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Published: February 18th 2006
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Dalat-
When Boris arrived in Nha Trang late in the afternoon on the 11th of February we didn’t really do much- apart from drinking several beers to celebrate.
What did we celebrate you may ask- well as far as I know- I don’t know anymore! But we did it anyway.
For the next two days we hung around Nha Trang and got used to the laissez-faire attitude we needed to get accustomed to, as quickly as possible.
The weather was really nice and so we spend our days on the beach and venturing through town.
On the morning of the 14th we finally boarded the bus to start our short but intense adventure in Dalat.
The bus ride was ok and we made our way up the hills and mountains in the central highlands of Vietnam.
One thing we noticed straight away was the weather- it was absolutely stunning!
A day would basically look like this- early in the morning you would have clear blue sky, zero clouds, fantastic visibility and temperatures around 20C°. As the day got warmer and due to the rising of the air that comes with higher temperatures we had nice
cumuli clouds everywhere. These clouds got bigger and bigger towards 3- 4 in the afternoon (temperatures now around 30C°) and the sky was greyish.
Did it rain? Well one day a few drops hit the ground but apart from that, no. Around 7-8 in the evening the sky was clear again and temperatures dropped again.
All in all- really nice!!
Also on the bus ride we noticed that the trees were mostly pine trees. I would have suspected it to be more like a jungle! But as we found out the next day we didn’t mind the pine trees.
When we finally hit the town of Dalat we weren’t really impressed.
I mean it was just another Vietnamese town which itself is probably not worth visiting, at least for westerners.
The Vietnamese love it though- the guide said that in one year Dalat would see around 800.000 Vietnamese visitors and only 80.000 westerners!
Booked a hotel, got some local food and a few beers down the throat before going to bed and falling asleep fast.
One thing we also did on the day of our arrival was to meet some easy riders and book a
tour for the following day.
Now you may (or may not) ask: what are easy riders doing in Dalat?
This is a group of about 70 men on motorbikes which work around the Dalat area and take tourists on tour to show them everyday life of people living in the highlands and also to take a good look around the landscape.
Next morning we got up and started our tour at 0830(!!!) in the morning. I am just going to give you a short resume of what we saw- otherwise this would take to long.
We saw the local farms where they mainly plant and harvest plenty of vegetables, we visited flower farms, we saw the coffee fields of the central highlands, which, by the way smell absolutely orsm.
We continued to see the local silk factories (some stats: one silkworm produces a cocoon with a total length of about 800-1000m; 7 of these threads are combined to make one thread which is then used for shirts etc.), and got a brief view and idea of how to make rice wine.
We finished our tour on one of many waterfalls that can be found in
the Dalat area. Absolutely fantastic!!
During the entire day I adored the smell of the pine trees. You know, when you walk through the woods on a very sunny day and it hadn’t been raining for a while and you smell the dry, bit dusty earth together with the overwhelming smell of the pine trees!!! Love it!!! A bit like in Germany or Flagstaff/ Arizona.
When we got back to the city we got some food + a few beers and enjoyed the rest of the day.
Next day we got up reasonably(!?) early and started the day with a healthy breakfast- not knowing at that stage what we would have to endure throughout the day.
Our plan was to rent bicycles and drive to a different waterfall about 14km east of Dalat! Sounds easy? Well, listen to this…
We got our bikes and started of pretty good. A very sunny day, visibility from pole to pole and the temperatures where just starting to rise. As I mentioned before, we are in the central highlands- so imagine the roads (which are orsm in Vietnam anyway) to go up and down and up and down and up
and… well I guess you got the point.
We drove and drove and our stamina was slowly going downhill- after about 21 km we finally came to the decision “Hmm, maybe we missed it on the way…?” and we turned around. Great!!! not-
After looking in the guide once more we looked out for a sign pointing towards the falls which we must have missed on our way.
And indeed we found it- we drove past it for approx. 10 km!
The only excuse we can try and make it work in our favour is the fact that the “funny” sign was on a downhill part of the track and we had to use all our concentration to stay on the well paved road, trying not to get hit by anything!!
Once we actually made it to the waterfall we found out it was definitely worth the effort!
Set in a serene forest of pine trees together with lots of different other plants and almost nobody to disturb this peaceful setting (apart from us maybe…).
We spent quite some time there and after taking about 2000 pictures of it (each!) we started to make our way back home.
To be honest- the last 2-3 km where not easy! Yes indeed, you hear a very hushed “mom!”…
We managed to drive the bikes for an estimated 50km on that very hot day and the pain in various parts of the body was, hmm, uh,- interesting.
But after that we helped ourselves to some good food and, of course, good (?) beer and got our bags ready to start our journey further south- Mui Ne beach!!!
Its time to move on- have a good one!
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Scuba Bruce
Bruce and Mhairi
Hey Dude
Great Stuff Alex really nice pictures.....need to get out to the 'Nam soon!!!