Living strong in Dalat!

This past weekend a group of us went to Dalat, another city in Vietnam which is less than one hour away by plane.  It was Brittany's birthday and she wanted to celebrate by doing an exciting waterfall/rappelling excursion before she leaves Vietnam to go back to Canada in June, so the 8 of us set out after school on Friday for a fun-filled weekend!

Dalat is very different from HCMC because it has forests, waterfalls, mountains, and cooler weather.  It was a nice break from the blistering heat here.  The city is famous for pine trees and growing flowers.  Another major difference was the size... with around 206,000 people, Dalat felt very small compared to HCMC with over 9,000,000 people in the metropolitan area.

The waterfall excursion was booked through a company called Groovy Gecko Tours.  We were picked up after a delicious breakfast at our awesome hotel (Thien An), and then were driven into the mountains on winding roads among the trees.  After some practice, we started rappelling, aka abseiling.

We rappelled down a few rock walls which was fun and not as difficult as I thought.  After a picnic lunch, we attempted the big one... rappelling down a waterfall.  This made me really nervous and I almost chickened out, but I'm happy that I summoned the courage to do it.  It was definitely a challenge to say the least, so I'm happy that I made it through uninjured and alive.

With John, Greg, Janice, Brittany, Adam, Tanya, Bec

There was also another smaller waterfall nicknamed "the washing machine" where you rappell down a rock face, and when the wall ends you lower yourself down by rope.  When the rope ends, you fall into the waterfall which whisks you down.  If you don't lower yourself down the rope fast enough, the water falling down will spin you around on the rope like a washing machine!

The waterfall rappelling experience will definitely go down as one of the most adventurous things I've done (up there with the shark dive maybe).  I was happy I did it, but relieved to be done!

On our second day in Dalat, we rented motorbikes from our hotel for $6.  We drove to a place called the "Crazy House" which is an interesting place designed by a Vietnamese architect inspired by Gaudi (think Barcelona, but crazier).  The Crazy House has many animal-themed rooms which you can explore.  We spent a lot of time there taking photos.

Our visit to Dalat was not complete without a ride on a swan boat (which looked like a chicken) on the lake.  We realized there was a restaurant on the lake and decided to take the opportunity to paddle up to it and order some drinks.  Fun times!

We had a great time driving around the city and its outskirts, seeing the farmlands and enjoying the nice weather.  It was a fantastic weekend with fantastic people!