Mountainous Da Lat

Our first full day in Da Lat so of course we got on a scooter and rode into the mountains to explore, but first we stopped off at a very busy looking bakery just by our hotel for breakfast. It turns out Lien Hoa, the bakery, was busy from morning right until late evening and we can see why! They sold all kinds of pastries, cakes, breads and desserts, not to mention their subway style fresh baguettes (Banh Mi) which we bought for lunch costing a little over 60p each and they were delicious! Heading south riding past Datanla waterfalls, we saw the popular cable car strung across two peaks. Knowing there was a downhill coaster near the cable car, we changed path and rode in that direction in the hope of finding it. Luckily we did so decided to stop and have a go, forgetting it was a Sunday however. Tickets were reasonable but the queue was not, although our fault for visiting on the weekend. After an hour or so we got on and had a blast… for seconds... until we caught up to the slow coach in front. With his camera out, he must have been photographing the woods instead of enjoying the ride as he was going very slow. Thankfully there were two parts to the coaster and luckily he wandered off before we got onto the next ride. This time we enjoyed the ride although Jess wasn't such a fan of Dan's 'no brakes' approach. No doubt Jess' screams were heard by the queue back at the top. Minutes before the final ascent back to the start, the heavens opened for an hour or so. We stayed dry before finally deciding to continue our mountain ride and luckily within minutes of hopping on the scooter the rain had stopped. The first route on our trip was south around Tuyen Lam Lake only taking an hour, but as you’d expect the views were amazing. Heading back towards Da Lat and enjoying the ride so much, we decided to ride another route, this time in the mountains. We decided to head north of Da Lat as there was a big storm cloud heading towards the city. We were literally trying to out-ride the rain and believe it or not it worked! No rain and a very enjoyable 55km ride through the mountains. We saw miles of industrial greenhouses spread across the valley in what looked like a huge agricultural production area. We later discovered Da Lat is a significant producer of vegetables, flowers and fruits in what is a major centre of agriculture for the country.Read more