Saturday, May 23, 2015

Dalat, Vietnam

Dalat - Finally some cooler temperatures!

This city has a funny "microclimate" in the middle of highlands in southern Vietnam. Surrounded by mountains, the temps are much lower (70-85 degrees) and there is almost no humidity. Allowing for farms to grow things (like strawberries and grapes, aka wine) impossible in other places in Vietnam. I was excited about the wine thinking the Vietnam wine would be better here - and it was but only slightly. Since the Vietnamese don't care much for the taste of wine, I guess it's not high on their priority list for perfecting. 

The town itself has some pretty parts but also has some ugly ones. However the region was just beautiful! 


We fell in love with one restaurant in particular where we had fish in a clay pot and beef lok lak both times we went! We also met another traveler and had an interesting food night, trying frog legs, boar, snails, squid, scallops (but these were right out of the shell, not the type we're used to). 

Nicknamed "Crazy House", this hotel was designed by a high ranking official's daughter who fell in love with the arts at an early age. This place was just as it sounds - crazy - to walk around...very Alice in Wonderland-esque! 


We were also very active during the day. The first day we did a Canyoning Tour that was way better than we even expected - we went abseiling/rappelling down dry cliffs as well as through waterfalls, sliding through rapids, cliff jumping and some trekking, both on trails and some right through the river.  We have tons of pics but they are all on the Canon and we havent been able to sync it with a computer yet.  Hopefully we can get a few up soon since it was such a great experience. 

The second day we went mountain biking about 15km to the base of a mountain then climbed to the highest peak - Langbian Mountain 2,169 meters high. We got back to our hotel RIGHT as it started storming! 


One more from  the Crazy House

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