Rock climbing in Da Lat

Becca and I went rock climbing in Dalat today and escaped from my mom "the manicurist" who is very pissed off at me for not towing the group ideology.

She attempted to make us feel bad and jealous by saying that it was more fun going in a group.

I had to lie to my mom and told her that we had already paid for our "tour" of hiking in the waterfalls and that she would be unable to climb some of those falls and that's why we wanted to go.

My mother does not want me to go rock climbing ever and probably would have physically forced me to stay with the group activities that she had planned if she had known that we were going rock climbing 01

Although it was difficult to escape again, I am glad we did since we had a wonderful day of rock climbing and were away from my mother and crew.

Rock climbing in Dalat is still a very novel idea since everyone goes to Dalat to rappel, hike, swim or golf. Most of the climbs here are top rope and there are three major companies that have guides to lead tourists like us to rock climb. There were actually some very difficult climbs (5.7-5.11s).

According to our English speaking guides, there are NOT a lot of women who come to Dalat to exclusively climb. I was actually the first "Viet Kieu" (male or female) that he has lead on a guided tour of rock climbing in the four years the tour company has been opened.

I don't think they've ever seen women climb as hard as we did!

I was asked out by many of the young Vietnamese tour guides that day and even got several marriage proposals since in the Vietnamese culture, being '30' is old. Many of the Vietnamese men can't figure out why I haven't married yet.

After a semi-good day of climbing in the waterfalls and me falling numerous times in the water (and getting my ass slapped as a way to help me out of the water by my guide), Becca and I got dropped back at the center of town where I had to buy new pants that weren't soaking wet. Becca also wanted to get my mother a 'thank you' gift of something other than money.

As I went to check out sizes for my new pants purchase, the sales girl immediately told me that I could not wear the size small. I am a size LARGE here. Yes, I have a complex, since in the US, I am an extra petite small!

Coincidently, we meet up with my mother and crew at the hotel. They once again tricked us into having dinner at the evil woman's house when we thought we were going to go to a restaurant.

We ended up at the evil's woman house for another 4 hours. When we finally got tired of sitting around and asked to leave and have Sun to come back to pick them up later, I was blamed for being impatient and that I was selfish for not allowing my mother to stay to learn 'trigger point' even though it was selfish of her to kidnap us for 4 hours.

We once again had to do everything in a group. It was a weird concept to have us dropped back at the hotel room.

Becca went back to the hotel room to sleep since we were leaving early in the morning back to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) and I went and had beef pho with Tuan and Sun.

It was a fun night trying to exchange Vietnamese and English words and culture.

Apparently the Vietnamese must have $100,000 in the bank in order to migrate to the US (the average salary of a person here is about $100). Otherwise, you have to have a relative or a fiancee to sponsor you.

As to start a business here, one must have $18,000 in the bank in case their business fails, which is sort of like their version of business insurance. Like most countries, many businesses here are started 'illegally'.

Here is Becca's experience:

The highlight of the trip was breaking from the group and going on a day-long rock-climbing tour. We swam near waterfalls and were very bad ass.

Lorran even got a slap on the ass from the tour guide for falling in
the creek bed numerous times (apparently in Vietnam, this is the way to
check if someone is okay when they almost drown).

The other highlight of the trip took place at the table with all of the family over a discussion of fake meats. We were going down the list of "fickin" (fake chicken),
"facon", etc...lorran held up her piece of fake duck, and I absent-mindedly
blurted out "fuck" before I realized what I had said.

Her parents laughed, though they didn't quite understand why I said it (terets?). We tried to explain, but I fear we were unsuccessful.

Source: Travelpod