On Monday, January22nd, we got up before 6 a.m., to see the sun rise over the South China Sea. It was a little too cloudy, but it was interesting to watch all the locals do their morning exercise routines. Mary Joy started to imitate one woman, who then gave her some encouragement and instruction.
After breakfast, we checked out and got on the bus to go up to the hill town of Dalat, founded by the French at 5,000 feet above sea level, as an escape from the heat on the coast. On the way, we stopped at a field of ripe rice, unusual this time of year. Right there was a tall concrete building, with a loudspeaker emitting bird sounds. It's purpose was to attract and house swallows, to collect their nests for bird's nest soup!
The route up to Dalat was twisty and turny, such that Mary Joy felt motion sickness, which isn't usually something that bothers her. We stopped for lunch along the way at a place with a King Kong theme. In Dalat, we had a performance by a group of Lat musicians, from the ethnic group that had been displaced when the French created Dalat. Once we got to our hotel, Mary Joy went to bed, while I went with Tom and a few others on an orientation walk to the Dalat Palace Hotel, where we had beers on the terrace overlooking the lake.
That evening was the OAT Home-Hosted Dinner, where we and another couple visited the house of a middle class Vietnamese couple (both retired: he had been an engineer and she had been a TV news reporter) and had dinner with them and their teenage nephew (their only daughter was married with a small child and living in Saigon). It was a pleasant but narrow three-story house (townhouse?).
