Dreaming of Dalat

Finally, after a long wait, I am ready to share more photos from Vietnam. In Saigon, I was lucky to meet a lovely group of people. We were mixed: Canadian, English, Welsh, and American. Although the group continued on before me, I quickly followed them to Dalat.

The main rotary in downtown Dalat

Dalat is a truly fantastic little mountain town outside of Saigon. Apparently, when the French had colonized Vietnam, they used Dalat to escape the summer Saigon heat. It was distinctly colder, but quite beautiful. There was a huge lake right next to the downtown area which was gorgeous at night. During the day, it became apparent that it was quite shallow and a less than pretty green color, but no matter! 

Our group walking around the lake in Dalat

In Vietnam, Dalat is famous as a couples hotspot. Many couples honeymoon out in the beautiful mountains, especially closer to the summer. For backpackers and travelers, however, Dalat is known for something else. This small mountain town has quite a few canyoning adventure tours. The tours take fairly small groups of tourists over to some waterfalls and have them rappel down cliffs of different heights. They even have a waterfall! Although the tour is thrilling, the actual risks are minimal. (Don't worry mom). 

We decided to do our tour on the day after my arrival in Dalat. The tour included dry abseiling, abseiling with a jump into water, abseiling down a waterfall, and abseiling into a waterfall. The lunch of our tour (Dalat Passion Tours) was delicious. We made our own Banh Mi (YUM!). The tour also had natural water slides, lazy drifting down a waterfall (for the benefit of the cameras), and a lot of call and response to the chant "Don't be lazy....BE CRAZY!" 

  

The most impressive part of the trip was abseiling down the waterfall. At the beginning of the descent, it was only our feet in the water. Soon, though, water was spraying even over our heads. At the end of rappelling, we had to do a free jump backwards into the water. 

   

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 The photo ops were a little overdone, but I guess it is a good way to remember a great day. Here, we lazily floated backwards down a river for a little while. I was squashed under Maria, the girl in front of me

And we jumped backwards into water! The actual fall was probably half a meter, making this photo better than the actual experience for sure. But of course, you can't have a tour without the massive amounts of GROUP PHOTOS! Here are the pics of our sexy canyoning group posing awkwardly for a small Vietnamese man yelling, "PHOTO!! PHOTO!"

  

Another highlight of the trip was the free jump. There was an 11 meter jump into a small pool at the bottom. After the guide, I was the first one to jump. Everyone was very impressed. Jumping like this, though, just made me miss my sister because at home, she's always the first one to jump :)

 

 Here is our whole group after a long exhausting day. This was before the final hike back to the top that killed me. The tour was one of the most memorable and fun parts of Dalat.  

But, Dalat is not just crazy canyoning tours! There are at least 2 other tourist attractions (that we visited at least). First, we walked to the train station. Now, I'm not sure exactly why the train station made it into the Lonely Planet, but we had fun there. There were a few out of use old trains that were quite pretty. Here is the famous, fantastic Dalat train station:

Ali and Maria PSYCHED for this station

When I was little and I imagined train travel, it was always on a car like this. I was so disappointed the first time I rode a modern train. Look how sophisticated this looks! I'm sure my shorts and a t-shirt would fit right in!

 And here's the sign that says don't climb on the train. Whoops. Does the foreigner card work in Vietnam?

After the train station, we went on over to the crazy house. The crazy house was one of the most interesting pieces of architecture I have ever seen. A woman decided she wanted to make a hotel that was like a Dali and Gaudi's lovechild who got really high and decided to make a hotel. There were staircases everywhere, exciting mirrors, and bright flashy colors. It is an actual hotel, so if you want, you can stay there. It is still under construction too, so the craziness just continues.

 

  
 
 

After our many Dalat adventures, here was our last early morning meal before moving onto our next destination. Hopefully, I'll have pictures and info about the next stop (Mui Ne) soon!!