The full day will be devoted to Da Lt and its surrounding by motorbike. We'll visit the Linh Phuoc Pagoda and an embroidery workshop in an attractive garden setting. Alernatively, we could visit Dalat's railway station instead of the embroidery workshop. After lunch, Emperor Bao Dai's summer Palace, the Crazy Horse, the Lam Ty Ni Pagoda and Dalat market are on the itinerary. The day will end at a cafe at about 4:00pm. We spend the night in Dalat.
29 Jan 2009 1:23pm Dalat City center
So this morning managed to go off without a hitch, amazingly enough. We got picked up by the motorbikes at 8am, drive around Dalat and got dropped in random places along the way to shoot. First, a pagoda, which was awesome, then someone's backyard flower field, then some random hotel ex-palace that looked like the child of someone's acid trip, then lunch. Now we are sitting in the city center, where we are supposed to be shooting the market. But hey, fuck that.
P and S's plane tickets for tomorrow were already sold, so I still have to take the flight by myself tomorrow. And then spend the next 7+ hours in Ho Chi Minh City by myself. I'm still exhausted from the night before and the last thing I want to do is continue to take pictures. P is supposed to be meeting us in the city tomorrow night...And the last person any of us want to she is P. She also did not know I was supposed to be on the seperate flight, surprise surprise. I'm just over all of this shit...
People around here also have no concept of personal space. A few minutes ago, some random lady put her arms around me and Rachel, pinched Rachel's nose and then tired to repeat the action on me, but I walked away. I'm tired of that. And I'm tired of traffic. And not knowing what's going on. arg.
3:05pm
We are at another pagoda. People are praying and there are Buddhist monks about. I don't feel too comfortable going in there, white tourists, cameras ablaze. Actually, I put the camera away about 3-4 hours ago. I feel like a zombie. I'm just sitting and looking at things. Just staring. The sun with very hot on the back of my neck. There's a pink piece of gum in the dirt over here that looks like a part of a brain. There are also some dirty, half eaten chocolate cookies on the ground. they are the same as the ones we ate with peanut butter on the train on night. I like peanut butter. The train was okay.
I wonder how these monks feel as they walk about this place. This is their place of worship, possibiliy home, something they have structured their lives around. To these tourist, they are just part of a show, a spectcal, part of the scenery, included in the entry fee. It's a very strange feeling. I'm glad to be seeing it, it's just an interesting thing to think about. I also wish I had enough energy to be able to really appricate and explore. I am just so tired. I could fall asleep at any moment. That moment will probably be when we walk into the hotel. I can hardly wait. Gosh. I am a lame old lady.
Looking back...
That was a pretty good day, minus the whole definitly having to take the flight solo news and all. I took that one pretty rought, but I just didn't want something terrible to happen and be alone because, hell, we were in Vietnam and at that point, anything could have happened.
The motorbike tour was pretty cool, but different from the other one. There were a lot more stops, which was cool because we got to really see a lot of different places. But there was also a tranquil, yet exciting thing about hanging out on a motorbike and driving for 5 hours. All the sight were really great that day, even though I was too pissed to appreciate Crazy Horse (the "random hotel ex-palace that looked like the child of someone's acid trip"). Coffee was great, as usual.
Had quite dinner that night in the hotel with Ange, Griffin, and Hannah and we just talked. It was nice. Then packed and went to bed early to prepare for my early morning flight.
randome photo:
good photo:
No comments:
Post a Comment