Good morning,
After Nha Trang, I headed to the central highlands
(west and slightly south from Nha Trang) to a MUCH
cooler climate!! The drive was amazing through
mountains on switch-back roads!! I wished a number of
times that we could stop and take a photo.
As I mentioned, Da Lat is cooler but in a nice way,
not like Sa Pa. I actually needed a long sleeve in
the evenings and a blanket at night. The locals were
hysterical though, all of them wandering around in
parkas, wool hats and gloves like it was 30 below
outside or something. I inquired and at its coldest,
Da Lat goes down to 10 degrees ;)
I came to Da Lat with a purpose: waterfalls. Due to
the moutainous region, Da Lat has a number of
waterfalls in it vicinity and it's home to a group of
motorbike tour guides called the "Easy Riders". I
hooked up with a guide named Peter who wanted to take
me from Da Lat to the Mekong and then to HCMC, some
400 or 500km on motorbike. I suggested we try a day
trip and see how I felt, knowing that I wasn't likely
to want to travel in his suggested manner.
We started out at the Datanla falls. They had
something of a rollercoaster down to the falls and
back up which was cool!! I took some pictures,
visited a local minority village and it's 2 story
chicken and then went to the Prenn waterfalls. There,
I saw an elephant (which I could have ridden for
10,000 or just under 1 CDN dollar) but I declined
(though I did get a few photos and got to feed him)
and some crocodiles. From there, we went to the
Elephant waterfalls which were spectacular and
treacherous to walk to. It was a nice day and I
considered hiring Peter for the next day to go to Bao
Cai as there's about 3 more larger falls along the way
to HCMC but I really am not keen on travelling long
distances by motorbike and despite this being the
"rainy season", I was informed that there hadn't been
much rain and thus they weren't spectacular so we
parted ways and I took the bus (a disgusting method of
transport according to him).
I got into HCMC, secured myself a hotel and ran into a
guy that I'd met in Nha Trang. It could have ended
worse than it did - I was home by 12:30pm and up the
next day for my Mekong tour which I'll e-mail about
later. The one thing I will say is that we were
promised a $5 USD sunset and I think they delivered :)
I hope all is well with everyone and I'll e-mail my
final chronicle on my last day here in between
relaxing and getting massaged and a facial - for $5
USD for an hour, who can refuse :)
Sarah
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