Dalat
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
15
29
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Dalat,
Vietnam
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Of course to counteract what would otherwise be a pleasant temperature we decide to go on a mountain biking and trekking tour of the area surrounding Dalat. The countryside is quite alpine, with pine forests all around but being in the hills it is of course quite hilly! The downhills are fun on the bike but of course when you go downhill, if you want to get back to where you started, that inevitably means uphill will follow. We did some off and on road riding, past coffee plantations and villages
Datanla falls
.Around Dalat there are numerous waterfalls and lakes. On our bike trip we visited the Datanla waterfall where the Vietnamese have come up with a great solution to the problem of uphill v downhill - a toboggan, this is really fun, speeding down through the forest to the waterfall and then being towed back out of the valley to the top on the toboggan - certainly beats walking if you've got a long ride ahead of you. It was so much fun that we had to go twice however on the second run our attempts to break the speed record were foiled by some monks who were ahead of us and who seemed to be stopping off for some meditation along the way... The waterfall itself is very beautiful. After the falls we rode to the Da Tien reserve to climb Elephant mountain from which there were some beautiful views all the way back to Dalat city. We had a picnic lunch at the top of the mountain and listened to some funny stories from our guide "Lee" (from TNK travel - recommended).
In Dalat city on Saturday and Sunday evenings there is a great night market where vendors sell all sorts of things and all kinds of fruit and food. We tried some pastries but haven't yet plucked up the courage to try the chicken feet or dried squid. We did however have a "fire grate deer" which is deer which you cook at your table - YUM! The Vietnamese seem to be really into cooking at the table which is great as all the food has been outstanding.
