Advertisement
Published: April 3rd 2009
Edit Blog Post
2 Generations of Vietnamese ethnic minority tribe
We were invited into this man's house and he served us tea. He is the elder of the K'ho tribe in Tanjung village, Dalat. He is surrounded by grandchlldren and is 80 years old. Wohoo-my turn again-apparently more people read the blog when I wrote it than when Gaz does so he's letting me have another chance! We travelled to Dalat from Saigon on a horrendous 9 hour bus journey where the driver insisted on stopping every 10 minutes to pick up or drop off his friends/ local people but refused to stop for us to go to the toilet. The journey was so bumpy you could not even read however it was very scenic as we travelled into the highlands. Actually this road is so crazy that one week previously a bus carrying russian tourists plunged over a cliff killing 10 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7943757.stm
We eventually arrived in Dalat late in the afternoon feeling a little shell shocked from the bus journey and found 'Peace hotel' which was recommended in the guide book. What the guide book failed to mention was that it was run by a gang of very pushy sisters who constantly tried to sell you things the second you stepped foot out of your room. The lady who dragged us into the hotel said they did not have any en suite rooms for that night but they had one large
Melissa smelling of roses
The Vietnamese do all sorts of daft poses when they are on holiday so we thought when in Rome... attic room for only $6-our cheapest room yet! Cheap for a reason as it turned out-we had a shared shower with no hot or cold water.
When I complained, the mafia blamed it on a large group of Vietnamese tourists staying in the hotel. Ater I grumbled for a while they persuaded an English girl to lend me the shower in her room. The next day we moved to a better room with a nice shower - however by day 3 there was no running water at all. This time the mafia claimed there was no running water at all in the city-funny that cos we later met up with David (a guy from New York who we'd met on the horrendous bus journey) and he said he'd had 2 showers that day! Mhm- I smell a rat!
One thing I must mention about Dalat which we did not believe until we got there....its cold! Like being back in England. During the day it's hot and sunny though not as ridicoulously hot as say the Mekong Delta but get to 4.30pm and suddenly the cold hits-thank goodness for my base layer and fleece which Gareth scoffed at me
bringing!
Whilst in Dalat we enjoyed hiring bikes and cylcing around the sites inlcuding the lake, flower gardens, a visit to Bao Dai's summer palace (the last King of the Ngyuwen Dynasty in Vietnam) and a trip to the Crazy house (a guesthouse designed in a 'wacky style' to look like tree roots and with themed rooms such as the kanagaroo room where a huge statue of a kangaroo with glowing red eyes stands and looks at you whilst you sleep-mad! The cycling was still tricky in the largest vehicle rules style of vietnamese driving. At one point Gareth was stuck in the middle of a roundabout with vans and moto' s streaming abound him!
On out second day in Dalat we took a tour with the Easy Riders- a massive group of blokes who follow you around Dalat until you agree to a motorbike tour. We booked with Son and Mr Quan and they took us
on the back of their motorbikes to see loads of sites including the local vegetable and fruit growing fields, Dragon pagoda, a flower farm; a coffee plantation, a silk factory and Elephant waterfalls which were pretty spectacular.
The scenery throughout
the day was amazing and once you got used to being on the back of a motorbike it was a really enjoyable way to see the countryside. After lunch our guides took us to meet some locals belonging to an ethnic minority called the K'ho in Tanjung village. We met cute children and one family- mum, dad, daughter and grandad. We saw what they farmed and were invited into the family home where we sat with grandad (who was 80) and the chidren and enjoyed (I say enjoyed not so sure about the branches in the tea) a nice cup of tea. Mr Quan an Son where very friendly and very knowledgeable guys having been Easy Riders for around 15 years.
We decided to cycle the 120Km from Da Lat to Nha Trang Not as crazy as it sounds as we did it with Gecko Tours, A local outfit who give you bikes and take your bags. They also said it was mostly downhill....
We set off at 7.30am and were driven to the start. It started off vey pleasant-mainly flat and some downhills for the first 45 minutes. Then Tin the guide stopped us for
a rest and snack and informed us the next half hour of cycling was up a 'big hill'-what!? Nobody mentioned up hill to us. Was a pretty tough half hour Gareth and I stopped for 3 rests on the way up the mountain. Was tougher than in England cos it was so hot. When we eventually crawled to the summit Tin said right the next hour is downhill and we will cover 30 kms-happy days! The next hour was amazing, my kind of cycling. We travelled down some very steep hills and around lot's of hairpin bends, through mountain passes with with dizzying drops at the side of the road. We saw more than one memorial to an unfortunate car that had plunged over the side. Tin assured us Gecko had never lost a cyclist the same way. As we descended the temperature rose gradually until we were back to the tropics again.
After a really good lunch of fresh pineapple, Mango etc, We asked Tin what was left and he said ''only 14 kms''-easy...or so we thought! 6kms in I was pouring with sweat and puffing and panting-as was Gareth. 7kms in and I was sweating and shivering
at the same time and my legs would barely move on the pedals but still we were determined to finish! Every time we passed a village local children would run out and shout hello and that was the only thing that kept us going. We evetually crawled to the end and I collapsed in a heap.
Nha Trang was quite a chilled out place with nice restaurants and bars and quite a canny beach although it was pretty over run with hawkers.
Whilst in Nha Trang we spent time sunbathing on the beach, swimming in our hotel pool and had a full day at the mud baths and thermal spa which was great-our skin felt amazing afterwards.
We had a few of Nha Trang's famous Jam Jar cocktails including at the town's notorious sailing club. The Jam Jar was well described by one Gary Finlay as "paint stripper with orange."
The most amazing and humbling experince we had in Nha Trang was spending time at a local orphanage- see separate blog.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 12; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0554s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Gary
non-member comment
Rice Wine
Yeah I wouldn't drink to much of that stuff, you'll see a lot of the locals walking around literally drinking it straight from the plastic bag its brewed in. You may also notice the same people seem to have painted their eyballs luminous yellow, look harder than Van Damme's shins in kick boxer and would steal the sunglasses from a blind man. Unless Melissa wants to turn into one of those I would stick to the Jam Jars ;). I wanna go back : ((((