We Wore Jeans the Whole Time — Perpetual Vacationship

We spent about four days in Da Lat, and loved every second of it. Why, you might ask? Well, for one, we could wear jeans the entire time we were there without melting. It was a fantastic change of pace from the 35+ degree Celcius (95 degree Fahrenheit) weather that we’d been enjoying since we left the North of Vietnam.

As we got off the bus in Nha Trang, both of us having gotten relatively poor sleeps due to the guy’s erratic snoring in the row ahead of us, we found that only DJ Khaled had made it to the bus station where we were; Rachel’s bike had been taken to the center of town where the freight shipping was taken, of course. So, she hopped in a cab and went to grab Michael J, and I stayed with DJ and the bags. By the time she was on her way back, we were ready to roll, and not a moment too soon either as the temperature was climbing rapidly.

A brief traverse on the dreaded Highway 1A brought us to a flat, narrow, and straight secondary highway, on which we blasted through rice terraces and small villages before reaching the foothills. As the road started to wind upward, the air began to cool, and we had to stop and put on our jackets. The views from the sides of the mountains we were carving up were surreal, and the frequent waterfalls cascading beside the road into the mist below us added to the ambience. As we approached the 1500-meter elevation Da Lat sits at, we began to smell the pine forests and feel the misty air that perpetually surrounds the town. It reminded us of the mountains of California in some parts, just with more noodle soup and banh mis.

When we finally arrived in Dalat and set up shop at the Flower Homestay for our time here, we were both beaming. A beautiful ride up, a beautiful day, and a beautiful climate. Could life get any better?

Turns out, it could! The second reason why we loved Da Lat was because we got to get out and do some real nature stuff, which is kind of a rarity in crowded Vietnam; we not only went canyoning, but we actually went for a real, un-guided, bona-fide nature hike. Apparently, this isn’t something that people actually do elsewhere in Vietnam so to be able to enjoy an activity that we’ve been more or less deprived of thus far in our trip was great.

The second day we were in Da Lat, we decided to hike up a mountain. Apparently there’s more than one in the area, but the only one we could find any information on was called Liang Biang peak. It sounded like it was right up our alley when we were reading about it, but by the time we rode Michael J Fox there and parked up, it was a bit of a different story.

First off, as you approach a large gate signed “Liang Biang” you immediately get herded through an entrance where you have to pay a fee for yourself and your motorcycle, and are directed to the corner of a large parking lot to store it, where you can pay another fee for that pleasure.

Now, in order to get to the trailhead, you must walk 3 km uphill on a twisty asphalt road, with Chinese-made jeep type vehicles whizzing by, crammed with Asian tourists who are very amused that you’re walking. What they don’t know is that they’ve paid an exorbitant sum to go to some shitty lookout, while you’re going to the actual Liang Biang peak.

Finally, once this endeavour was over, we got on the trailhead and everything was gravy. Surrounded by nature, we started to hike up the peak, only to have the skies open up and the rain start as we were a few minutes from the top.

Well, everything can’t be perfect, I suppose.

Despite the tourism situation at the bottom, and Rachel having a leech get her, we were ecstatic that we were able to finally get outside and do some hiking, just like back home.

And, of course, the nature didn’t end there. On our final day in Da Lat, we did something called ‘canyoning,’ which is kind of a cross between rappelling, zip-lining, and rock-climbing. We went with the Pine Track Adventure Company, and our guides Lion and Frank took great care of us as we slid, flew, and abseiled down the canyons and waterfalls cut by the Datanla river. We had a great time this day, and would highly recommend doing this to anyone that comes to Da Lat!

All smiles after this. Seriously so much fun.

Thirdly, the food and the coffee in Da Lat were fantastic, and we spent most of our time here not in nature either drinking or eating. We encountered a ton of great restaurants and cafes here, and we did our best to put them all on the map from our route post here.

Finally, the town was beautiful. I read in several spots that most people think that Sapa is the more beautiful and visit-worthy of Vietnam’s two mountain towns, but I don’t buy it. Da Lat is a beautiful old French colonial town, built around a picturesque lake and several pretty gardens and parks, with pine-scented air and a temperate climate. It’s got romance written all over it, and the Vietnamese are quick to sell you on that fact, with multiple dates and weddings going on in the city at any one time.

However, even though the food, romance, nature, and temperate climate were hard to tear ourselves away from, we knew that our time on the bikes, and our time in Vietnam, was coming to a close. It’s a bittersweet feeling coming to the end of a journey, and it was made harder by the fact that we were turning our backs on a place that we’d really come to enjoy in Da Lat. That said, just as every journey has a beginning, it equally must have an end, and with heavy hearts we turned our bikes South towards Saigon and the end of our time on two wheels.