What is this huge statement of a building? Art gallery? Museum? Event space? Nope, Big C grocery store. 

Aside from the weirdness. Da Lat is awesome and beautiful and we had a blast there. Our hostel is run by a tiny amazing woman who takes care of her own two kids and 30 random adults. She cooks family dinner every night for $3 and it's hands down the best food in Vietnam. I never knew eggplant could actually be delicious. We made two sets of great friends at the hostel. We got lost in an Escher-like bar with our twin year-long travel couple, Peter and Lauren. And then took a rollercoaster to a waterfall with Dani, Alex, Marcus and Lauren. In case you missed that I'll repeat, we rode a rollercoaster (more like alpine slide) right to the waterfall! Basically hiked straight up to the tallest mountain peak. Went canyoning with our guide Jackie Chan. Watched as each member of the group behind us ate it going down the falls. Had an awkward forced swim through the river as Jackie Chan followed on the rocks. Taught a group game to our Hostel Dad whose interpretations of the rules were way better than the actual game. And Hostel Mom handed out sticks of watermelon Trident to each of us as we boarded our buses onto the next spot. 

Our next spot was actually right back to HCMC as I've had continuing horrendous issues with my arm implant birth control and had to have it removed. Naturally it was "deeper and harder to remove" than any other they'd ever seen before... I totally deserved that Baskin Robbins. 

Finally ready to head north to Central Vietnam with an overnight 18 hour train to Da Nang. The implant removal left me extremely nauseous and every hour of that jostling train ride with weird Asian food and foot smells was a true delight. Three days of bananas, rice and Sprite later (Ginger Ale isn't a thing here), I went outside to see that Da Nang is pretty sweet. It's the 5th largest city in Vietnam and it felt a bit like Philly, 5th largest in the US. There's a beach town side of the river which feels like the good parts of the Jersey Shore, a bustling city side of the river and BADASS bridges connecting them. There's a dragon bridge that BREATHES FIRE on the weekends. WHAT?! I didn't know bridges could be so fun! Makes me think of our Rocky statue and that Philly needs to step up it's game. Here International Women's Day is celebrated like Valentine's Day but cuter. We made bar friends of Liv and Ed an awesome young Aussie couple and all watched Ed get scammed into buying new socks to get into a club which we left within all of five minutes. On a motorbike adventure day, we helped a team of local fishermen pull in a huge net from the ocean of... very little. But it was fun and the General was a prankster trying to sneak fish into our pockets. We are constantly in awe of the contrast between the industrious and the primitive here.