Dalat, Vietnam- Noise Pollution Vietnamese style

One can meet the most lovely people over coffee...
The Vietnamese are a highly social, and generally noisy bunch. This is no less true on the weekends, when many town centers feature carnival like street merchants and food vendors.

Just like any other city, it's nice to pop into a little cafe tucked away in some quiet eddy, away from the madness. Vietnam, like most of SE Asia, has GREAT coffee, which pleased my San Francisco heart. The cafe pictured here, reminded me of home, except for the fact that it was surrounded by purple cabbages and I found myself next to a yellow robed monk! Hmmm... I guess that could happen in SF too, come to think of it...



In Dalat, the French colonial style streets radiating from the town center's roundabout are ineffectively blocked off to large vehicles for this purpose. This valley also features a brightly lit structure mimicing the Eiffel Tower, as well as a small lake and stately water fountain at the far end of the small valley.

Merchants usually sell their wares on the ground, which include everything from warm clothing made from anything but wool, tiny ceramic piggy banks, burning man-esque blinking balls, dried squid on a stick, durian, and carmel corn. Exploding flaming balloons occaisionally punctuate the evening. As everywhere in Vietnam, and many other SE Asian countries, being in public means regularly interrupted by beggars and people selling lottery tickets and other small items. Open air, but covered, food stalls teem with hungry locals who sit on plastic stools so low to the ground that one is practically sqwatting. Plates and bowls of steaming shellfish, noodle soups, and mound of herbs and salad are constantly distributed. I was particularly charmed by the high pitched clunking of escargot shells rolling across the hard pavement as they are swept out from between chairs. There is no such thing as a discard bowl (that I've seen), and locals merely throw and spit excess shells and bones onto the ground for removal by the constantly roving staff.


While all this is terribly fun, woe to the visitor that stays in a large cheap hotel in Dalat during the summer months. This is when local families come out to the much cooler moutain town of Dalat, providing unwitting foreign tourists the maximum immersian into the caotic loud group socialization style. Although my fate improved a bit after moving my room from the center of the hotel to the end, I still experienced being woken at 4 am and 6 am and 7am by shouting Vietnamese families. Apparently, most people don't carry alarm clocks, and wake up calls are done manually... presumably, in time for morning tour busses. This wouldn't be so bad except it seems they often get the room incorrect, and persistently knock on mine till I shout something in a language they don't understand. The hotel staff isn't much more considerate. I understand why they'd want to indulge in lively early morning banter to keep their spirits up while they clean rooms and scrub other people's underwear... but it's hard to be empathetic and keep one's humor when sleep deprived.

That being said, I've had a fun time in Dalat. It's a stretch to say it's pretty, but it's breezy and the hilly landscape provides the same sense of discovery as San Francisco. There's certainly a lively coffee scene and good cheap food to be had. It's worth going out to the hillside cafe's to observe the central market scene below, and to watch the locals play musical chairs as their groups burgeon.

All this has been augmented by the company of a couple of vacationing locals from Saigon. One is a dapper handsome funny Dr. of accupressure, and the other a tiny old yoda-like monk. For those interested, I'll happily share the quicktime movies of our Kareoke session when I get back to SF. It's certainly been fun and educational, if at times confusing, to watch locals in action negotiating motorbike taxi rides and other services. It's also interesting to see who pays for what. We've visited a couple of waterfall parks, eaten several cringe-worthy meals, and hung out in people's homes during a couple of vigorous accupressure sessions. This doctor manages and donates his medical services, to the Saigon Pagoda where the charming monk resides.

I almost regret moving on to Hoi An, but with these two going back to Saigon tomorrow, I have little incentive to stay.