Dalat

From Muine we went to Dalat which was one of my favourite places in Vietnam. The journey getting there was horrendous; we were all crammed into a minibus with our luggage stuffed into the aisle so that I couldn’t move an inch. However the beautiful mountain scenery along the way partly made up for it.

Dalat in is the mountains and, weirdly, has a very French feel to it with many French cafes and even its own mini Eiffel Tower. There is also a big lake in the middle with peddalos on and a huge market close by. We had heard that there are beautiful waterfalls to see so went to book a trip to them. Whilst in the tour office, Groovy Geckos, we were convinced not just to see the waterfalls but to abseil down them. 

This activity was called canyoning which basically involves making your way down river in every way possible. We began by abseiling next to a waterfall and landing in the water below; this was exhilarating enough because when beginning this abseil you don’t realise that at a certain point you go off the edge of a sheer drop. After this, we moved onto rock slides which were brilliant fun- we slid from the rocks into a pool at the bottom, initially legs first, then backwards, and then Gwend, Luce and I went down holding onto one another. We also did a cliff jump which I was terrified of but managed to force myself to leap off. 

My favourite abseil came next; this was down a twenty five metre waterfall. We were hooked into a metal loop at the top and had to slowly lower ourselves down through the fast gushing water. The scariest part about this was that if you slipped and lost your footing it was really slippery and difficult to get back on your feet again. This abseil also involved a jump four metres from the bottom where the rope ran out and you had to let go. It was very scary but also a lot of fun. It was even better as we ate lunch at the bottom of the waterfall and were able to watch a group of Vietnamese coming down, entertaining us as they let go and dropped. For anyone who’s seen Takeshi’s Castle, it was a similar viewing experience. 

The last abseil we did was called the ‘Washing Machine’ because you begin walking down rock which suddenly drops away from you leaving you to lower yourself down a rope into a waterfall that spins you round as if in a washing machine. I went down this first which was brilliant because I was able to see everyone’s faces as they emerged from the water. Luce came second and we had climbed onto a rock to watch the others. When I climbed onto this at first I had completely lost my footing and come slipping back down to land on my back like a little bug in my life jacket. Even better that this however, was when Luce went to get off and in some sort of comic slow motion scene went sliding down the rock, landing on top of Gwend, completely taking her out. I was laughing so much, especially when their two helmeted little heads, resurfaced, bobbing out of the water.

After returning to our hotel from an amazing day in the water, we were completely shattered but went to see another waterfall, called Elephant Falls which was magnificent. It was bit tricky to get to, climbing across some slippery rocks but was well worth it, especially as when we were there a rainbow came out making the whole scene look even more spectacular.

That night, we decided to go to a restaurant called ‘V Café’, recommended by our hotel where I had the best meal of Vietnam; a delicious hotpot. There was also a Filipino man singing there who was fantastic and we ended up being the last ones left, singing ‘Wonderwall’ along with him.

As well as canyoning in Dalat we took part in another extreme sport; tandem bike riding. This was potentially one of the funniest things we have done on the whole of our travels. I will never lose the image of us making our way shakily around a busy roundabout, constantly stopping and with locals asking us if we needed some help. I couldn’t even get our tandem going and Gwend had to go on the front but somehow we eventually made it to our destination; ‘Crazy House’, a popular building in Dalat which has been designed by an architect, to be used as a tourist attraction but also a hotel. It looked as if the entire place had been carved out of a giant tree. On the way back we had some downhill tandem riding which was hilarious and once again had to get on the roundabout to take back the bikes. I am so surprised we didn’t get honked here because we had little to no control and pulled out in front of about four motorbikes, wobbling along laughing our heads off.