Da Lat is a huge, bustling city. I can't say that I liked it as much as the other places I have visited in Vietnam; all of the streets were busy main roads with shops blaring music that had ugly neon-coloured signs, from which there was no escape. There were no cute or quiet back streets to wander. Da Lat is in the mid-stages of becoming a developed city and seems to be abandoning its roots, with barely any street food visible and, that which there was, looking distastefully old and stale. But none of that mattered, since we had come to do 1 thing and 1 thing only; canyoning! Since we were high up in the mountains the air was much cooler and it was back to trousers and long-sleeveds in the mornings and evenings when the sun disappeared. From here it only gets hotter though!
The long:
Wednesday:
I genuinely thought my alarm had been re-set as a joke when it began buzzing. It didn't feel like I'd been asleep for more than 5 minutes! Anyway, we all managed to get our act together and arrived at the bus station on time, where we ran into a bunch of the girls from the Buffalo Run tour and David (W&C) that had just taken the sleeper bus from Hoi An; it's amazing how many people you seem to know even though you are constantly moving to new places. It's actually really comforting and makes me feel very at ease about the rest of my travels; there should pretty much always be someone I know near enough by! The 4-hour bus journey to Da Lat was unbelievably bumpy, so my dreams and plans of sleep unfortunately evaporated rather quickly. As it turned out, most of the girls from Buffalo Run were staying at the same hostel that we had booked, "Backpackers Paradise", so that was really cool!
After the others had had a quick snooze we set off to explore Da Lat from a height; we took the cable car over the city and the surrounding countryside to one of the most beautiful pagodas, with its accompanying flower garden, that I have ever seen.
The journey lasted about 15 minutes, and I will give Da Lat that it does have some pretty spectacular scenery. Once at the top we checked out the pagoda,
and the various other spiritual buildings stationed around the beautiful setting, high up in the mountains.
There were a number of monks just casually strolling around, which I always love to see. Not exactly a bad place to live, with such amazing views and, being so far from the city, it is extremely quiet and peaceful.
The variety and array of flowers on show were incredibly attractive.
Some of my personal favourites being:
^ I NEED this flower in my life, if anyone has any ideas as to the name of it.
^ I also couldn't get over these tree trunks; I have seen large, single twisted ones, but never anything like this, which I think look so interesting and beautiful.
Beauty-ed out we caught the last cable car back to the city, jumped in a cab and asked to be taken to "C Mart", which the lady at reception in our hostel had told me was a very large supermarket. I had incredibly high hopes of a decent snack replenish and, thankfully, I was not disappointed! I went to town on nuts and dried fruit, so I should be all set for another 2 weeks, which, if you know me well, you will know how happy makes me. The supermarket was part of a larger shopping centre, which featured an arcade, so the boys wasted an hour of time and money whilst Ronnie and I looked on amused, snacking and chatting.
It was about 6pm when we arrived back at the hostel and, as we were all in desperate need of some chill time, we settled ourselves onto the beds and watched some bad TV, with every intention of going out to dinner in an hour or so. However, time kept passing and we kept sitting. Everyone had bought so many goodies from the supermarket that we ended up just munching our way through the evening, talking and trying to follow the movie plot playing in the background. We started chatting about all of our ages, and upon asking the boys to guess how old I was, I got "25" and "24". I was not impressed. Highly offended and already mentally booking a Botox appointment for my arrival home, they tried to backtrack saying that their guess was based on the fact that I had "finished law school, which takes 6 years" and "assumed that I had already been working for a year or so". Kind of satisfied with this explanation (but still worried that I look like an old lady), we began to discuss their ages and, since all 3 of the boys were 23, their birthdays, to see who was the oldest. It was at this point Robbie came out with "well I'm the oldest because it's my birthday tomorrow". He then picked up his phone and checked the date, and reconfirmed this statement. I thought he was joking. We checked his Facebook and it turned out that it was indeed his birthday the following day. Who the hell doesn't mention that?! I'm counting down the days to mine a good 6 weeks in advance. I was genuinely gobsmacked and immediately started trying to think of things we could do to make the day special for him (not that I think he would have cared either way); I would hate to celebrate my birthday without any of my loved ones around! Anyway, sufficiently stuffed with c*** we turned in for the night with a 7:20am alarm set for our big adventure day.
Thursday:
We all piled out of the hostel and into "Mr Win's" van on time. I was glad to see some of the others from Buffalo Run had booked with the same tour provider as us, Da Lat Passion Tours, so we would be experiencing the canyoning together, just like old/(recent) times.
It was only once we were harnessed; helmeted; life jacket-ed up and had done a practice that I began to understand what canyoning actually was and what the day was going to involve. I had sort of just happily followed the trend that one does canyoning in Da Lat, without actually having a clue what it was. Thus each activity of the day came as a new and daunting surprise!
We began with a 16m dry cliff abseil, which, after watching the first guy go, lose his footing and end up hanging upside down, it is fair to say that I was more than a little apprehensive for my turn (I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest).
Far too quickly, it was my turn.
After the standard shaky start, where the last thing that you instinctively want to do is lean further and further back, whilst being shouted to "LEAN BACK", "more, more", I started to feel slightly more comfortable. Once you have taken a few steps and done a few jumps, you start to trust that you're not going to plummet to your death after all (although that's not to say that I didn't have jelly legs and a racing pulse after every abseil, but that's all part of the fun!).
Next we did an 18m dry cliff abseil next to a beautiful waterfall, where you had to jump into the water at the bottom.
My lifejacket floated me over to where everyone was gathered and it was then that my big injury occurred, having only just started the day; classic. As I was being pulled up onto the rock my foot slipped and my shin smashed into the rock face, tearing open the skin right on top of the bone. It immediately swelled so that it looked as if I had shoved a golf ball under the surface of my skin and bled continuously. It hurt like hell but I soldiered on!
As we waited for another tour group we squeezed in a quick "baby jump" and seized a photo opp!
Next, we tried "water sliding", which essentially involves you lying on your back, crossing your arms over your chest and using your life-jacket as a protective sliding board, as you bounce down over the tops of the rocks with the rush of the rapids until you reach the pool at the bottom. It was amazing how much it looked like it hurt as people bumped up and down over rocks with bare limbs but you actually don't feel a thing!
Then another 16m dry cliff abseil,
followed by a second water sliding. Lunch was had in a very quaint spot next to the calm river, where I eagerly bobbed around moving with the sun's spotlight trying to catch some heat.
All that getting wet and trying to dry in wet clothes leaves one (especially me!) rather cold. A DYI banh mi-esque lunch hit the spot though, with fresh baguettes, cucumber and tomato slices, fresh coriander, very odd looking "pork", tofu and chili sauce all at our disposal. There was loads of different fresh tropical fruits as well, which I happily tucked into. The guide chopped it all up fresh when we were there and I couldn't believe how quickly and perfectly his hands sliced through the various fruits and vegetables; it really is such a talent!
Re-energised we then hiked over the river, through shallow waters, over rocks and along the water's edge to complete the real McCoy; a 25m wet cliff abseil, where we actually had to abseil through the rushing water spilling over the edge. It was so hard to see what you were doing with water smashing into your face and the pressure of it on my open leg wound was an absolute killer. But I managed!
Once there was approximately 5m left of the cliff we were told to "let go, jump", and would splash into the river beneath us. It's a bloody good job no one pussied out and tried to continue abseiling down as once I had completed it and watched others doing it, I realised there was no more blooming rope to cling on to!
^ Not at all scared. That was probably my favourite abseil of the day, as it was the most challenging and the most beautiful, which made it all the more an enjoyable achievement.
Free cliff jumping was next. I honestly cannot believe I did it, but I am so proud of myself that I did. I jumped from a height of 11m (even though there was a 7m option), which required a running start because the cliff face was not a vertical drop, but rather continued to protrude further out than the edge of the ledge, so that if you didn't gain enough momentum you would fall straight into the cliff face. So I ran, and I jumped. So not me, but so glad I did it. I did, however, forget to close my eyes in the seconds before I hit the water, so that it felt as if my eye sockets had swallowed half the Pacific Ocean, which was rather painful.
We rounded off the day in the "washing machine", a 16m wet cliff abseil, so called because when you are halfway down the cliff, the space between the neighbouring cliff becomes so narrow that the waterfall COMPLETELY engulfs you and spins you around until you reach the bottom and are able once more to breathe again. Not a pleasant experience to be honest, but we all survived!
^ The drowned rat emerges.
Having concluded the day's activities there was just the mighty task of hiking back up to the highway to complete. Step after step just seemed to keep appearing until, finally, no more steps appeared. With burning legs I was overjoyed at slumping into the back of the minivan and cruising back to the hostel. We joked with Mr Win (the main guy in charge) that if he wanted us to recommend his services to others then beers would need to be involved, so he laughingly (and very lightly) told us to come to Beepub hostel at 9pm that night to seal the deal.
It was an incredible day where I really pushed myself to my limits, got more wet than I ever would like to and was scared for my life on a number of occasions, but the experiences and memories were absolutely worth it.
Back at the hostel we agreed to freshen up and then set out for a nice dinner to celebrate Robbie's birthday.
We went to a nice looking Thai restaurant where I ordered a spicy prawn salad, but upon it appearing in front of me I sent it back, as it was just a pile of leaves, battered shrimp and mayo... Ermm? However, all was well when my prawn phad thai arrived, which was utterly delicious. Everyone enjoyed their meals and the staff were really great and attentive, so it was the icing on the cake, literally, when I appeared bearing a beautiful chocolate birthday cake that I asked one of the staff to get for me during dinner.
The cake was blooming delicious and I definitely had more than my fair share; finally, some good Asian baking! Robbie said it was the best birthday he'd ever had and I don't actually think he was joking, so it was lovely to be a part of that. Fortunately, for all parties involved the restaurant just so happened to be located right next to Beepub hostel, where we spotted Mr Win upon walking past, who told us he had been waiting for us for 2 hours!!! I had no idea that this was an actual arrangement and, to make matters worse, arrived home much later that night to an email from him asking where we all were and that he was waiting for us! Thank God we coincidentally ran into one another or I would have died with guilt. We were all more than merry by this point and had a good ol' laugh with Mr Win,
before hitting "Rain" nightclub, genuinely one of the nicest clubs I have ever been to and full of rich Vietnamese. I felt like a superstar in there; they clearly don't get many white folk as we were all surrounded by Asians trying to chat, dance and inviting us to join them at their tables. I mean, it would have been rude not to.
Fate even provided us with birthday hats:
God only knows how much money it costs to have a table in there but the Asians plied us with their booze and seemed more than happy to just be in our company, so it was a bit of a win win! After a prolonged dance off with a crazy Asian with whom I did synchronised dance moves, featuring cross jacks might I add, the day's exertions finally caught up with me and bed called loud and clear. It was definitely one of my favourite days in my South East Asia travels and I floated into dreamland a very happy bunny.
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