Weekend Get-Away #2: Da Lat

Da Lat is a beautiful city located in a mountainous area where the majority of the country's produce is grown. Coffee, wine, vegetables are the major exports as well as what it's most famously known for,  flowers.

View from just outside the city of Da Lat.

Da Lat is the popular honeymoon spot for vietnamese and is adorned with cheesy, lovey-dovey attractions and tourist traps. For example, they have a large lake in the middle of the city where you can rent swan looking paddle boats or you can walk through "The Valley of Love" park where they have giant hearts to pose next to for photos.

Sounds exactly like our type of scene, right? Maybe to some people's disappointment, Marshall and I were not there for a sweetheart trip or honeymoon... we were there to ride mountain bikes!

Our friends, Bob and his wife Tayna, have organized a multi-stage mountain bike race for the past two years called the "Vietnam Victory Challenge" hosted in Da Lat. Marshall and I both signed up to race even though we had no bikes (still being shipped from the USA), helmets, or other usual bike riding gear. Luckily we were able to arrange rental bikes and borrow helmets and such to make it work.

The week leading up to the trip, I was suffering with food poisoning so I decided that it probably wasn't wise to try and ride mountain bikes for ~130km. The last thing I wanted, was to destroy my only good pair of cycling shorts that I have here. Haha, yuck. Marshall was feeling not so good either but he mustered up the strength to go for it anyway.

Marshall at the staging area with his rental bike.

While Marshall was racing, I took a shuttle over to the finish area to hike around (there were bathrooms on site!). The finish line area was at a place that was somewhat like a restaurant and also like a park picnic shelter. There were six or so different huts with hammocks and tables that overlook a river. A beautiful spot to relax and enjoy the view. I walked down to the river where there were small waterfalls and rocks to hop across on. A little further down the river, I spotted people on an adventure tour that were repelling down a waterfall. Looks like fun!

  

After a few hours, Marshall finished the 50km stage of the race with no issues and was completely relived to have finished and be done for the day. Later he decided to not race the next day and instead we would go explore the area and relax. We rented a motorbike early in the morning and took it out into the country side. There are a ton of waterfalls in the area and we chose one called Elephant Falls that was about 30km away from the city and one of the less touristy ones.

The drive was amazing. We were on a newly paved road that twisted through the mountains. So much fun and great views!! Here's a little video that I put together of the day's adventure:

Back in Da Lat, we walked around the city exploring the large night markets and wondering around. We found a super unique and strange cafe/bar called 100 Roofs. A pet project of a famous architect/sculptor of Vietnam who designed a giant buddha with an oversized bellybutton big enough to sit in. The cafe was so bizarre. We ordered a couple of smoothies when we walked in and then took them down this garden gnome looking staircase to the basement. 

The whole cafe was a 4+ story maze of stairways, caves, crawl spaces and hang out zones. When you get to the top floor in the back of the building, there is a tunnel that you can go through that gets you to the next block where they had built a huge garden area with more caves and stairways going all the way to the top of a hill where you have a great view of the city. This place is completely insane - it's humungous and obviously hand made with a crazy amount of detail on every feature. We probably spent a good hour just wondering around inside. Much of it wasn't lit so it was a little creepy crawling through spaces in the dark. We were super glad we ventured in!!

Marshall and I were both feeling a little better the next day so Marshall decided to race the last stage of the mountain bike race. The stage was a circuit race at the Valley of Love, Marshall's category raced for 3 laps (about 30 min per lap) - an exciting finish w/ Marshall almost overtaking the rider ahead of him (short by only half a wheel!).

After the race we had a while until it was time to go to the airport so we just wondered around the city stopping by different cafe's and unfortunately having some of the worst pizza I've ever eaten. 

Da Lat is definitely more of my kind of town - a little smaller and more relaxed than Ho Chi Minh City and has tons of mountains, trees, lakes and rivers. I'm looking forward to making a trip back to explore the green hills and winding trails.