as cool as promised.

Our first week went pretty fast. We were staying near the cable car with an AirBnB host. A young yoga-instructor with a 2 year old boy and a house looking out over the forest. I set about chasing up a few contacts I'd made to start looking for houses to rent and Vik aimed her nose at her books.

One week later and we moved into a spacious, but sparse 4 bedroom house near the University. Our bathroom (as every bathroom I've seen here so far) has a toilet and urinal. "We can wee at the same time - that's the best part" I hear Vik say yesterday. The worst part, however, is the tiled floors. We walk around barefoot most of the time which makes absolutely no noise, so after the first few days of me entering a room unheard and then scaring the hell out of Vik as she turned around to see me 2 feet away - we've both startled whistling as we move around the house. Still, we're never quite clear where the other person is if we can't see them. After a couple of trips to the market and flower shops we've added a little bit of homeliness but for only 6 months stay there's no point in going all Extreme Makeover. It is easy to get carried away though when 2 roses, a rosemary bush, jasmine plant and another unidentified flower cost $5 from the market. Roses are 3 dollars for a dozen!

In fact one of my memories from the first time I came here as a backpacker was how cheap Vietnam is. Last night we ate out with a fizzy drink each, bought an ice cream and some fruit on the way home and didn't spend $5. Food is for sale everywhere and at all times of the day or night. It seems like every other shop is a cafe too boasting the famously thick (and sweet) Vietnamese coffee. If you've not been, you wont know but I can say that I've undergone a shift from a tea drinking Brit to a 2 coffee a day man.

Each morning or evening we go for walks in the local neighbourhood. People are pretty friendly and kids often wave and shout hello to us through inquisitive and probably somewhat surprised eyes. Within a few minutes we're away from the noise of the streets and walking through fields of growing veggies and flowers. Greenhouses cover any spare bit of land and at night they are light up with eco-lightbulbs. Its the only place in Vietnam that grows a whole range of things and so everyone seemingly gets in on the act and sells their crop to the rest of the country.

On these walks we notice the houses too. Its very different to Saigon, instead being a blend of Vietnamese style houses (narrow, tall and deep) and huge European villas with beautiful gardens and covered in flowers. The French were here for large parts of the 1800s and 1900s and have left their mark.

As you might know from Facebook (which incidentally is blocked here) we rented an automatic motorbike and then a manual one. And now we've bought our own one. A trusty (and rusty) Honda Wave. The horn works every other day and the petrol gauge doesn't move at all (which led to me running out of fuel and pushing to the nearest petrol station). But I do have a super awesome helmet for it.

Weirdly enough its been raining for 4 hours at the moment. Oh well, not always just an hour.

ps FOUR BEDROOMS. Come visit!