Dalat is amazing, we've been having a brilliant time so far. The hostel we found is more of a mini hotel, between the four of us we occupy the entire top floor which just happens to have a big balcony, perfect for an evening drink! Me and Adds even have three double beds in our room and it's only £7, bargain! Our first evening we had a beautiful meal, a bit cheeky though as I had a cheeseburger.....sometimes you just have to eat some homely food.

The following day we got up early and found a brilliant Vietnamese street eatery complete with a row of plastic tables and chairs where you eat with all the other diners. The menu is simple with just three options of Pho, the traditional Vietnamese breakfast. We all always order Pho Bo, it's a simple soup with rare beef bits and loads if veg, they serve it with a plate stacked high with lettuce, mint, beensprouts and coriander, and a small plate with fresh chopped chillis and limes. You throw this all into the soup along with garlic, chilli sauce and other unidentifiable liquids and voilà.....heaven in a bowl. Each day we have eaten here and we enjoy it with some traditional Vietnamese coffee (read, strong as hell) which is served with or without condensed milk. I love it. Anyway, sorry I'm getting carried away with food. The first day we rented bicycles and cycled up to the Hang Nga Crazy House (see pic). This is a guesthouse/museum and was built by a crazy female architect who still lives there, it is huge and the architecture is described as Gaudi meets Alice in Wonderland. It's a fairground attraction filled with caves, concrete tree trunks, giant spiderwebs made from fairy lights and huge animals with red lights for eyes. Some of the pathways are so narrow and the walls only a foot high on either side of you even though you are perhaps 10 feet up in the air, it is basically insane but brilliant. After this overwhelming sight we carried on cycling, stopping for a beer and some corn on the cob before riding the 5km circumference of the Xuan Huong lake, it was a beautiful sunny day and the sight of the light reflecting off the lake with the pine forests in the background was incredibly beautiful, Dalat looks like a small Austrian town or something, very beautiful. We had dinner that night with some friends we met in Cambodia and had an early night.

On Saturday we were all up reasonably early and gandered up to our local for coffee and Pho Bo before renting out mopeds. We rode out through the fresh smelling pine forest to Datanla waterfalls, they we really nice and were about 350m high. The best bit though was the 'rollercoaster' through the forest. It is made from 2-men coasterbobs so me and Cat went together, it was pretty fast and you have to control the brakes yourself which was hilarious and we got whistled at by security a few times to slow down ha ha. We continued to ride our mopeds about 20km further out of town switching turns at driving and decided to stop at the most random little village we could find where we picked a cafe filled with locals and ordered coffee. It came in shot glasses and blew our heads off. The locals found us really interesting, some laughed, some were confused and one man just came and sat at our table and looked at us before asking "Where you from?" brilliant! We returned into central Dalat around 5pm and booked our canyoning for the following day and cycling to Nha Trang for Tuesday.

So, canyoning WOW!!!! We had our standard local breakfast early and were picked up at 9am along with a Canadian and his Vietnamese wife and four Vietnamese guides. They drove us out to the same falls from yesterday and we trekked for about 20 minutes through the rainforest behind the waterfall we saw previously. There we practiced using our equipment on a 6 metre rock face and were taught basic skills of abseiling and how to recover if you slipped etc. Next up was our first abseil, this one was much higher at 20 metres and after rapelling down the cliff you were rewarded by being dumped into the ice cold river at the bottom where you had to swim, fully clothed and drag yourself out. After more trekking we reached our third cliff, similar to the previous but this one we had to jump down using our ropes not walk as normal and it again ended in the river. We then stopped for an amazing packed lunch with tonnes of fruit, sandwiches, BEER!!!!, chocolate and other bits and bobs. After lunch we trekked a while until our food had digested a bit and were then told to get in the river brrrrrrr where we floated nicely along for a few minutes, a guide then shouted to hold onto our life jackets and before we knew it he grabbed us and threw us down a set of slippery rocks where we were then gracefully dumped underwater at the bottom and thanks to the strong current struggled to find the surface.....scary! Then we climbed back up and did it a few more times forward, backwards, head first etc etc. More trekking and we reached our highest abseil location of the day, 25 metres (high as hell) the top few metres were quite flat sloping just a little bit towards a huge drop, the water was SO powerful and the rocks incredibly slippery and for a while you were pummeled with gallons of fast moving water which was very frightening. Adds went first and did great, I went second and managed a metre or so before the water pressure knocked me over, the water was in my face and I couldn't see or hear a thing, the power wouldn't allow me to stand back up and I ended up being rooted to the spot, clinging on for dear life until a guide had to be lowered down to help me (quite embarrassing) he told me to let go of the ropes but I was terrified of falling the other 24m I screamed to him to get me back up but he said that would be impossible. I decided to man up and used all my strength to haul myself to my feet, leaned back I carried on, about 3m from the bottom you have to push off the wall, let go of your rope and allow the current to swallow you once again. I got out alive and cried and laughed at the same time until everyone else had reached the bottom. It was exhilarating to say the least. After that ordeal we trekked for a few minutes to a drop where you had a choice of walking down, doing a 7m free jump off the cliff into the water or doing the same but from 10m. Me and Cat jumped together from the 7m height which was terrifying but great fun, the boys did the 10m with a big run up, so brave, everyone else walked down. The final activity was the 'Washing Machine' named so because at the bottom the rope just ends and you are dropped into a gushing waterfall and churned up until the river decides to spit you out somewhere. From the top you can't see anything as the cliff is not vertical, it slopes into itself. I chickened out as I had had enough adrenaline rushes for the day, or even a lifetime. The others all had a good go at the 15m drop and said it was pretty horrible so I think I made the right decision. When we thought the day was over we had a 1km almost vertical uphill climb through the pine forest......exhaustion is not the word. We had the best day we've had in months it was sooooo much fun and well worth it. So proud of us all. That night our group all met for dinner and a few drinks, us four then headed to our rooftop balcony with some more drink which ended in me and Cat using one of the mattresses as a slide to go down the stairs on and doing sausage rolls down the hill, mature I know!

Monday was spent mostly in bed due to hangovers, bruises, incredibly aching muscles and lack of sleep. We went out for dinner with an Indian guy we'd met the day before and Cat and Sams mate Ian who they met over christmas in Thailand.

Cycling day.....Jesus Christ!!!! We are ruined. We've just reached our hotel in Nha Trang, which is amazing by the way. We're all sunburnt, dehydrated, bruised, battered, exhausted and totally exhilarated! We were up at 6.30am and at the local Pho place for breakfast then were waiting in reception at 7.30am for our pick up. The Youth Action guys arrived with one driver and two guides, turns out just the four of us were doing the cycle which was great news. We drove to a petrol station a little out of town, set up the bikes and got our helmets fitted then we were off. The first few stints were mainly pretty steep uphill sections with a little downhill in between, it was serious, serious hard work and that is not an understatement. We cycled a total of 15km uphill throughout the morning which took around 3 hours. We stopped for a nice lunch at a picturesque waterfall for a short time then we were told the hardest section was to follow, oh great....4km of intense uphill to the top of the second mountain pass! It was pretty horrendous and took a good 45mins, talk about saddle sore. I was the slowest and a guide stuck back with me, he wouldn't let me walk any of the way and convinced me i'd feel much better if I cycled the whole thing (I do). After that we were at the top YAY, we then had a good 30km of super speed downhill with twists and turns, lorries and cars overtaking us, 35 degree heat and spectacular views. It was very remeniscent of our Death Road cycle in Bolivia but with tarmac not gravel, and not quite the same height of a drop at the cliff edge. However, it was physically much harder given all the uphill and the constant heat, also the bikes weren't quite as high tech. We reached the bottom around 3pm and sat in a local roadside restaurant overlooking the river where we bought the guys beers (and indulged ourselves too of course). They drove us the rest of the way into Nha Trang centre. We haven't caught sight of the beach or the sea yet but that can wait......snoozeland is a'callin! We've had such great fun in Dalat an are loving Vietnam sooooo much, it's even giving South America a run for it's money (almost).

Love and take care everyone

The thrillseeking travellers

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