The Happy Buddha knows best

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There’s nothing like the freedom of the open road on a motorcycle: unobstructed scenery, clean air in your lungs, wind in your hair, hard rain cutting at your face…

Okay, despite the latter - and a bit of a numb ass - we took a one-day tour around Da Lat on the back of motorcycles, and it was a major highlight of our travels to date.

We were led by Huan and Hung of the ubiquitous Easy Riders, a group of freelance motorcycle tour guides with members in the thousands. Their knowledge of the sights and willingness to share everything we wanted to know about Vietnamese culture was refreshing and enlightening. We saw and learned so much on our tour that we got over the guilt of hardly leaving our room for three days (thanks to a fresh stock of cheap DVDs).

Overall, Da Lat and the surrounding area was beautiful. Located in the central highlands, the climate, geography and vegetation are similar to B.C. and we enjoyed the cooler weather and cleaner, thinner air. Aside from our one-day bike tour, we visited a few of the local sights by foot, including the massive central market. The big ticket items were cold weather clothing, like toques, sweaters and winter jackets that were probably fashionable in 1999. Keep in mind the local daily highs still ranged between 20 to 26 degrees and dipped down to about 14 degrees in the evening.

We saw very few tourists and experienced very little hassle from the locals, who stared at, smiled at, and said hello to us everywhere we went. We liked Da Lat so much that we looked into the prospect of teaching jobs and discovered there is a new school being built and they need teachers badly. We’ll see what happens.

After Da Lat, we headed off to the coastal city of Nha Trang for four days, and we are now in Hoi An. Due to a lack of Internet access, we're a little behind on blog postings, but I will try to catch up over the next couple days.

Wishing you were here,
The Smiths

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Photos

Happy Buddha
Behind the Linh An Pagoda is the Happy Buddha, and you just couldn’t help but smile when looking at him. His face pretty much sums up our pleasant trip to Da Lat.

Easy Riders
Hung and Huan, your friendly neighbourhood Easy Riders.

The New Economy
This area was once dense jungle teeming with elephants, tigers, panthers, black bears and other wild animals. Many species disappeared due to over-hunting in the 1950s, and the jungle was destroyed due to chemicals and bombing by American forces during the war. Huan said the Vietnamese government provided incentives for various hill tribes from the north to re-settle in this area long after the war to yield new crops and vegetation like coffee beans, silk and rice. This government initiative was called “The New Economy.”

On the road
Huan and Hung took about a dozen photos of us with our camera that day. This was the best one BY FAR. We didn't mean to pose like it was some kind of engagement photo.

Elephant Falls
View from the bottom

Elephant rocks
Elephant Falls was named so because the rocks surrounding the falls look like the backs of elephants. Edged into the rocks were small steps for people to make their way down to the base of the falls. It was steep and dangerous.

Minority report
This woman was from the Koho tribe who lives near Elephant Falls. She was making and selling handmade silk garments and blankets in a hut near the falls. The Koho tribe is a minority tribe that, according to Huan, is “very different” because the woman is the head of household. When a man and woman within the tribe marry, the woman must give the man’s family five water buffalo. She is then responsible for working hard to make a living for her family while the man stays home with the children. Minority is right!

The art of coffee
Huan explains to Marc the process of drying coffee beans (which they are sitting around) before putting them through a machine that removes the hard skin. He also told us that Vietnam is the number two exporter of coffee in the world. Good thing they wore their helmets.

Mound of skin
A giant mound of coffee skins, sprinkled with garbage of course. The coffee skins are regularly used as fuel for fires at food stands and on street corners. To the left is the machine used for removing the skins – notice that it’s mobile.

Lat Village
View from our pit stop at a coffee stand in the Lat Village. The coffee shop also harvested mushrooms and made rice wine, which Huan and Hung called "medicine." Huan claimed the "medicine" cured minor ailments like toothaches and headaches within hours and other illnesses after drinking and a good night's rest. We tried this "medicine" which was about the equivalent of 60 proof vodka with apples and bananas soaking in it.

Linh An Pagoda
The focal point of the Linh An Pagoda near Elephant Falls is these three Buddhas. Notice the swastikas on their chests – in Vietnamese culture, swastikas mean “good luck” and are commonly seen on religious figures, coffins, and tombs. Huan even had one tattooed on his left hand. It has nothing to do with the swastika associated with Nazi Germany.

Me and the monk
Me and the monk from the Linh An Pagoda. I just found out that Marc changed the photo to black and white to hide my shiny sunburned face.

Silk worms
We visited a traditional silk centre where they used machinery to make the same kind of silk garments the woman at the Koho tribe was making by hand. Each silk worm cocoon yielded 800 metres of thread!

Crazy House
Within Da Lat stands the Hang Nga Crazy House, a structural complex that is difficult to describe and hard to comprehend through pictures: sort of gothic, definitely tacky, with giant spider webs, maze-like walkways and various animal-themed rooms that you can actually stay in.

More craziness
The woman who built Crazy House has a PhD in architecture and is the daughter of a former Vietnamese president. Within this building, there are various portraits, shrines and artifacts remembering her parents and other ancestors, as well as bibliographies, newspaper articles, and letters written in Vietnamese.

Da Lat Station
Our last stop on the tour was Da Lat’s train station. The station is mostly decorative, though a train will take you 30 minutes to a nearby village.

Grains
At the central market in Da Lat

Strawberries
We bought a kilo for $1.25. They were delicious.

The Da Lat Tower
Proving its French influence from when Vietnam was a French colony, does this tower remind you of anything?

Break dancer
Local boys showed us their moves in a park near the central market.

Comments

[Auntie Marcia]

Drinking my coffee....
a premium blend of Arabica and Robusta beans. I tried it as a sample in a grocery store, and when I learned it was from Vietnam, bought it.....just because. I giggled as I sipped it this morning, looking at the pic of you Marc, with the coffee beans. They may be the worlds second largest exporter now, but they just sold another pound because of the Smiths. Cheers!