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23/10/09 Nha Trang to Dalat
We woke up and went for breakfast but the dining area was deserted with no sign of any kitchen action so Phil went to the stall for cheese rolls again. The lady remembered Phil and started making his order almost before he asked for it. We boarded the bus to Dalat for a 4 hour journey into the central highlands region. The driver was an unusually fat Vietnamese guy who almost from the start of the journey stopped to get directions. Liz slept for most of the journey but the roads were pretty bad so she was awake for some of it. We passed through some pretty hairy road works with some very tight gaps to drive through but the driver did a good job there. The Dalat area was a huge market gardenning area as the climate is very much milder than the coastal areas. It was just mile after mile of poly tunnels full of produce and also flowers. Evesham has nothing on this place. At one point on the journey the bus stopped and everyone got off to have a quick wee at the road side only for the bus to pull in for a lunch stop only two minutes later!! The resturant we went to had many animals there, a monkey, some polecats, chipmonks, turtle and a pack of mangy dogs all chasing each other through the tables. We chose not to eat there!! We arrived into Dalat and began a farcical journey around town. The driver was obviously looking for a particular place and couldn't find it. We drove round in circles for ages changing direction and retracing roads already travelled for about half an hour . We did a u turn in a really narrow road as the driver had managed to drive away from town and out towards the sticks. We just wanted to be dropped in the middle of town but he was wanting to drop us at the usual mates hotel!! Eventually he located the correct street he needed with some help from a couple of locals travelling on the bus and dropped us at a random hotel. Ours was a short walk away and we went to it to check in. Dalat was a much busier place than we had expected and very much bigger. On first impressions we were a bit disappointed to be honest but decided to explore a little more before making a judgement. We had a pretty small dam room at the hotel and then the reception called Phil to ask for our passports. We have only been leaving a copy of them with the hotels so our originals are always with us. When Phil went down he wasn't happy tro hand over our passports and the staff had to write down any info they needed for the tourist police. While he was there they offered him a new bigger room so we went to see it. It was much bigger, driew and sunnier with a panoramic view of the busy road island below which was a bit noisy. We both preferred the room so moved our stuff to it and hoped the noise would stop at midnight like everywhere else in Vietnam. We went for a wander to confirm the Saigon bus tickets and checked we would get sleeper seats for the long drive. We popped back to the hotel as we hadn't wseen any cashpoints but none of the staff seemed to be able to understand bank despite the fact its the same word in Vietnamese. The hotel porter followed us out and directed us up the street to the town centre where we could try. On the way up the street Phils cake-dar kicked in again as we passed a big bakery and he had a cake to munch as we walked up the street.Eventually we located an ATM near the centre of town and got some money for the next frew days. While there we were approached by two lovely guys, Hung and Hoan, who were selling motorbike tours of the countryside around Dalat. They worked for a company called Easy Rider who are recommended by Lonely Planets (LP) and it sounded like great fun. They didn't want any payment until after the trip so we booked up to go with them the next day as wew ere pretty fed up of group tours with not much time and lots of people. We then went for a bit of a wander around. Dalat was once a hill station and is in the hills of south Vietnam. There is a huge market in the center of town and we took a stroll through. All the traders were shouting at us in Vietnamese to get our attention. We went searching for the 100 Roofs Cafe from the LP which has famously weird and strange design to it. We found it but it had no food so we left again to find somewhere else. We found a row of resturants and picked the one called Wild Sunflower with a very nice polite waiter. We had a really excellent meal there and it was very reasonably priced too. We went back to the hotel, watched Notting Hill and went to bed.
24/10/09 Dalat (Saturday)
After breakfast Hung and Hoan arrived as promised to collect us for the day out. We clambered onto the backs of their bikes, Liz with Hung and Phi with Hoan. We looked like something out of Chips with our helmets on but we were very cool too!! Our first destination was to the start of the Dalat Robin Hill cable car. We would meet the guys and bikes at the other end so we got our tickets and went on the gondola. The view over Dalat was really nice and there was alpine tree forest below so it was a pleasant ride. Once at the top Hoan met us as promised and he showed us where we would go next. We were high over the valley and Paradise Lake below. We had some good views down to the lake which was quite small but is now a huge reservoir supplying Dalat. We took some pictures of the lake then walked through to the Truc Lam Zen Monastery and meditation center. The grounds of the monaster were the most stunning we had seen anywhere in Vietnam and it was a real suprise to see it. Lots of monks were about pruning and cleaning and it was really spotless., they were all really friendly and we got chatting to a monk who had been at the monastery since 1986. He asked if we had time to help him with some English and we said we did as we weren't on any time restraints for a change which was lovely. He bought out of his room a document explaining Vietnamese Buddhism which he had translated from the Vietnamese writings of one the Buddhist masters from history. He had done a great job and we made a few small corrections and suggested a better way of putting a couple of things but basically it was practically a graduate level piece of work. He made us tea and we sat with him for a while then left to carry on looking around. He gave us two books on Buddhism to thank us for our time but Liz struggled to understand the first page when she read it later. That experience certainly made up for us missing out on tea with the monk at Perfume Pagoda before. We were welcomed into a stunning temple by another very smily monk and took a few photos of the whole place which was definately the nicest place we had visited in Vietnam. We walked out to meet the guys and jumped back on the bikes to drive out of Dalat to a minority village. We drove along the highway but unfortunately Phils bike got a puncture and he had to get off so Hoan could drive to get it fixed. Hung then hailed down a passing biker to give Phil a lift 7 kms down the road to our next stop. What a nice bloke and he didn't wait to be given any money either. Once at the village both of us got on the bike behind Hung to drive into the centre. The village is called Darahoa but is more commonly called Chicken village as it has a huge carved rooster in the middle. Legend states that two lovers from two ethnic groups K'ho and Chill wanted to marry and the father of one set an impossible dowry so they would be put off the idea. They weren't and died looking for a rooster with nine different spurs in the mountains. The rooster stands as a reminder to the two groups to live in harmony a bit like Romeo and Juliet. We stopped at a traditional weaving shop where Cam is woven which is the traditional ethnic fabric. We visited the village and saw the homes and farms of the local people. The children all fend for themselves during the day while their parents are at work and there were many playing and happily playing games while we were there. The lfie is very simple and subsistence style but they all seemed very happy. We were the only people visiting which was really great and made a change from being in a big group. Unfortunately we have to pay more for the privalege. When we finished looking around Hoan returned with a mended tyre so off we went to visit Lech Khung Falls. We pulled into a cafe and we thought we were having a drink but once through the back the huge waterfall revealed itself which you couldn't see at all from the road. We stayed watching the water for a while then carried on to the next stop at a rice paper and rice wine making home where the owner brewed huge vats of rice wine that we of course sampled. Hoan explained the processes for making the wine and the paper to us and we went back to the bikes. They drove us to a mushroom farm to see how the mushrooms are grown then dried for selling. Under huge canvases there were hundreds of mushrooms growing on upturned bottles filled with a yeasty mix. All the mushrooms are then left in the sun for days to dry before being sold on. Our next stop was at a silk worm farm. Inside a big outhouse on someones property were racks of silk worms busy spinning silk cocoons. Sometimes two worms spin one cocoon for the two of them but this is poorer quality so is sent to China !! The single cocoons are better quality and stay in Vietnam for making silk fabric. After the fascinating worms we drove a short way to stop for lunch. We were doubtful at first as the place seemed a bit grubby but when the food arrived it was really tasty and there was stacks of it. We ate and ate with a couple of beers overlooking a big fish pond then set off again to carry on the tour. The next stop was a visit to a silk factory where the cocoons are unravelled by soaking them in hot water. Each fine strand is spun then 16 are wound together to produce one strand as the threads are so fine. After the cocoons are unravelled the leftover worms are taken to sell for food in the markets. Apparently they are a delicacy. We watched them weaving fabric lengths using 100 year old Chinese looms as it had always been done. The factory was hot and a bit smelly and the loom was really loud. All the women who worked there were dressed in wellies and plastic aprons but had no other safety gear like gloves to protect thier hands but seemed pretty happy though and there was alot of chatting. The fabric has to be soaked once it is woven to remove traces of stickiness from the worms spinning and once dried it id the soft silk you get in the shops. After that we went to another waterfall called Elephant Falls which was agian completely hidden from the road. we walked over toi the viewpoint and a Niagra Falls type falls revealed itself. It was pretty impressive and we clambered down a very slippy dodgy path to get a closer look. We were shown tea and coffee plantations and a flower farm with fantastic fields of gerbera and roses. The best part of the tour apart from the monastery was just being on the bikes. It was great riding along the country roads and havng the "áir conditioning "on all the time. We really enjoyed our day with the guys and they dropped us back at the hotel as promised at the end. We went to an internet cafe to write some blog and stayed until 9pm when we left to find something to eat. We couldn't decide what we fancied so ended up at the bakery getting bread, cheese and cake to take back to the room with us. We watched TV for a while then went to bed.
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