Another Day, Another Motorbike Tour

Today was our only full day in Dalat. It was planned this was as we had heard the only reason really worth visiting was for the waterfalls.  We had tried to arrange a tour of the three different main waterfalls around Dalat but neither of the two Easy Rider companies offered the option to hire a driver and bike for you to go where you wanted. We could have hired our own bike(s) but neither of us really felt comfortable driving. But after a lot of negotiations yesterday, we has agreed to do an organised tour that one of the companies offered, with an extra water fall thrown in and the potential to skip coffee related stops, as neither of us like coffee. So at 8:30am we headed off with our two guides for the day.

Our first stop was Datanla waterfall. At this place we were able to get a 'rollercoaster' down to the waterfall and then sit in it to get back up to the top, so for lazy people like us you didn't have to walk. It was basically a plastic sled, like children use in snow, with a back and added selt belt, attached to a track. You controlled it yourself with a lever; forward to go and back to brake. It was pretty fun but calling it a rollercoaster is a bit of a stretch. The actual waterfall wasn't that big but it was quite nice.

Our next stop was at a monastery/temple. We wandered round and had a look at the gardens which were very colourful. We wandered round the monastery's fish pond and saw a couple of turtles just hanging out on the side, whilst others swam around nearby.

From the monastery we rode round Paradise Lake, which looked lovely but we didn't stop unfortunately. Instead we drove on to a stop called 'Chicken Village'. Chicken Village is apparently named as such due to a story about a girl from the village who wanted to marry a boy but his parents said she had to bring them a chicken. She went off in search of one ad didn't come back for a long time. Or at least that's what I understood from our guide. The village has a huge statue of a chicken to commemorate the story.

After Chicken Village we rode on to Pongour waterfall. This was probably the nicest waterfall we visited all day. We walked abut 400m down a hill to get to it. The waterfall itself was coming down rocks that were like steps and it had a large flat rocky area across from it where we sat and dipped our feet in the water. We were sitting for quite a while, which was obviously too long according to the guides as just as we got to the path to walk back up, one of them came down on his bike to find us. He told us he would drive us back up to the top and tried to ring the other guide to come as only the bike I'd been riding had come down. However the dude had no signal. I told Lauren I'd walk and she could ride, and she said she would walk and I could ride, and the guide decided we should all just squish on the one bike. It was a very tight fit; I was squished in the middle,  practically sitting on Lauren. But the guide just speed us all up the hill. It was quite funny, but you probably had to be there....

Our next stop was lunch. We stopped at a restaurant popular with locals. There was many different dishes on offer but there were all just out behind a counter and there was no description of any kind as to what they were. Lauren and I both played it safe and asked for chicken, as the guide had said there was some. The chicken was really nice and came with rice and green beans. I couldn't eat it all.

After lunch we stopped at a place where they turn old tyres into bungy cords. I think we only stopped there so the guide could buy some as he told us as we left the restaurant that the next stop would be a waterfall, which it was after the tyre place.

We stopped at Elephant waterfall, which had a whole load of paths to different places that involved scrambling over rocks. I squeezed through a gap into a little cave that opened up behind/at the bottom of the waterfall but Lauren decided not to. I got a bit wet but it was pretty cool. Then we had a look at the waterfall from a rocky area that doubled as a little viewing platform, before scrambling down to the bottom of the waterfall. We had been led to believe we would be able to swim at this waterfall but the water was not enticing in the slightest, which was quite disappointing.

As we left Elephant waterfall our guide told us that the tour we had done was not the usual tour but as we had seemed so keen to see waterfalls when we had spoken to him yesterday that he would take us to one more. This waterfall was by far the least attractive waterfall we had seen all day but we appreciated the gesture. The waterfall was called Cam Ly waterfall and had a much more man made feel to it and the water was disgusting. We had a quick wander round and then hopped back on the bikes to return to the hostel. The tour was really enjoyable. I loved riding the bikes and the weather had been fab all day despite being forecast for thunderstorms in the afternoon. We did have quite numb bums by the end of it however! We also travelled quite a distance, as at one point we were almost 50km away from Da Lat. 

When we returned to the hostel we chilled for a bit and then went out for dinner. When we returned we had to pack as we are leaving tomorrow for our last stop in Vietnam!