Cooler Temps in Dalat??

After breezing through the beach town of Nha Trang, we are now in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in a town called Dalat, where they say it has a climate of 'eternal spring'. It sure has felt like summer to us these last few days. Hot, hot, hot. Or Hot Yai, as my dad would say! Not humid though, just a nice dry heat, like the warmest Oregon summer days.

Nha Trang was fine, we just didn't find much reason to linger there. It is more of a tourist/beach mecca, with new highrise hotels going up constantly (the development happening in Vietnam is amazing). The beach was very nice, but the waves were too strong to swim in. The weather while we were there was cooler than we had expected (after traveling south so far from Hoi An we expected much hotter weather). We could have gone diving, but also elected not to, as we didn't read great things about the diving (too much dynamite fishing in the past), and it's hard to beat the Similians.

A look at Nha Trang beach:


So off to this French-established mountain town of Dalat. It is nice enough here, but not at all what we were expecting. I was anticipating lush, green, mountainous hillsides, cool temps, and a small, quaint town. It is in fact a much bigger town than we were expecting, very dry, and surrounded by pine forests. There are lots of hillsides, and now instead of rice like in Sapa, they are farmed with all sorts of yummy vegetables. They grow it all here, and the favorable climate allows them to do it year round. We've been eating lots of fresh tomatoes, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, cabbage, strawberries(!) and sweet-but-not-to-sweet potatoes. And artichoke tea! (Really good!) (Updated from a earlier blog mistake saying avocado tea....oops!)

The other thing that has been nice is that Dalat is a hugely popular tourist destination for locals, and while it's popular with the foreigners, not as many make it up here sticking more to the coastal route. The result is that we don't see too many other foreign tourists (which sometimes is nice), and there is way less touting, and we can walk through the huge central market virtually unnoticed! It's also a nicer interaction with the locals. Not so much hard selling, and lots more genuine smiles and attempts at conversation.

We found a great hotel, with the biggest room ever. You could get lost in there! It's in an older building/home, has two double beds, a small couch with table and chairs, refrigerator, a small balcony overlooking the street, and the cutest family that runs the place. All for our cheapest price yet at 100,000 dong. The only downside is that it overlooks the street, and those horns and loud radios go late and start early, so earplugs have been a must.

I just love this picture. This is looking out from the hallway of our hotel.


The cult favorite thing to do here is to hire and 'Easy Rider' and go explore the Central Highlands. The Easy Riders are a group of middle aged men who take tourists on personalized tours on the back of their motorcycles. They have become hugely popular, and people often end up 'adopting' their guide for their entire trip through Vietnam. More commonly, however, they are used to do 2-4 day trips around this area, usually up to the Ho Chi Minh trail. We have debated for the last three days on whether to splurge on this or not (it is quite spendy), and have finally opted out of it. Partly because of money, and partly because we're happy with the amount of the highlands we've been able to do on our own.

So what did we do? The first full day, as usual, we just got to know the town, partly walking and partly on mountain bikes (yes, real mountain bikes!). It gave us a bit of a wake-up call as this town is hilly, and the legs got a-burnin! One of our stops was at the Crazy House. A famous Vietnamese architect designed this kind of wacky, Alice in Wonderland style guesthouse. Her message I think had something to do with conserving the natural resources of the area.....
Here's me in what was probably called the bird room:


There is a big lake in the center of Dalat. As we were riding our mountain bikes around it, we got treated to a nice show.


The next day we went on a guided trek through the pine forests, in and out of coffee and vegetable plantations and up and down many hills. It was a great (and exhausting) hike. We were with a group of 6 very fit and very motivated to 'get back and have a beer' Canadians, so the pace was brisk. And it was hot. But the scenery was nice and it was interesting to see the crops growing and the controlled burns burning.

Part of the hike involved crossing over two rather precarious suspension bridges. The planks of wood that you step on have seen better days and when you reach the center of the bridge it starts twisting and turning in all kinds of fun directions! One of the Canadians was very scared of heights, and not at all pleased. You can almost see the concentration in my stance...


Here we are at the first and highest summit of the hike. The guides said we were one of the fastest groups to get up that hill. I believe it the way my head and lungs and heart were pounding by the time we got up there!
See the river way down there? That's the one we crossed.


And a look at one of the many vegetable gardens we passed along the way. Cabbage or lettuce in the foreground, and I think persimmon trees in the background.


Today we did our usual venturing out on motorbikes and exploring the back roads (this must get boring to read about us doing the same thing in every town we go to....). We were able to get real close to some of the vegetable fields and gave a couple hitchiking boys a ride home from school. The houses here are more frequently made of wood rather than the concrete that we are used to seeing. On the way home today we got caught in a bit of a rainstorm and had to wait it out in a friendly man's house/gas station/tire repair shop. The rain sure did bring a drop in the temperature, however, and now I can say that yes, we are in the cooler climates of Dalat.
Here are some images from our ride today:
A typical home.


A small lake we found at the end of a dirt road. Boys were swimming naked behind us, and the sun was putting on a show with her rays splitting through the clouds. And a little bit of map studying while we're here:


Tomorrow we do another guided trip. This time on mountain bikes all the way to the coast and our next destination of Mui Ne. One of those downhill-all-the-way kind of rides. We've had real exercise 2 of the last 3 days, so we thought downhill was appropriate (wouldn't want to rush into this fitness thing...).