Da Lat is a city of right and left.
1,500 meters above sea level.
It was cold. It was beautiful. It was enough.
My Arrival
I arrived in the city late Friday afternoon.
It was a nearly four-hour minibus ride.
On the bus, I started working on a brand new project. This, and the things that had happened to me in the past few weeks, had lit a fire inside me. This fire warmed me from the inside.
But the air conditioning was freezing me from the outside. I couldn’t wait for the trip to be over and for me to finally feel the warmth.
My worldview already recognizes that desire is the root of suffering. So when the bus door opened, I immediately got the reminder. “Daydreaming is the destroyer of life, Which, squinting, looks into painted skies.” It was cold. Quite cold.
I spent two days in the city. And I often thought that I should put on my sweatshirt. Which I had worn about once in the past year. Or that I should try on my only pair of long pants that I bought in Laos but had never worn before.
In the end, I didn’t put any on. I was a bit cold.
A record holder
After walking a few kilometers, I arrived at the hostel.
It turned out that this hostel also has another building in the city and I booked a room there. But we didn’t make a problem of it. There was a bed for me there too.
The receptionist set a new record. After I arrived and exchanged a couple of sentences with her, she said the following: “You seem like a very happy person!” I laughed and told her that I had heard this a few times recently, but it usually takes an hour or two of conversation before someone comes to this conclusion. “What makes you think that?” I asked. She said that as soon as I entered, my smile and the energy emanating from me made her feel that way. And I felt that she was a record holder.
I could also give her something. A few days ago, I found a stuffed cat while walking on the beach. It was in such good condition that I put it in the outside pocket of my bag. I thought we could travel together for a while. Then, when the girl gave me her WhatsApp number so that I could reach her if I needed help, I saw her picture. She was photographed with a cat. After I asked her if she liked cats, she said yes, but she didn’t have one right now. So I was able to symbolically change that with a stuffed figure caught in the sea.
Family dinner
The hostel offered many programs, but I ended up only participating in one. But it started half an hour after I arrived.
It’s called a family dinner because the hostel is a family business. That evening, we had dinner with 5 other guests. Just like I’ve had the chance to experience several times in the past few months. They put a lot of delicious food on plates in front of us and we shared everything fairly. My favorites were the mango chicken breast, the breaded chicken breast bites, and the vanilla pancakes.
The food was delicious, the company was great, and it was getting late, but I wanted to get some work done before I fell asleep.
Steve
That’s when I met Steve.
We had a good laugh for a moment about introducing ourselves with similar names. The difference is that it’s his real name too.
We spent a lot of time together over the next two days, so I can now tell you what I only learned the next morning.
He’s the first person in my year who could talk specifically about his plans and ideas. Someone who has a vision for his own future and is working on it regularly. It’s interesting and sad at the same time because most of the people I met didn’t really think about projects or products. They were more about being and traveling.
I don’t want to judge, I just felt sorry for them a lot. Because these people didn’t seem happy to me. But, I may be wrong!
A nice trip
The next morning we continued our long conversation from the first evening. We both worked a little on our computers. Then he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him and a young Japanese guy to a lake.
Of course I wanted to. So the three of us went on a lake-finding tour of the city for several hours. Because somehow we couldn’t easily find the lake. They were the same kind of people as I am. Almost at the same time, we said we should go check it out as we passed a church. Our eyes lit up when we saw a girl making fried bananas. We munched on the banana together.
Finally, we sat down together on the shore of the lake and just enjoyed being there. There was nothing special about the lake or around it. It was simply beautiful. And three guys were just happy to be there.
We left the lake by a different road than we had come by. The result was that we had to try to cross a huge sea of mud with dry feet. We almost did it. Then we were able to go back to a paved road through a barbed wire fence. After all three of us successfully got through the barbed wire, I saw the sign. It clearly stated that entry was prohibited, a closed, military area. It was a good thing that we didn’t enter there, but left.
After that, we wandered a lot through the maze of huge plastic tents and dead ends. It’s no use, Google Maps can’t contain a map of every plastic tent area.
It was a nice day with the guys.
Plus, it was a year ago today that I left for Asia.
We agreed that it was a birthday, so after the long walk, Steve invited me to a pastry shop. An excellent brownie with ice cream on top was just the right birthday cake.
Sunday
We spent the next day working together. This was in common in that we worked in the same place.
We started the day at the hostel. But it was cold on the terrace. We suddenly thought that we should have lunch and continue working in a cafe.
So we had a walk together for the day, and a lot of talking, eating together and working.
We said goodbye to each other in the evening, because we knew that we would not see each other again in the morning.
Apparently, not much happened in Da Lat.
What did happen was still full of energy, good conversations and connecting with purposeful, like-minded people.
I do not remember the cold in connection with this city.
Da Lat is a city of right and left.
Its streets resemble a large labyrinth. I did not manage to learn where everything is in two days.
I was constantly lost.
I loved it.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
Linktree
Short introduction