Dalat was a nice surprise.  Way up in the central highlands, it's the honeymoon capital of Vietnam, so it's got nice parks, bountiful verdant gardens and fresh clean air.  It's just a darn pleasant town, with its own little version of the Eiffel Tower and a lake, pleasant weather and even a golf course (the only one we've seen so far in southeast Asia), but it's got a few interesting eccentricities as well.  "People do crazy things around here," we were told.  So it seems.

November 15 -- The city seemed to be surrounded by high hills and pine forests, so we figured a tour of the countryside was in order.  There were six of us in the little mini-van as we set out in the morning: Andrew and Mary from Melbourne, Australia; two Americans, Tom and Eli (we hadn't really met them yet, but they were on our bus on the long and challenging journey from Hoi An and again later on the bus into Dalat); me and Carol; plus our driver and our guide.

Our guide was convinced that love made people do crazy things, but in addition, this was a region full of more crazy things.  To prove his point he took us to the village of the Giant Chicken.  Later we visited the pagoda of the Crazy Monk, and the jumbled assortment of rooms in the Crazy House.  It was all quite charming.

Our guide was a young single guy.  "A yin, searching for his yang," as he explained it. He gave us a pretty thorough assessment of recent changes in Vietnam, and the growing role of Buddhism in it all as he toured us through a large, relaxing mountainside pagoda.  Dalat had escaped much of the devastation we'd seen in other parts of the country.  It felt a lot more relaxed and easy-going.