A Dalat-ful trip

Dalat, Central Vietnamese Highlands
April 5-7

APRIL 5
We woke up refreshed and ready for the next leg of our journey: Mui Ne-->Dalat. A jam packed mini-van bus showed up and we were clearly more than thrilled when we were all cramped into the very last row. We met some nice Australian girls who kept us entertained as we were jostled around like pinballs for hours on the less than ideal mountain roads…at least the scenery was great!

Our bus pulled up to Binh Yen Hotel which turned out to be the one we were hoping to stay at and for $5 a person we got 2 huge rooms with some of the most comfortable beds I’ve slept on, free breakfast and an Incredible staff. We were pretty hungry so we wandered around the town for a bite to eat before making our way out to the cable car. Dalat is a really beautiful city in the green mountains of central Vietnam. It was probably the coldest place we’ve been in all of Asia and we even had to wear longsleeves and pants at night (what an amazing feeling!) It’s not too big, but is very well maintained and clean with a central lake and many gardens; the lake was actually a big empty pit as they are working to make it bigger, but a little imagination goes a long way! The cable car turned out to be a bust as we hiked our way through town to the top of a peak to find there was a storm a-brewin’ and it wasn’t safe to ride. Oh well, at least we saw the town (including the post office which is a miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower—not sure why?).

Evening found us relaxing in our chalet-like hotel watching English movies and finally venturing out for some Vietnamese dinner. The food in Vietnam wasn’t my favorite; it’s good, but doesn’t have the same big flavors. We made our way to this crazy place called 100 Roofs for ice cream. It’s this restaurant that makes you feel like you are inside of a giant tree trunk and has more levels/half levels/staircases/nooks/crannies, etc. than anywhere I’ve seen. It wasn’t the most amazing ice cream in the world, but it was definitely somewhere to experience!

APRIL 6
This was one of my favorite days during our summer break as we rented motorbikes and Phouc, an awesome worker at our hotel, took us on a tour through the mountains/countryside. Emily rode with Phouc, Josie and Mark were together, another guide drove around a woman we dubbed Frenchie (she was French and we couldn’t really pronounce her name) and I rode solo (by choice as I’ve not always had the best luck on motorized vehicles and was really only looking to be responsible for myself this time!)

Stop 1: We motored our way out of the city and up to a spot overlooking the mountains and the valley filled with vibrant green terraces and clear skies.

Stop 2: Flower farm. Here we spent some time wandering the endless rows of bright flowers, taking in the smells and even eating some of the plants. Frenchie, who turned out to be somewhat negative, was not impressed; she kept going on and on about l’chemicals (l’shhhemicaaals) and how ‘zey are destroying zee flowers and zee smells are zee same’ and that in ‘Paree we ‘ave zee zame problem and all over zee world too.’ Then she started going on about l’chemicals in food and how l’corporations are ruining it…etc. We had to laugh, because, although she was nice, she was just so French.

Stop 3: Coffee plantation. This was more of a stop on the side of the road, but it was really cool to see that they grow/harvest coffee in Vietnam. Phuoc showed us the different ages of the beans and said Vietnam is one of the top exporters of coffee in the world which was really interesting!

Stop 4: Rice wine distillery. Imagine rubbing alcohol mixed with gasoline and flavored with old rice and you get rice wine right out of the still. We spent some time watching the process in action and were lucky (or unlucky) enough to taste it right from the spigot (before it had been diluted/aged). GROSS—it felt like someone was taking fire and just holding it in your throat and then putting a skunk tail on your tongue. Needless to say, we didn’t buy any rice wine J It was cool though to see it up close, because it wasn’t in a factory or brewery it was literally these metal tubs with some pipes connected together in someone’s barn.

Stop 5: Silk farm. Ever wondered how silk is made? Well I can tell you! It starts with the little silk worms which eat an absurd amount of mulberry leaves and begin to spin a cocoon of white fishing line-esque string. Once the cocoon is spun to completion and the worms are dormant the cocoons are put into water where they are separated from their little creators (my guess is that if this doesn’t happen the worm turns into a moth and the silk is ruined.) After separating out the cocoons, they are unwound onto spools and then further spun until we get the thread that is used in clothing. This place is filled with trays and stacks and more trays of cocoons which they use to make silk during the low season for silk worms.

Stop 6: We ate lunch at a roadside ‘restaurant’ and all tried Pho, the national dish of Vietnam, which is basically a broth filled with noodles, some meat and a bunch freshly picked herbs. It’s a little bland and not really my favorite dish, but it was filling! After lunch we made our way to the Elephant waterfall for a bit of climbing and scenery-looking. At the bottom there was a place you could stand on the rocks where you were almost blown over by the combined force of the water and the wind howling through the crevices.

Stop 7: Mushroom farm. Yes, there is such a thing as a mushroom farm and it was kind of gross to see as many mushrooms as there were flowers earlier in the day. They grow them on this plastic punching-bag looking things filled with wood shaving and spores. The bags are slit in various spots and sprayed with water everyday and let to sit and grow. That’s a lot of fungi.

Stop 8: Chicken Village. This place was a bit strange as you would think they would be known for their chicken farms or something, but in reality it is so-named because of the GIANT chicken statue in the town. One of the locals told us the story of the chicken and here it is: Long ago there were 2 tribes and a poor girl from one tribe wanted to marry a man from the other tribe. Now the Chicken village tribe is matriarchal (Ga Oh in their language) meaning the women are the heads of household, the men take their last names and they have to pay a dowry to their husband’s family as opposed to the traditions we know; as a result this poor girl didn’t have the money to give to her husband’s family. The man’s family said if she wanted to marry him she would have to find a chicken with nine spurs on its legs (which is apparently impossible as chickens only have 8?) and in her search for this illusive chicken, she died. Thus, a nine-spurred GIANT chicken statue has been erected in her honor. Now ‘Chicken Village’ makes sense!

Stop 9: Crazy House. No better words can be used to describe this ‘house’ created by a Vietnamese architect. It’s like Dr. Seuss meets Alice in Wonderland meets the Vietnamese highlands. The house is more of a complex with various themed rooms (tiger room, eagle room, bear room, etc) filled with wacky designs and statues scattered amidst a maze of winding staircases and kooky bridges all tied together by the natural design of a house built into the trees. It’s very odd yet very whimsical to have something of this design smack dab in the middle of Vietnam.