Day 4- Central Highlands - Yok Don

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19 May 2009

Up early for a shower, fairly new bathtub but I think the plumbing could use a little work as we had a river through the middle of the bathroom.

The buffet breakfast at the hotel was interesting. Noodles, fried rice, sweet and sour something, fermented eggs and other stuff I couldn’t identify. So it was a plate of fried rice and sweet and sour for me, followed by bread roll and jam. $2 each so can’t complain.

Met Nhan at 8.30, first stop to a Cui Dai temple in BMT to observe morning prayers then on to Yok Don National Park, the largest in Vietnam. On the way we stopped at an Ede Minority village. Ede minority are a matriarchal people where children take the mothers name. The houses were primarily stilt houses with the number of windows signifying the number of daughters.

At Yok Don our first visit was to the house of Emperor Bao Dai’s elephant trainer. He was built a large house by the emperor. He is now 93 with 10 wives, 20 children and 100 grandchildren. Had some rice wine - bit like a really bad port.

The next hour I could have done without. Kim wanted to ride an elephant, so I agreed. Had to wait for a while for a big one to come back - they didn’t want to kill any of their small ones with big westerners. Climbing in to the ‘chair’ off the raised platform wasn’t a problem but fitting our legs in was - they were made for people about 3 foot tall with a 3 inch board to sit on and a 1 inch board as a backrest. A very uncomfortable 45 minutes and I now have a wonderful collection of bruises across my bum and back. Being that bit taller than their usual passengers I also had to keep an eye out for power and phone lines and trees!

A series of swing bridges took us to our lunch spot, but not before the fairly distressing sight of monkeys, deer and crocodiles in small cages. We got the feeling that we were also on display with a number of locals taking our photo and wanting photos with us. Our driver said they thought I was handsome but Kim had another theory - that they were all Austin Powers fans and wanted a photo of Fat Bastard - not nice!

Lunch was great, a whole BBQ chicken with lemon grass, rice and sticky rice. Interesting ‘apples’ one like a cross between apple and pear and the other like a red greengage. A couple of beers and a lie down on the mats provided all for 200,000 (15 dollars) for the four of us.

Dinner was just up the road from the hotel - a BBQ place that would seat 500 and it was pretty full. Lots of big groups with lots of toasts and then drop your empty on the floor along with anything else you have finished with. They bought the beer to tables by the crate, not cold of course, so it was ice in the glass first. We had fried rice, stir fried morning glory and garlic and then barbecued clams - all delicious. Total cost including 5 Tigers, 2 Heineken and 2 Saigon beers (guess who was drinking what?) came to $18 - got to love that.

Will add pics later - bit limited here for decent connection.

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