Cold Toes and Sand In My Shoes
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2005
1
34
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Nha Trang,
Vietnam
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Ba Ho Falls
. You just have to see it to have any idea what I'm talking about.... While in Dalat, we decided to do some mountain biking. We found some relatively nice mountain bikes (only 30,000 dong each - about $2) and took off for a waterfall about 16 kms from the city. Oh Madison, w/your flat surfaces.... After a few mishaps and wrong turns (but, man, did we get to enjoy some gorgeous scenery), we finally located Tiger Falls, our destination. We paid our 6,000 dong each (about 40¢) and hiked down to the falls. By this time the skies had turned from grey to charcoal. No matter, we had come all this way, and we were going to see some damn water falling! Alas, shortly after we got to the falls, the skies opened up and we got our wish to see some water fall.... Unfortunately, w/all our wrong turns and whatnot, we were worried about losing our daylight, and didn't have time to wait it out. We were both a bit spent by that time (true, we hadn't biked that far yet, but those ups and downs!), but we braved the rains, hiked up to the bikes, walked the bikes up the nearly vertical slope to the park entrance, and then rode onward. Soaking, but safe, we arrived back in Dalat w/muddy clothes and soggy backpacks. The next day, the skies finally were clear and sunny - perhaps we should have waited to go biking.
Dalat is surrounded by loads of great outdoorsy things to do: hiking, visiting waterfalls, mountain biking, etc. We felt our rainy trip to Tiger Falls hadn't been fulfilling enough, so we rented a motorbike and went in search of some more waterfalls - four, in fact: Prenn, Pongour, Gougah, and Datanla, all for the bargain price of about 5,000 dong a piece (about 30¢). Each was delightful in its own way: at Prenn we were able to walk underneath the falls; Pongour is the largest waterfall I've ever seen (and we were there in the dry season!); at Gougah we walked along boulders in the watershed up to the falls; and Datanla was set amid a beautiful pine forest and was ferocious and gorgeous all at the same time
Ba Ho Falls - Kog & KOP
. While the scenery was enough to keep us there for ages, we were tired of wearing jeans and fleeces, so we decided to head to the beach. First off was Mui Ne (pronounced Muy Nay), a yet "undiscovered" beach area on the South-Central Coast. Spending Valentine's Day on the bus didn't really appeal to me, but we really wanted to get to the beach, so we conceded the morning to a bus trip, got up early, and were picked up at 7:30. Six and a half hours later, we were dropped off in Mui Ne. Unfortunately, the bus stopped at the eastern edge of "town," and we wanted to stay closer to the middle or the western edge. No problem, the guidebook said the town was easily navigable on foot. Three hours later, we still hadn't decided on a place, and weren't even close to the guesthouse we had chosen - turns out the scale on the map was something huge, and the town was spread out over some 20 kms. Before we completely lost the sun, we settled on a nice place - w/a pool abutting the ocean! Unfortunately, most of the day there wasn't much beach in this area, but we were done searching for the day. We spent the next few days lounging by the pool, walking along the beach, and playing cribbage under the stars next to the pool.
Mui Ne is famous not only for its beaches, but also for its sand dunes, which we sought out on motorbike while we were there
Ba Ho Falls - Rice Fields
. The drive out was gorgeous: as we passed out of the hotel/guesthouse area, we were stunned by the sight of hundreds of fishing boats nestled together, just off the coast. Then, after leaving the town behind, we were treated to the beautiful red sand dunes on our left and gorgeous turquoise water on our right. Thirty-five kms later, we pulled up to the white sand dunes. We parked our bike, and started the trek to the actual dunes, which took us through a pine forest (odd, isn't it?). Leaving the whispering pines behind, we stepped out (midday, of course) into the desert. Believe it or not, the sand wasn't scalding hot, and we were able to take off our sandals and hike around barefoot. Being just after noon, the dunes were deserted, and we had them to ourselves, which led me to understand how one can get lost in the desert: nothing to mark one's way w/, no one around for as far as the eye can see, everything looks the same, and the wind erases your footprints almost immediately. I must say that hiking these dunes was one of the coolest things we've ever done. After an hour of hiking around, we had enough, and took off in search of the red sand dunes. About 10 kms out, our bike died. This was, of course, the point in the drive where we were in the middle of nowhere - not a building in sight for miles. We tried repeatedly to restart the bike, but had no luck, and began to walk
Ba Ho Falls - Tending the Rice Fields
. A knight in a black shiny helmet stopped to help us, and determined we had run out of gas (apparently the gauge didn't work). He generously emptied part of his tank and gave it to us - wouldn't you know it, the bike started up.... Gassed up and ready to go, we zoomed off for the dunes. Before we even stopped, we were assaulted by scads of little kids wanting to rent us their sleds (sand sledding on the dunes is supposed to be really fun). The young lads at the white dunes hadn't hit the correct price point, so we didn't try sledding there, but these kids were willing to rent us a sled for 3,000 dong (about 20¢). We accepted and started up the dunes. My first attempt was a flop - I don't think I got anywhere on my own steam. I convinced Konrad to give it a try in another spot, and his run was a success (punctuated by a forward somersault). We each sled two more times, sandy, but successfully. Full of sand, we retreated to the hotel and hit the pool in time to witness one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen (that was another thing about Mui Ne - each night the sunsets got better and better). That night on our way home from a delightful dinner, someone threw something out of the window of a passing car (or so we thought). We looked down and saw a poor little owl - it must have hit the car's windshield and fallen by the wayside. It was in pretty bad shape, so we tried to help it by moving it on to its back and out of traffic. Quite a day.
Cityscape
The next afternoon we were on our way to Nha Trang, Vietnam's premiere beach destination. Nha Trang is hugely popular w/the Vietnamese (foreigners as well, of course). It is known for its great scuba diving/snorkeling off the countless islands that skirt along the coast. Somehow, w/o doing our usual intensive search, we found ourselves in a fabulous room w/a huge balcony that had unparalleled views of the gorgeous beach and islands. I don't know if it was the balcony, the desire to stay on the road, or the fear of leaving the beach, but Nha Trang trapped us - we stayed eight days, and I'm not sure what all we did while we were there.... Well, that's not entirely true. I know I devoured books at the rate of one per day. I know we relaxed on the beach (which really wasn't that fab: grainy sand and powerful waves that broke very close to the shore, making it nearly impossible to get in the water - I got knocked off my feet numerous times). I know Konrad spent hours in the water body surfing (those waves were good for something). And I know we discovered that the boxes we had spent hundreds of dollars to send from Thailand to Hanoi (way back in December) had finally arrived. It seems there was a bit of a problem w/customs b/c it is illegal to send used clothing. Absurd, eh? Strange, but true. However, our friend, Josh, was able to sweet talk the postal workers and get the goods. Relief.
Hotel View
Rather than sit on the beach every day, we decided to get in some biking and hiking. We had heard Ba Ho Falls, about 22kms out of the city, were very nice, so we planned on biking out there. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any bikes w/gears, and we didn't want to mess w/hills w/o them, so we rented a motorbike and set off. Ba Ho Falls was a bit of a disappointment. The hike was challenging enough - quite rustic: lots of slippery sand and gravel, shaky rocks, and huge boulders to climb - we didn't need a machete or anything, but it certainly was not a heavily trodden path. Alas, the falls themselves were rather anticlimactic. So it goes. We also rented a motorbike and went to Jungle Beach, a very secluded, soft sand beach about 1½ hours outside the city where the jungle meets the beach.
But the best thing we did was go on a snorkeling trip. We didn't want to go on the usual tourist snorkeling trip, as you usually don't get much snorkeling in on those trips and end up going to lame tourist traps as well. We decided to tag along w/a scuba group for the morning - three times the cost of the other, but we knew it would be worth it. The day didn't start out well - Konrad had only slept two hours, and the skies were very cloudy. We met at Rainbow Divers at the ungodly hour of 7:00 and set off on our journey.
Hotel View II
After a van ride and a 45 minute boat trip (during which rain started to fall - typically not the best snorkeling weather), we stopped at the first site. Almost as soon as we hopped in the water, the rain stopped and the sun came out - things were looking up. The snorkeling was awesome - beautiful live coral and brilliant fish comprised of colors Crayola still can't replicate. Unfortunately, I got a bit distracted by the jellyfish I saw, and was constantly keeping my eyes peeled for them. One of the really nice things about going w/this outfit was that we got to wear wetsuits, so despite the chilly temps, we stayed relatively warm. After about 1-1½ hours, we were driven to the second site. The fish were even better here, and we could have stared at them all day. All in all, the trip was well worth the early morning and the extra expense. Our visas had been extended, but we knew we couldn't keep on like this forever (alas), so we decided to grab a night bus up to Hoi An and continue our northward journey to Hanoi.
