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Published: June 24th 2006
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I took a break from the madness of Saigon to spend a few days in Dalat. Dalat was a French hill station and its cooler weather was a welcome break from the sweltering heat in the rest of Vietnam. This was the first and last time I wore a fleece in Vietnam.
Dalat is a nice hilly university town set beside a lake. The city is much quieter than Saigon and is a haven for Vietnamese artists, tourists and honeymooners. I spent several days hanging out there with a Dutch/German guy named Fred.
The main attraction of Dalat is the beautiful surrounding countryside, which is full of rolling hills and green forests. The land is very fertile in this region and there are many farms growing berries, coffee, avocados, and numerous other crops. Dalat even produces wine that doesn't taste too bad, though it is a bit sweet.
The best way to explore the area is on a motorbike with the Easy Riders. These guys will easily find you in town and charge about $10-12 to drive you around on the back of their motorbikes all day. They are quite professional with their business cards and cell phones.
Many of the Easy Riders speak good English, particularly the older ones who worked for the US Army. Some of them even have regional inflections learned from the US officers. It is very funny to hear a Vietnamese person speak with a Texas twang.
Fred and I took off one beautiful morning with two Easy Riders. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of the Easy Riders. It is worth noting that this is the only time I wore a helmet on a moto in Vietnam. No one wears them in the cities as it is only required to wear a helmet on highways outside the cities. Moto drivers in the cities would look at you funny if you asked them for a helmet and many Vietnamese people don't have a lot of money to buy "luxury" items like helmets.
First the Easy Riders showed us some coffee and avocado plantations and stopped whenever we wanted to take photos. We also visited a park with an interesting pagoda and a nice lake which gets even more scenic in the wet season.
We visited a village known as the Chicken Village, which has a huge concrete statue of
(you guessed it) a chicken in the middle of the village. We also saw a woman making incense by hand and people hand weaving bags and tablecloths. It's funny how the locals always seem to be hard at work on traditional crafts right when the gringos show up....
The Easy Riders took us to a park with a really nice waterfall and a not so nice zoo. I find zoos to be depressing places, and this one was bad even by Asian standards. The cages were tiny and dirty. The monkeys were completely insane, probably from people throwing stuff at them all the time, and we saw the most lethargic, pitiful bear. It was really sad.
After we stopped for a late afternoon lunch, it started pouring, as is typical for this region during April. I didn't mind riding the moto in the rain, but then it rained so hard we couldn't see a thing in front of us and the bike stopped working near the top of a hill. I stood in the road waiting while the driver tinkered with the bike. It must have taken him around 20-30 minutes to get the bike started again. In
Greens at Dalat vegetable market
These are just a few of the vegetables and herbs grown in the Dalat area. the meantime, it was raining sideways and there was lightning striking really close to us. One bolt hit a tree less than 100 meters away! After he finally got the bike started again, I thought raindrops were pelting me really hard until I realized that we were riding in the middle of a hailstorm. Fortunately, we made it back to Dalat with nothing more than a good soaking.
On the way back into town, we visited the famous Crazy House, which looks like it was designed by someone who took way too much acid and who really likes giraffes. Seriously, the woman who designed it studied architecture in Moscow and her father is (I think) a former president of Vietnam. The cartoon-like rooms all have their own bizarre theme, such as the eagle room, tiger room, etc. Guests can stay there for about $20 a night if they so desire.
Fred and I went to a nightclub on the last night before I headed back to Saigon and he went to Nha Trang and destinations farther north. We were the only gringos there and had fun meeting the locals. The Vietnamese certainly love their Boney M and it
was cool dancing with them. Almost no one in that club spoke English, but music and beer are universal loves in almost every country, so we had no problems communicating. A big "yo" (cheers) quickly breaks the ice with almost anyone in Vietnam.
It was nice to spend a few days in Dalat because it is "same same but different" than other parts of Vietnam, but it was great to be back in crazy Saigon once again.
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