Canyoning!

Next on the agenda: Dalat. Dubbed as the 'Vietnamese Alps' because of its slightly cooler temperatures (compared to the rest of southern Vietnam) and French-colonial architecture, myself, Evie and an Australian we'd met a few weeks before called Will, had come to Dalat purely to partake in an adventure we'd been hearing about all over Vietnam: canyoning! Our sleeper bus from Hoi An terminated in nearby city Nha Trang at 4am in the morning and we were so tired that we dumped our backpacks on the street and slept in the middle of the pavement for two hours as we waited for the next leg of the journey. As a long term backpacker I can truly say that I have lost a lot of my inhibitions over the past seven months - sleeping on the street felt totally normal! In our hostel I met a girl called Aini who's from Malaysia - we got talking and it turned out that she stumbled upon my blog online and had been reading it before she came on her holiday! Amazing coincidence! During our first day in Dalat we explored the streets, walked around the lake that is nestled in the centre and went to the bustling night market; because of the cooler climate the usual abundance of rice crops are replaced with things such as cauliflower and strawberries - that evening we bought a kilo of strawberries for about 60p and devoured them all until we felt sick, happy days!!

I went to sleep on the street in the dark and woke up to daylight - Evie was still fast asleep next to the road. 

The second bus stopped at breakfast time and this was one of the things on offer at the roadside cafe...snake wine anyone?

The night market food stalls were selling meat on sticks, shellfish, dried squid, chicken feet, duck embryos and various other delicacies.

We were obsessed with Lien Hoa bakery in Dalat. Not only did they have a plethora of baked goods but also a restaurant upstairs with a stupendous beef and noodle casserole.

The following day we were picked up from our hostel early to begin our much anticipated day of canyoning. The day's itinerary featured abseiling, jumping, floating and diving our way through a serious of massive waterfalls and cliffs! The most adrenaline-inducing abseil was down a raging, twenty five metre waterfall where we were told to let go of all the ropes and fall backwards into the water for the last six metres! It was so slippery that at one point during the descent I fell backwards and, still attached to the rope, I was completely upside down with the powerful water surging into my eyes, nose and mouth, momentarily making it impossible for me correct my position. Another one of my favourite parts was a twelve metre cliff jump where we had to clear two metres of rock jutting out below the cliff edge - it didn't look possible and only some people dared to do it. I landed in the water front-forwards and had pain surging through my head and shoulders; I'm pretty sure I suffered a mild concussion from it but ten minutes later I decided to go back for round two. Once again, with a peculiar mixture of horror and delight, I think to myself that these kind of activities would never be allowed back home!! Nevertheless it was one of the most enjoyable days I've had so far on my trip!

We did about five abseils in total.

"Don't look down, let go of all the ropes and catapult yourself backwards"

"Errr...what??!"

That's me on the top right clearing the rocks for the twelve metre jump.

We also went head first down some smaller waterfalls.

After an exhausting day canyoning I went for a run around the central lake and we then had another cheeky trip to the bakery for dinner. All the bars closed early so a group of six of us bought some gin from a shop and sat chatting for hours on the banks of the lake that was glowing from the colourful lights surrounding it. The next morning Evie and I said our goodbyes to Will and set off for our next destination in a cheap yet cramped local bus and with 'Asian size' seats we were rocking the sardine look like pros; just as we were starting to get agitated by the sweaty, bumpy journey and the extreme lack of space the song 'Barbie Girl' suddenly blared out from the bus speakers...for every frustrating situation, Asia seems to have a perfectly random surprise in return to make you chuckle and forget your first world 'problems'!