Move to Dalat

It was moving day, in more ways than one.  something I ate or drank got the better of my last night, and I moved many times, until about mid-morning when things started to settle down.  good thing too, our driver picked us up at noon for the three hour drive to Dalat.  It took about 20 minutes to get out of the city and then for the next twenty or so we made good time though the prairie like countryside of rice fields.  Mileage markers were showing 110 km to Dalat, and I'm thinking how can this possibly be a three hour drive but then we reached a point where we were surrounded by mountains and the only way to continue was to go up, and up, and up.  An hour of uphill curves and switchbacks until we started getting into the clouds.  They got thicker and thicker until we could barely see the road.  We finally reached the crest and started dropping.  The clouds disappeared, the sun came out and it looked amazing.  Sheer rock faces with lots of small waterfalls, small scale farming happening wherever there was an opportunity.  One crop started to dominate the farmland, I suspect it is coffee, we'll ask tomorrow. 
As we got closer to Dalat, the greenhouse industry started to appear, and then became enormous.  Acre upon acre of greenhouse, with a lot of cut flower and strawberry production.

Large scale greenhouse operations

 

Dalat has a pretty lake in the center of the city and our hotel is up on a bit of a hill, overlooking the lake.  A golf course on one side of the lake too, but we will not have time to indulge this year.


View from our balcony