Hello Blog Readers,

I have a spare few minutes so am going to update you on a couple of places we visited. The first being Da Lat. You may remeber that in my last blog I was full of excitement for one of the excursions that I did so I guess I better tell you about that, but I am sure for the many of you that follow me on Facebook you already know what I did.

But to tell the story I must first go back to the start of our Da Lat adventure. Da Lat was not originally on our places to go, but as Earl wanted to do some trekking I did a quick google search and found that Da Lat was the place to go for this. So we got a bus there from Nha Trang, this was one of the worse bus journeys we have had so far, as I was pretty hungover from the night before so it didn't help being stuck on a cramped up mini bus and the roads were really windy and bumby and going up hill balancing on some pretty steep edges. It wasn't ideal, but we got through it.

As soon as we arrived in Da Lat we sorted our guest house, which did seem more like a retirement home but more on that one later. We then dcided to book the trekking excursion. Whilst getting quotes for trekking an acticity called canyoning caught my eye, this is basically abseiling down waterfalls and rock faces. I wasn't really up for 6 hours trekking in a jungle so decided after watching a video on canyoning to grow some balls and take the plunge and do canyoning even though as many of you are aware I am massively sacred of heights. Anyway we went out that night as I decided I needed some dutch courage for the next day we went a nice cafe called Peace cafe for tea, went the hangout for a few beers and then made our way to Saigon Nite, which is without doubt the best bar in Da Lat, purely because the owner makes it that way. He plays anyone at Connect 4 and I guarentee he will win, after 10 times of playing him Earl hadn't managed one victory, I managed to draw on my second and win on my third but I think he was letting me win so we would buy more beers. I never new anyone could be that good at that game! We also ran into Daisy and Andy at thi pub who were on our boat in Ha Long Bay so it was nice to catch up with them.

The next day it was time to face my fears and go canyoning, there was only four people doing this, me, a chinese girl called atheena and two Danish girls Nadia and Ciara. This put even more pressure on me. We did a few practice runs first, then we abseiled down a 20m rock face, followed by a 15m dry abseil, we then did an 11m free fall jump. Then slid down a few waterfalls on our back. After lunch came the tricky part. First abseiling down a 25m waterfall, I fell over twice, my trainers that I have had nearly 10 years have lost all of their grip so walking down a waterfall proved tricky but i managed to get up both times and complete the abseil. We then jumped a 15m free fall jump which was pretty good. Then came the abseil known as the washing machine. This is called this becuase when you land in the water it feels like you are being pulled through a washing machine, I really thought I was going to drown but I was back out in seconds. So I maged to complete the day of canyoning, yes I admit I was a bit wimpy at times and needed a bit of help from the tour guides but I did it and I can confidentally tell you that it hasn't helped with my fear of heights.Maybe bunjee jumping might help but I doubt I'll be doing that.

I arrived back before Earl so waited for him at the hotel as he had the room ke. He was quite a while as he got caught up in a rain shower which ment he couldn't complete the third peak of his trek, however he still enjoyed it. Anyway whilst I was waiting for Earl I found myself gambling with 5 old Viatnemese ladies and an old viatnemese chap who between them could only say two words or english - 'very good'. At first I lost all my money I had on me, and then one of the ladies kindly put some in when I went on some epic form and managed to retieve all my money I had lost. It was a really fun afternoon, and they looked after me well giving me tea, mango, fried banana and some sort of vegetable that tasted like raw potato.

That night we met Antheena and went for a few drinks again to The Hangout, Peace Cafe and the Saigon Nite where we partied with a guy called Scott from New York, and English Guy and three Aussies called Pete, Jimmy and Dave these were particularly funny. Me and Earl also beat Dave and Pete at pool keeping up our undefeated run. I also tried a white russian for the first time which turned out to be pretty tasty. After a few more beers, cocktails and shots we decided to go back as we had a bus to Mu Nie the next morning.

So that was Da Lat my friends, in truth it is a prety crap city but the tours they do there are really good and there are a few hidden gems like Saigon Nite bar and The Hangout. So I'd definitley recommend going if just for that!