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Published: August 19th 2007
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Aug 1 - Bus to Da Lat - arrive late
Aug 2 - Da Lat sight seeing
Aug 3 - Motorbike to Lac Lake
Aug 4 - Motorbike to Buon Ma Thuot
Aug 5 - Buon Ma Thuot and a bus from hell to Danang
On the bus from Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat, we met two guys, Nguyen ('Wing') and Thai who were Easy Riders - the local motorbike tour guides who will take you around the Central highlands for several days. We decided to go sight seeing around Dalat for one day and then do a 5 day tour through the Central Highlands up to Hoi An.
Dalat was such a cute town, much cooler than Saigon. Because of the typhoon hitting the coast of Vietnam, we ended up only going with the Easy riders for 2 days. But we still had so much fun. We would highly recommend traveling with the Easy Riders if you're coming to Vietnam - it is by far the best way to see the Central Highlands and by far our best tour experience in this country.
The first day we did a bit of sight seeing around Dalat with
Motorbike break
Our Easy Rider guides parked across the road on one of our stops in the central highlands. our guides - Wing, Thai and Yun. We visited the crazy house, which is an on-going project of a local woman/architect - it's a house made to be like a gigantic tree, the stairways wind around like a gigantic maze. We also visited one of the local pagodas and spent the rest of the rainy afternoon relaxing in this old French hill station. We even made it out at night to a local disco in the 'Golf 3 resort' - it was not exactly a place for exciting night life, but that was fine.
The next day we set off on the motorbikes with our guides from Dalat to Lac Lake in the Dac Lac provence of the central highlands. We stopped at the Dragon pagoda outside Dalat (we've nicknamed this buddha world because of all the colorful statues of the buddha and crazy colorful dragons everywhere). Winding up in the rain past Lady mountain, we stopped at a flower garden, a coffee plantation, a silk factory. We then stopped at Thac Voi, the elephant falls next to the huge Linh An pagoda. We visited the K'ho minority village and then stopped for lunch at Phu Son on top
Thac Voi - Elephant Waterfall
One of our stops with the Easy Riders of the mountain. It was drizzling, but still a lot of fun - we had lots of protection against the rain, including bags on our feet. We later stopped at a worm farm where the worms that are imported from China make their cocoons on big bamboo nets. We crossed the Klong no river into Dac Lac and visited the Ma minority village. Later we learned how they make the local rice wine, which our guide Yun refered to as happy water - it wasn't really so happy, kind of tasted disgusting, but Yun loved it. They also had a little pig farm, feeding the extra brown rice to the pigs. Upon arriving in Lac Lake, we found the roads were flooded - Wing's bike stalled and he told me to get off and walk - I was completely soaked. We got to our guest house in Lac Lake and had a lovely dinner with our 3 funny Easy Rider guides.
Day 2 wasn't nearly as pleasant, mainly due to the heavy rains. Our shoes were completely soaked and hadn't dried from the day before. Soaked to the bone for the entire day, it was a little exhausting, but
we still managed to see a lot of cool things. We stopped in the morning at a M'nong minority village in Dac Lac. We walked along a dam in the rain - next to the caves where the Vietcong hid out during the war. We thought it probably best not to venture too far into the woods from here. There are still many landmines in this area. By mid morning it was really pouring down, so we stopped at a local pottery seller to take a break. We met an old man who was in both the French and American wars - fighting with the Vietminh and Vietcong. He had since moved his family south - he showed us his metals he won (as Wing was translating for us). He wasn't bothered that we were Americans - though he did ask us if we had a dollar so he could keep it as a souvenier. I gave him the dollar bill I had in my wallet and he carefully inspected it and wrapped it in a cloth for safe keeping. He was so thrilled.
By late afternoon we reached the capital of the central highlands, Buon Ma Thuot. We
stopped for lunch at a very unappetizing vegetarian restaurant - we were still soaked to the bone and getting quite tired. We visited the tank monument in town and then our guides took us to see Dray Sop falls outside of town. When we got back, we were so tired and wet. It's amazing how tired you get when your feet are drenched all day long. We had a nice dinner with the guides and got to bed early. We decided to wait until the next day to see if the weather would clear up, but the typhoon in Vietnam was still in full force. We opted to get a night bus to Danang instead.
A little misleading, we arranged for a night bus the next day - It was the bus from hell! Vietnamese local buses should be avoided at all costs. We arrived at the bus station to find a minibus not much larger than a van already packed with 23 local people. There was no where to sit and we squeezed in next to a middle aged lady into the front row. They kept yelling at us in Vietnamese to scoot over, but considering that none
of them paid the 170,000 dong (about $10) for the journey, we were a bit irritated. Five people were squeezed into the front seat, they were chain smoking the whole way. At one point the burning butt flew from the front seat onto Evie's lap. Beyond being yelled at in Vietnamese constantly by the obnoxious locals, it was a scary journey, hydroplaning through flooded roads, honking and swerving though the traffic. It was impossible to sleep in the cramped conditions. We drove for the first 4 hours without stopping, and watching really bad films in Chinese with a Vietnamese overdub (one voice for all characters). We felt like the journey would never end. Eleven hours later we arrived in Danang - it was 3:30 in the morning and the bus station was empty. We found a local bus who drove up and took us to Hoi An for an inflated price. What were we gonna do about it. We eventually found a taxi and tried to find a place. After waking up several people at various guest houses we realized they were all full. We decided to shell out the extra cash and stay at the very nice Hoi An
Buddha world
Dragon Pagoda in Da Lat hotel. We were so tired and we essentially got two nights for the price of one because of the very early check in.
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