The real scoop is that Carl, Joc, and I arrived in Da Lat via a 6 hour bus from Nha Trang yesterday afternoon. Da Lat is lauded as a bohemian town set in the mountains and also serves as Vietnam's #1 honeymoon destination; there are far more domestic than foreign tourists. So far I've found this place to be a fairly sleepy town that seems more natural and "Vietnamese." People don't seem to care that 3 foreigners are meandering around in that no one is rushing up to us trying to sell us things or practice they're English. Well, I guess there are the Easy Riders (English speaking tour guides on bikes) who keep trying to convince us to use their tour services...

Weather-wise, Da Lat is a real treat from the rest of Southeast Asia; temps are in the mid to upper 60's. I've been wearing my fleece that I'd long forgotten in my bag. Glad there's a reason I'd been carrying it around all this time (after Australia that is).

View from Longbian

The rainy season that's currently enveloped the region makes rock climbing an impossibility, though we're signed up for some mountain biking for tomorrow. We went to the driving range at the local golf course - a really nice and *expensive* course - last night. Ater we paid for our balls, the woman at the counter called us a caddy and a golf cart and off we were across the course to the range (the caddy hung on for dear life at the back of the cart as Carl hurled us around corners and raced up and down the roads :)). As we continued hitting, about four other course staff appeared. Talk about pressure (for me since I only recently consistently even make contact with the ball!) as they just stood and watched. I wondered what they were doing. Turns out the course doesn't have a machine to pick up balls; they were there to gather all the balls we hit! I felt a lot better having topped several balls such that they were only 25 feet away. ;)

"get under the ball...get under the ball..."

"did i ever tell you guys how awesome i am at golf...??"

"how cool is this??"