Finally made it out for a hike... temperatures are perfect!

My original thinking was to rent a scooter here in Da Lat, which many tourists do, even though it's technically illegal in Vietnam unless you go through a local licensing procedure which most do not. But it's not the illegality that stops me... I'm just not that comfortable with the crazy traffic, even though it's far less busy here than it was in the big city.

So we are relegated to using Grab taxis, which are not as convenient, and slightly more expensive depending on where we want to go. But that's our choice, so we'll make it work.

Yesterday, we set out to do some hiking and visit a waterfall. On the map, the waterfall was listed as "temporarily closed", however recent reviews said that people were able to get into see them, so we went to check it out.

We walked to the town of Trai Mat where we figured it would be easier to get a taxi.

Ruth and a nice flower garden.

While the setting above may look really pretty, photos don't always tell the whole story...

The whole picture!

Scenery along the way.

We took the taxi about 6 kms east along the highway, then got out and walked a rural country road. really quiet, with lots of small gardens and many decent middle class homes. Some people still believe that Vietnam is a very poor country, but there is a growing middle class, and the economy is far better than either of it's neighbors Cambodia or Laos. The population of about 100 million people currently has about 33 million people considered "middle class", and that number is expected to grow to 95 million by 2035.

Growing broccoli? Or cauliflower? Not sure.

Eventually made our way onto a dirt road through a pine forest.

There is a sign saying the waterfalls are temporarily closed.

Unauthorized persons prohibited.

However we had read many recent reviews from people who just walked on in. So that's exactly what we did.

Scenery along the way.

Sure enough, nobody stopped us. We even bumped into four other tourists doing exactly the same thing.

Tiger Waterfall near Da Lat.

We continued down a trail that ran beside the river. Nobody had used it for at least a day and probably longer, as evidenced by the number of spider webs I had to brush out of the way. 

This is an odd spider! It's called a Blunt-spined kite spider

We sat here and took a break beside the river.

Looking downstream from where we were sitting.

Another little waterfall.

We went about a km along the trail before it stopped. Then we turned around and headed back.

Tiger Cave.

Looking out from Tiger Cave.

Hiking back to the main highway.

Ruth saw some kind of a garden up a hill, so we went to check it out. There was nobody around, but a guy eventually came out and talked to us. they wanted a 50,000 dong ($2.05 USD, $2.75 CAD) entrance fee, but we decided against it. The guy spoke quite good English though, and gave us some ideas of other things to see and do in the area.

Quirky garden.

The Vietnamese love their flowers.

We ended up at a vegetarian restaurant for a late lunch.

We had the pho, with fake beef. It was okay, but because the broth doesn't have the flavor derived from the beef or chicken that it's normally be made with, it wasn't quite as good as normal pho.

And we split a salad.

And they had some fancy juice drinks that were almost as expensive as the food itself!

I had the orange, carrot, and ginger mix.

Ruth had the pineapple, passion fruit, apple, and mint mix.

The juices were pricey by local standards, but really good. Total bill came to 208,000 dong ($8.50 USD, $11.40 CAD).

We ended up walking about 9 kms (5.7 miles), with a lot of uphill and downhill, so got a decent workout. And the temperature was perfect, with sunshine and a high of about 26C (79F).

Today, we are going into the city of Da Lat.

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