On To Dalat

On Monday, we met the rest of our group in HCMC and departed for Dalat in the Southern Highlands. We are now 15 in number, plus two Vietnamese guides (Viet and Tam) and Marco.

HCMC (aka Saigon by all the locals) was a great place.

Alan - we saw the Hotel Majestic, the Hotel Continental, the Rex Hotel, and the old Presidential Palace. Pictures to follow when we return home. We couldn't find your old apartment though.

In Dalat, we are staying at the Sofitel Dalat Palace. It was built in the 1920s by the French when they designed this city as a health resort destination. It was a financial disaster for years, but remained open throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Business picked up in the 1960s when they advertised to American servicemen in Saigon to come here for short R&R trips. It was in a sorry state until the early 90s when Larry Hillblom, one of the founders of DHL, invested $44M into renovating the place.

It is quite a bit "over the top" with old, garish French paintings, and ancient French plumbing. It's an interesting and luxurious change of pace from the usual modern Asian hotels, but I doubt anyone would spend the money to renovate a hotel like this today. The rooms are large and could easily be apartments. Very high ceilings, old chandeliers, dark wooden furniture, and wood floors with heavy Oriental carpets. We expect Napoleon to show up at dinner.

If you don't know the story, Larry Hillblom was quite eccentric. He died in a mysterious plane crash in the Pacific in 1995, but no body was ever found. He was living on Saipan at the time and was a well known womanizer. He supposedly fathered dozens of children all over Micronesia and Southeast Asia. There are numerous paternity suits against his estate. If you are interested in the sordid details, Google him.

We did a 28 km bike ride yesterday thru the hills around Dalat. The first half was OK, it was mostly downhill switchbacks with several uphill climbs. The second half was then retracing our path UPHILL. Caren did about 60% of the ride and Jordan did about 80%. A few "Lance Armstrongs" completed the trip. Our attitude is "we're paying for this trip and we can decide when we want to ride and when we choose to take one of the vans."

Our guides are wonderful. Tam always seems to show up at your side when you're riding, asking how you're doing and offering encouragement. He gave our group a great "chalk talk" standup presentation on the history of Vietnam. I doubt most Americans could give such a detailed talk about the history of the U.S.

Dalat is one of the few areas in Vietnam where they produce wine. The grapes are grown in the coastal plain we head down to tomorrow and then crushed, aged, and bottled in Dalat. Frankly, it doesn't taste too good. They import a good selection of Aussie and NZ wine. Marco insists on ordering Italian or French wine for our dinners. We'll have to educate him as the trip moves on.

This AM it is raining, so our ride is postponed to the afternoon. We had hoped to play golf at the Dalat Golf Club, but it appears as though that idea will be scuttled. I carried a dozen golf balls over here and they will go unused.

So...we are taking a walking tour around Dalat in the rain and see if the weather clears later on. According to the Vietnamese, the sun is coming back tomorrow. More to follow.