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  Dalat, Vietnam
Thursday, June 14, 2007

My first day in Dalat was a late arrival, just found a guest house, ate dinner, then booked myself onto a canyoning trip the next day. For those of you uncool kids not in the know (I'd never heard of it), canyoning is basically abseiling down waterfalls,  sliding on your back through white water rapids and jumping off huge rock ledges into the river below. The trip was at Datanla falls,  a scenic set of waterfalls very popular with Vietnamese tourists for its little roller coaster around the falls and for the opportunity to have your picture taken with Vietnamese dressed as cowboys and Indians. Very ridiculous, but they seem to love it.
         Just an aside about Dalat:- it is a hill station type town, and is much cooler due to its higher altitude. It is also a very beautiful place, centered on a huge lake, and is 'the romance capital of Vietnam', very popular with honeymooners apparently. It is also very very kitch, with shops selling all kinds of random goods, like plastic light up corn on the cobs, which i can't imagine any possible use for (well, okay i can think of one use, but thats because i have a filthy mind).
          Anyway, after letting us practice abseiling down a small rock face until they felt we were comfortable with it, they moved us onto the first waterfall, 'an easy one' at 18m high. This waterfall did actually prove no trouble for me or Sarah (my fellow canyoner), and it was followed by a couple of slides down the rapids into the water below, which weren't actually that enjoyable at the time, but once you emerged from the water you were like 'yeah, i wanna go again', and in hindsight, i did actually enjoy it.
      After lunch it was onto 'the beast', a 25m waterfall with the water rapidly cascading down over the edge of the cliff face. The idea here was to abseil down to the right, where the water was blasting your feet out from under you, then to move across to the left and under the point where the water came away from the rock, so you would essentially have the water cascading over your back. For the last few metres they wanted us to simply freefall into the water. I was to go first.
       All was good at first, though i was amazed at how powerful the water was against my feet, it was as though someone was dragging my feet out from under me, which made moving your feet off the wall incredibly hard. All was going well at first, until i let my concentration slip for a second, and my feet shortly followed:- Thud, i was up against the rock, face first, with the water gushing down into my face. I can only describe this as hanging from a rope (tied rather tightly around your groin) whilst water cannons like those at the leisure pool ('here come the waves'.)(only stronger) fire ice cold water in your face. Trying to bring my feet up to my face (what you had to do) so i could push off the rock and get back into position was remarkably hard, especially as the rope around me was determined to castrate me as i tried, though i did eventually manage. Anyway, i eventually managed, and free falling, testicles still attached, into the water below was so relieving.
       After the ordeal i went through, Sarah was understandably put off and didn't want to do it, however the guide said he'd go down with her so they went as a pair and we moved on.
        Freezing cold, we proceeded to do a 7m cliff jump followed by some wading through the waters and then the final waterfall. I always make these entries too long, so I'm  gonna skip the details of that waterfall.
         The next day i rented out a motorbike to take in the sites of the city at my own pace (who needs the easy riders eh). First off was the Hang Nga gallery and guest house, which is described by the lonely planet (sorry) as 'something straight out of Alice in wonderland' and i couldn't describe it better myself. Large winding towers with toadstool like steps creeping round the beautiful array of flowers and an unnecessary use of bright colours makes it a rather imaginative place, not what you see everyday in Vietnam. Rooms are themed (Bear, termite, kangaroo, bamboo, ant, pheasant and tiger being some of the themes) With objects of furniture being sculpted into the shape of the theme animal. Nice place to look around, though i wouldn't want to live there.
    Next stop was Lam Ty Ni pagoda, somewhat hard to find, though definately worth the effort. I met Mr Thuc here, the sole monk of this pagoda. He showed me the millions of paintings he has done, some pretty crappy to be honest, then he asked me if i could give him a lift to his friends house on my motorbike! Obviously i said yes to this, i mean, you can't say no to a monk can you (plus the novelty was amazing!) Anyway, when we got there they invited me in for lunch, so i got to have lunch with a traditional vegetarian Vietnamese family
(and a monk), which was wicked. They even invited me back for dinner, though i couldn't go as i had to return the motorbike before then.
         Other sites on Ben's whistle stop tour of Dalat included the cathedral, thein vuong pagoda (more cowboy Vietnamese there, though ponies instead of Indians now), Minh Nguyet Cu Sy lam pagoda and the Linh Son Pagoda. Also rode 10km out of town top the prenn falls and the zen meditation pagoda, but they looked shitty and i was too tight to pay the entry, so i just enjoyed bombing it around on the bike.
       Next day was off to Mui ne.

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