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Arriving into Nha Trang at 6am was quite the sight... The beach was packed with locals and plenty of them were swimming!! The streets were already bustling so the city was well and truly awake!! As Nha Thrang is the beach capital of Vietnam, it would have been rude not to spend time at the beach!! So myself and Edda hit the beach for a few hours.. Happy days :) Nha Trang is really the Russian hotspot!! Two years ago a flight was introduced directly from russia to Nha Trang and hence the and enjoyed quite a lazy afternoon of eating and strolling around!! We also booked our easy rider tour for the next day with true friends easy rider!!
This was a two day motorbike (scooter) tour from Nha Trang to Da Lat. We rented one bike and so one of us drove while the other sat behind the tour guide on his bike. This was great as got turns at driving and then being a relaxed passneger. Our tour guide was Vu, he was charming, friendly and informative! We has plenty of coffee stops, as well as stopping at isolated Mung village where we met some of the local children and gave some treats. We also stopped at a sugarcane field and Vu snapped some off so we could get some choices. There were a lot of coffee plantations which were a dark luch green colour, the level of deforestation is unbelievable, they are literally burning down the forests to grow coffee plantations as it is their most profitable export. There were also some gumtrees (which paper made from)!! That night we stayed at Lak Lake, we stayed in a homestay in a small Mung village, this was a proper homestay - a typical villahe house (on stilts) a curtain divide making two parts to the home, it seemed unfair that we had the much larger part and the family the smaller part! This tribe traditionally lived in the Jungle but the government enticed them to move out to the village - offering free education for the children and homes, most still go to work in the Jungle during the day. On the second day of tour we took off early and continuedt to travel through the beautiful countryside, took some coffee breaks, we had a brief stop at a pepper farm before he started to rain. We also visited a small silk factory, this was a great experience, as we got to see the whole process from the worms eating the leaves, to making the silk cocoon, inside the factory the worms are put in hot water to soften the silk, the thread istaken off and spun, leaving only the worm in a small shell, which is then taken to the local market to be sold!! There were two dress makers working in the factory and work I can only say was admirable, I really don't know how they have the patience for it.. After this we visited the weasel coffee farm -the idea is that the weasels eat the coffee beans, excrete them still in their entirety and these are used to make the coffee - quite an interesting theory!!!Overall this was disappointing and incredible offputting as the weasels were locked in individual cages in a dimly lit small room, there were some outside but only the only the ones that were due to have babies. The final straw was seeing a poor dog tied up with dirt matted to him. It occurred to us that if this is how they treat their dog, how do they treat all the other animals so needless to say we turned down tasting of the weasel coffee. Other sights included a floating village on the river and the laughing Buddha. We also stopped at Elephant waterfall but got absolutely soaked by the rain. Cold and wet we eventually arrived into Da Lat. And typically when you want a hot shower the most, it turns out to be cold!!!! There was also a dramatic drop of temperature to about 15 c so we piled on the layers we had and went in search of comfort food!!!
We spent two full days in Da Lat - which were relaxing and lazy, lots of reading in cafes and enjoying good food, and as all the good ones appeared to be on one street we didn't venture too far. Two days were long enough and we soon craved the heat and sun!
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