Monday overcast raining

After another good dosage of Vegemite for breakfast, we checked out and then met our bike tour guides around 8:30.

This trip with easy rider tours claims to get you exposed to the real Vietnam, so we will see.

Our first stop had me thinking that they are going to kill us and take our money haha! Kenny our guide took us through someones house and out the back into a shed. Everything was all good they were making Tofu, death by veggies. It's a really quick process crush and extract the goodies from the soy bean boil it up which filters it some more. They pour that into an mould, compact and it dries in about 1 - 2 min. Then it's good to eat it you like tofu that is. I did it was really nice fresh.

Second stop was a rose farmer one for Trina, apparently the wealthiest of the farmers in Vietnam. We saw the plantation were i had a little dive for frogs in the mud, (slipup) and how they cut, prepare and package the roses for transportation. Dalat supplies a lot of roses to the whole country and Feb 14th they sell for about $1-2 US per rose.

Third stop was at a silk farm, now we have been to a silk farm before in Cambodia and have been run through the procedures of making silk, but not on this scale. It was quite large, probably 50 ppl working in the factory and there were a lot of machines. Where in Cambodia Everything was done by hand, but here in Vietnam they still had to do a lot of things by hand, like sort the different types of cocoons, ( some cocoons are not good enough for silk products ) find the starting point to spin the thread. The most impressive and time consuming is the hand embroidery, my god their fingers must be entire calluses, and the work that was being produced was top notch. Whole paintings made of silk, and in such detail, it was mind boggling. The patience these women had, I would of thrown the towel in within the hour.

Fourth stop was at a coffee farm yes Coffee yum yum! Vietnam is the second largest coffee exporter in the world after Brazil. Due to they french occupancy in the early 1900's they brought the plants. Trust me the coffee here is fantastic I'm smashing it, Viet style. They put condensed milk in a small glass cup, and an aluminum filtration system sits on top and filters the coffee grounds, then you mix the two when it stop filtering. Sounds industrial but it's not, and is fun to watch a novelty really. At the farm we were told how the bean grows, when it is ready to be picked and shown the different types of coffee plants.

Fifth stop was quick but still very interesting. I do not know how many of you have seen the Asian style brooms before? I have, the soft ones are great for indoors. We stopped in a back yard shed much like the tofu makers and we were show how they are made. Also we were told that the central highlands region is the main producer of the soft grass, where in the meek-on delta region, they produce the harder grass. ( for outdoor brooms ) The brooms themselves regardless of the grass that is used to make them, is still very talented to job.

Sixth stop was my favorite, elephant falls. It was incredible! Such a large volume of water, must be why it's called elephant but no, it's because of the boulders that the water crashes on below. They look like the backs of elephants in a heard. The crazy part was when we got to walk down the slippery rock man made staircase, with jungle vines as your hand railing and sometimes your vine boardwalk. Which took you to under neath the waterfall. Wow! so much wind and pressure, you were getting thrown around like a doll by the spray! It was a good time to test out mine and Kim's goretex jackets, would of been drenched otherwise.

We stopped many times along the way at various POI that our local and experienced guides know about. 10yrs doing what they do and know all the good lookouts to takes the photos, rest and to have a luncheon with a view. The continuos jungle hillside has been great to ride through, wish i was on the husky carving it up. Often at times I though I was. Man I going to miss that bike.

The people throughout our ride today have been so nice a happy to see us, we didn't even have to stop and people, mostly children, would be running a yelling HELLO! and waving to us. We had to stop a lot today in random family homes and take shelter because of the freak 10-15 min storms, But they still wanted to show us around their plot.

I hope I have painted a picture well enough about today, summary: Green Green and more Green. The rice farms looked great. I hope we stop tomorrow at one. We arrived at a hotel around 5:30pm and had about an hour free time before washing up for a home cooked dinner.

Oh yeah ha we also are staying in the same hotel as the man from Hong Kong his name is Samson, this is the third time we have run into him. We also met a dutch couple who are very nice, and too will be in Hong Kong the same dates as us. We all got to have dinner and drinks together tonight and it was a good night and day in the highlands.

I think we all go our separate ways tomorrow Dutch and china go north, we go east then north, it was a big day more than 200 kms on the little 200cc, and tomorrow is ment to be longer so goodnight.