Dalat - the drive to Dalat was interesting. With the storm brewing, the cloudy, wetter weather felt somehow more like I expected Vietnam to be like rather than the clear sky and very dry landscape we had had thus far. Agriculture is a huge industry in Vietnam and nearly all the land we drove through was cultivated. And although there is poverty in the countryside, everyone seemed to have houses, motorbikes, decent clothing etc. No doubt they live a hard life but they seem to have a reasonable standard of living too. Interestingly, literacy rates in Vietnam are around 94% which is significantly higher than its world ranking on GDP scales for instance. I don't know if it's down to the communist government or if it's cultural but such standards of education auger well for the future of the country. We arrived in Dalat in the afternoon just as the sun finally popped back out. Dalat is a lovely, european-style city perched at 1500m in the mountains to the west of the country. It has a massive French influence from the colonial period and really does feel like a blend of east-meets-west. The centre of the city is a huge lake which combined with the cooler mountain air gives a much less claustrophobic and polluted atmosphere than many SE Asian cities. We met up with our friends Clem and Clara who live in Dalat and quickly immersed ourselves in the Dalat experience with our local "guides". One of the interesting things we've seen in Dalat is that many tourist attractions charge based on height. I suppose it's a subtle tourist tax given the relatively small height of the locals compared to Western visitors, but as a 6'1" person it does feel a little 'heightist'! And Charlie therefore pays as an adult - even Joseph in some places! We've seen waterfalls, taken a roller-coaster through a forest, been to a wonderfully Zen buddhist monastery, gone for a forest trek and visited The Crazy House. Thankfully the photos will do a lot better a job of describing it but suffice to say if Gaudi had taken a lot of drugs and thought a lot bigger, he might have designed The Crazy House. As well as visiting the main attractions we've perfected our street-crossing technique (even got a compliment on it today from 2 tourists!) got a hang of the local food and added a few more words to our Vietnamese vocabulary! And tomorrow morning our stay in Dalat comes to an end. It's been really nice and relaxing here and great meeting up with Clem and Clara. Tomorrow morning we have a 6.30am taxi to the airport and fly North to Hanoi. There we'll transfer all the way to the coast South of Hanoi to Cat Ba - another island. Another day of travelling but it will be interesting to see the North of the country which by all accounts has a very different feel from where we've been so far. 

In other news, Helen nearly fell down an open drain today. What was so funny about that was that I had just told the kids to look carefully where they were stepping as the path was a mess. She escaped unhurt, apart from maybe her pride, but it certainly made us laugh!