From Buon Ma Thuot it’s 190km to Dalat on Highway 27, a very mountainous road, especially the last 100km, so it’s not really wise to do it in one day if you don’t just want to drive. We decided split up the route and to make a stopover at the Lak Lake, which is about 50km from BMT and a very nice lake with surrounding rice paddies, mountains and minority villages, even if the tourism here is already a 
little bit more developed. If you want you can stay in one of the traditional longhouses in a minority village for 7$ per person but we decided to check in at the only guesthouse in “vietnamese” village for 4$ each. It’s not long ago that you needed a permission to visit the minority villages (actually, there are just 2 or 3) around the lake because the highland minority villages in the highlands still produce some trouble for the Vietnam government. The last real breakout happened in 2004 and 2005 when the “montagnards” raised their fists and voices and some riots broke out in Buon Ma Thuot, Pleiku and Kon Tum. Nowadays it seems to be more quiet but Amnesty International still reports about human rights violations from the Vietnamese government in the mountains. As I said, the lake is pretty nice and on the streets around you can unfortunately spot elephants (not wild, used for tourist entertainment now) or other exotic animals. Years ago there were even crocodiles living in the lake but these days are over, thanks to the human wish for crocodile leather shoes and bags. The 
last stage from the Lak Lake to Dalat was a whole day on the bikes and more or less exhausting (especially for me, I felt not so well this day) with bumby roads and lots of serpentines, but once again a motorbikers dream, too. We arrived in Dalat a few minutes before it got dark and were happy to find a cheap and very good value guesthouse “Peace Hotel”.
Dalat is a strange city. It really is a strange city and has in some corners the same athmosphere like Hoi An or New Haven, the city from the Truman Show. It’s in an altitude of 1500m what brings an eternal 
spring for the city. For it’s mild climate it was already known by the french imperialists who build hundreds of colonial style villas in the city. The french influence is still recognisable (they have a relica of the Eiffel tower as a TV tower!) and mixes up with the vietnamese lifestyle. No wonder that the city attracts a good number of tourists (as the only city in the Central Highlands). Apart from that, we spent three nice days in the city exploring the central market (four vegan food stalls in the 2nd floor!!!), the food and drink stalls in the streets (sugarcane juice! definitely my new favourite drink!) and the many cafe’s serving one of the best coffees in the world for small money. We walked around the artificial lake in the town center and visited the marvellous crazy house. Especially the crazy house was 
totally cool and inspiring, unbelievable how much creativity the human brain can produce. Established in 1990 it’s an ongoing construction project with a unique architecture. Maybe a little bit compareable to the buildings of Friedrich Hundertwasser, you don’t find any straight lines and have to find your way through a lot of tunnels connecting which connect the rooms with each other. Getting lost in this labyrinth is part of the experience. Annika was extremly enthusatically with this house and would have wished to move in at the moment. A visit in Dalat really should include a visit to this project, from me it gets both thumbs up and a very high recommendation.
The only thing that was a little bit unwelcoming for us was the weather that changed during the three days from yellow sunshine (like all ten days before) to grey clouds… we wanted to go to the sea after Dalat! Damn!