Dalat is in a mountainous region in Vietnam, which means the weather isn’t hot as balls* like the rest of the country. The climate allows the area to grow a lot of produce, including coffee, and makes me want to photoshop a rice farmer hat onto a picture of Juan Valdez.
*Yes, this is, indeed, the technical definition. Any good climatologist would totally back me up on this one.
We spent our first day seeing what there is to see around town. Dalat has a bustling market that’s decently large, although not exactly remarkable after months in Asia and South America. The lake just outside the center of town would have been nice, with swan-shaped paddle boats laden with Vietnamese honeymooners drifting around, if it hadn’t been filled with more construction equipment than water. We spent a few hours and a few miles trying to find a cable car over a reservoir that I’m now pretty sure didn’t exist. The cable car, that is….although I never saw this alleged “reservoir,” either. Not too exciting, all together, but we enjoyed Dalat for it’s relaxing pace, interesting atmosphere, and not making us stupidly sweaty.
The second day we went on a hike, one of the main reasons backpackers stop in Dalat. We chose a day hike that seemed to have a little bit of everything. The route was mostly through an evergreen forest, which was a nice change of pace. Pine trees, you guys! The place looked like the Pacific Northwest, or what I imagine the Pacific Northwest looks like having seen The River Wild a couple of times. Intermittent along the way were coffee plantations. Every culture manages to invent alcohol in some form, but some stuff helps you out and ferments all by itself. Whoever figured out that raw coffee beans could be turned into such deliciousness deserves the Nobel Peace Prize or something. They’ll give those to just about anybody, right?
The hike wasn’t very difficult, a typical mountain trail with a few rickety rope bridges here and there. At least, it wouldn’t have been difficult if we had done it like normal people. Our guide must have had a hot date that night because we kept up a fast pace the entire day. This dude could pioneer speed hiking as a competitive sport. At one point we took a “shortcut” down a slippery dirt slope with probably a 60 degree gradient. Seriously, unnecessary. There were only the two of us on the trip, the obviously uber-athletic Team America, so the guide must have assumed we could handle it. We could, naturally, but even Justin the Tall Bastard was tired when we finished. Even though the weather was nice, after such a hard pace we were stoked at the end of the trail to get to swim in the very refreshing Tiger Falls, soothingly tiger free.
Since we had seen where coffee comes from I made it a point to actually drink some back in town. Vietnamese style coffee is made by putting the grounds in a metal canister with a perforated bottom that sits on top of your cup. You drink it with sweetened condensed milk, just like every other drink in southeast Asia, and it can be very strong. Now that I think about it, it might have been a better idea to have the coffee before the hike. We might have been able to keep up with Speedy Gonzales Trung more easily if we had been jacked up on caffeine and sugar.
