Next stop Da Lat. It's a small city up in the mountains at an altitude of 1400m. The air was a 'cool' 28 degrees and it was lovely to be able to walk down the street without beads of sweat trickling down your arms, even though the locals were bundled up in hats, jackets & scarves! The city has a really strong European sense to it and you can really see the French influence in the architecture. I found a little vegetarian restaurant called Hoa Sen where lots of monks were eating and the food was so great I ended up there two days in a row. The first afternoon I explored the city with Marion and we went to see the Crazy House, which was a building like something from Alice in Wonderland, corridors intertwined and rooms were in a variety of shapes and colours.
The next day we went on a canoning tour with Groovy Geckos. First off we had a 40 minute drive down mud tracks through pine forests and coffee plantations in an army jeep to access the waterfalls. We abseiled down a total of 5 waterfalls with the biggest one at a height of 65m. It was actually pretty tricky navigating our way down as the river pounded on your legs. That evening we discovered a bar called 1000 rooftops, that seemed to be based on the Crazy House. It was a maze of tunnels and rooms, with about 15 different floors. I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole once again. Getting a drink was a challenge in its own right because finding your way back was near impossible. I never thought it could be possible to get lost in a bar!
The following day I rented a scooter with an Australian guy Carl that I had met on the canoning tour. We took the hour and a half long journey to see the Pongour Waterfalls, which was well worth the journey. We probably spent too long there because by the time we were leaving the sky was darkening and thunder roared in the distance. We were about half an hour on the road before the storm was right upon us, lightening cracked and it rained so heavy it was impossible to see where we were going. We had no choice but to pull over to a shed at the side of the road for shelter. To our delight a family lived next door and invited us in for drinks and food with them. And although we couldn't communicate through words, google translate and a lot of hand gestures made it possible! We stayed for almost two hours before setting back on the road again.