Dalatful

Dalat market
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Not what we'd call the most comfortable ride but we made it to Dalat and unfolded ourselves form the van. We'd been dropped off at a hotel that tried to charge us extra ($6 for one person in a room, $10 for two), but the van was happy to take us to where we wanted to be - near the centre. Nam Viet gave us a room for $5 but we found Dalat a difficult place to get cheap rooms. It didn't help that the Vietnamese school holidays had just started!  Dalat is in the highlands and people go there to escape the intense heat in summer.

Getting silk off the cocoon
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Also staying at our guesthouse was Louise, a friendly, talkative, Irish girl who was involved in humanitarian work and had spent four years in Ethiopa - Sean's "new adventure" sense was tingling.

don't screw up, don't screw up...

Coffee is a big product around Dalat and we were under the impression that a good cup would be available. Bollocks, Mui Ne was better!

We investigated the various tours and decided that the Easyriders were overpriced because Lonely Planet really promotes them. Instead we booked a more personalised tour with Highland Travel for the following day ($13).

Piles of silk cocoons
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The tour was a full day on the back of two bikes. We were really keen to see coffee plants (the fruit tastes nothing like coffee) and silkworms (sadly we were just too late, they were in cocoons), but the most interesting part of the tour was the silk factory. It was interesting how in Laos fabric was weaved by hand, in the Mekong it was semi-mechanised but here weaving was fully mechanised. It shows how different this part of the world is when they used punch cards instead of computers to determine the fabric pattern.

Elephant waterfall
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Elephant Waterfall is beautiful, although the climb down is a bit slippery (neither of us landed on our bums!). The nearby pagoda definitely had a Chinese influence, and a big heartily laughing Buddha. The other countries we'd been to had much more of an Indian influence in their temples.

If you're in Dalat, take a ride on the cable car. It was our next stop and provided a great view over the area, a lot of pine trees and vege patches, and a bit of fun. At D35,000 one way, it's good value.

The laughing Buddha and us
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The clouds were gathering over the mountains and Adrienne was starting to feel a little weary (a cold had set in) so we swapped a climb up a mountain for a look at the outside (there's a charge to get in) of Crazy House, a Dali-like structure. Honestly, it's crazy!

Adrienne's cold wasn't any better the following morning so Sean left her in bed with a tv to comfort her and went off for a day canyoning. Dalat Hardy provided the canyoning experience. $20 gave a full day of abseiling, with the final abseil being down a fantastic waterfall. No experience was required for this adventure, so Sean was there in a flash.

It's a silkworm
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Four practise abseils down a 5m cliff and the group was ready to take on the world, well a couple of cliffs at least. The abseiling is done in a canyon, i.e. cliffs on either side, river down the middle. After practicing we did two dry abseils of about 20m before sliding down a waterfall (on purpose) about five times. We got to jump about 10m into a pool where our guide decided to show off bu doing a back flip - it looked awesome!

The best part of the day and highlight of Vietnam for Sean was abseiling down the waterfall, with water gushing passed, trying its hardest to knock you over. The whole time down it was a litany of "don't screw up, don't screw up..." going through your mind, but what a feeling of achievement when you reach the last overhang and free fall into the water! This is the best thing in Dalat - don't think about it, just go and do it!!!!