Vietnam, Hoi An - Thurs 29th April to Tues 4th May

Hoi An...In order to reach Hoi An we had to take a rather tiring over night train ride from Nha Trang. The train itself was pretty fun as Jake and I set about playing cards and drinking beer to pass the time. As we were required to talk in order to do this, we set ourselves on a collision course with the girls as all they wanted to do was sleep. As I prefer to drink beer and stay awake on overnight trips there were a few choice exchanges until both sides came to a sort of truce. The girls finally got some sleep and we got to play our cards, albeit rather quietly. The train was stiflingly hot and the wall next to me was crawling with cockroaches. It didn't bother us too much as this is Vietnam so what the hell do you expect?! After a lot of cards and once we had drained the train lady's cart of beer we were pretty merry and eager for a couple more 'nightcaps'. Jake earned the MVP award for the trip when he jumped off the train at about three thirty in the morning to buy beers from a lady on the platform as the train made a very brief stop. As there were no passengers I could see getting on or off I was having a vision of me waving good-bye to Jake through the window as he sprinted after our rapidly departing train. Luck was with him though and he made it back just as the train was ready to leave. Well, we thought it was good luck until we realised the beers he had risked it all for were as warm as cat's piss but I had to admire his committment and we drank them anyway. Nice one, Jake. The next day was pretty much a write off as we all recovered from the journey, our lack of sleep and the warm beers.

Hoi An itself is a former trading port with a rich and interesting history. The heart of the city is called 'Ancient town' and has alot of buildings and bridges etc dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. We spent some time wandering around this area checking out the cool old buildings and eating at lots of the yummy restaurants. One place in particular was pretty claaassy and had a lovely location right on the river next to the main footbridge over to the ancient town. It was the closest thing I had seen to a 'real' nice restaurant at home except for the prices. It was about $6 AUD for a three course meal and the food was excellent. Good luck finding that sort of value in Melbourne!

In spite of the charm of the Ancient town, there's only one real reason most people bother stopping in Hoi An. Clothes! Well, more correcly, tailors. This town must have the highest number of tailors per capita of anywhere in the world. Every street is lined with tailor shops and mannequins out the front sporting the resident tailor's wares. You can have anything you can imagine made here and you can even bring in a photo from a magazine or something of what you want, they'll measure you up and you'll be trying it on for size the next day. Now I must admit Kate and I did go a bit nuts here and we might've even gone over our expected budget too...just a little bit. We both wanted work clothes, suits and winter coats made for our arrival in England in September and we certainly achieved that. My tally ended up being about 6 shirts, three pairs of pants, six ties, two winter coats (one long and one short, got to mix it up you know...) and one suit-all tailor made. Kate had coats, blouses, skirts and a suit made up and all in all I think we blew about $1400! Money well spent I reckon and come September we'll be laughing, especially as we'll probably have no money for anything by then least of all work clothes. My custom suit cost $150 and it beats the arse off the one I bought off the rack in Melbourne for $600 so I reckon we didn't do too badly. Spend that sort of scratch in a tailors here and you can guarantee you'll have all the shop assistants falling over one another to serve you, bringing you all kinds of fabrics to choose from ("silk only please ladies...") and it's actually pretty damn fun. Trying on full length winter coats and suits in summertime Vietnam is a pretty good way to lose weight but it was a necessary evil as our clothes were fitted, adjusted, fitted and then adjusted again until they were perfect. The tailors come straight from the factory with their scooter helmet still on, make a few marks on the clothes, blazes back to the factory, makes the changes and then comes back again over and over again until you've got exactly what you want. It's a pretty new way to buy clothes for me but I must say I enjoyed it. The best part was once we were all finished and everything was ready to be sent to a friend of Kate's place in London (you must be dreaming if you think I'm carrying all that stuff with me through Asia!) the shop assistant rang the post office and a lady turned up quick smart to box up the clothes and take them back to the post office to be sent off. She put the box on the back of her scooter (of course...) and she was off, no worries! You'll be waiting a while before New Zealand post does house calls I reckon and I'm assuming the Vietnamese postal service is reliable...right?? Oh well, no matter now, it's on it's way and should reach the UK in about four months...hopefully.

So what else did we do in Hoi An?? As we had to attend several 'fittings' over about three days we were forced to hang around. Hoi An is at one end of 'China Beach' a thirty kilometre stretch of sand made famous as an R and R retreat for American soldiers during the Vietnam war. The beach is pretty sweet and the first afternoon we went there there was actually some alright surf, but sadly no surfboards. Sob sob. What is wrong with this country?! Anyway there was still fun to be had body surfing so all was not lost. When you go to the beach here it's actually better to spend your time in the water as much as possible rather than sit on the beach. This is because there is a never ending stream of hawkers, touts and sales persons patrolling the sand asking you every two minutes if you want to buy sunglasses, hammocks, chewing gum, lighters, smokes, beer, soft drink, pineapples, hammers, turnips, postcards, watches, bracelets, giraffes, unicycles and...arrrggh!! It goes on and on. I know the people have to make a living but fair dues. It does get on your tits a bit after a while.

On our final day in Hoi An we decided to go on an early morning trip out to Vietnam's version of Angkor Wat in Cambodia - My Son. For those who haven't been Angkor Wat is the spectacular ruins of an old civilisation in Cambodia I think, but we haven't been there yet so I'll get back to you about that. My Son (no I'm not talking about my imaginary offspring - that's the Vietnamese name of the place!) is about 70km's inland from Hoi An and we decided to do the sunrise tour as this gets you back in Hoi An by mid morning in time for us to catch our ride to our next destination. It was a pretty damn early start this day and I was feeling a bit off colour after consuming a few dodgy prawns the afternoon before. I was in two minds to go or not but in the end I thought I'll be right and I would live to regret that decision. The tour got off to a pretty bad start when the 'breakfast' we had paid for turned out to be a baguette and some fried egg on the footpath outside the tour operator's office. Both of those things Kate can't eat, and I was feeling so crook I couldn't face it either so after basically no brekkie it was into the extremely crowded van for a very stuffy trip to My Son. Things really got interesting when on the way out of town one of those street dogs that you see wandering all over the road in this part of the world was taking his morning stroll across a busy road. The driver drove very close to the dog, broke the Vietnamese golden rule of honking at absolutely everything and our unsuspecting pooch took a wrong turn at preciely the wrong second and.....whump!! Cue green tinged tree hugging Lefty from England seated near the back-"Uh What was that?" Driver-"Huh?" Tree hugger-"Was that a doag??" Driver-"mmnaahmm". As Kate and I were both seated at the front we knew most certainly that it was indeed a doag. Incredibly the tree hugger who was now visibly upset asked "Was it alive or was it dead?" (as in, before we hit it) I had to laugh as I thought to myself "well it's definitely dead now!" Poor dog. The driver never batted an eyelid and I get the feeling it wasn't the first four-legged pedestrian he had sent to the next world but when you see how the animals behave here I'm truly surprised more aren't killed.

So anyway the ruins themselves turned out to be, well, ruined. There wasn't a whole lot left standing and as I was sweating profusely and had my head in my hands I wasn't really in a position to appreciate them. Once you get there the bus leaves and you have to do a two km round trip out of there to meet up with the bus back down the hill and this was looking like it was going to be a lot further than I could manage. After nearly vomiting on the precious ruins I said good-bye to the tour group and decided to try to walk out the way we had come in in order to wait back at the bus. Just as well I did because I had taken no more than a dozen steps when the contents of my stomach leaped out of me and onto the path. A group of Vietnamese workers nearby having their brekkie paid me no more mind than if I'd stopped to smell the grass. They carried on drinking their coffee, chatting and smoking their ciggies while I tried to muster some shred of dignity and be off on my way back to the bus. By all accounts the ruins didn't get much more exciting than the part I had managed to see so I wasn't too concerned about missing out. On the way back the driver insisted on driving with the door of the mini-bus open and a Korean tourist flirted with death by falling asleep in his seat next to the door. As we took a particularly sharp corner at speed the sleeping bloke lurched in the direction of the door about to be smashed to bits on the road. Luckily for him, Jake wasn't asleep in the seat next to him, saw what was happening and saved the day. The guy finally woke up after his near death experience and muttered his gratitude but the rest of us were still contemplating the other possible outcome. Transportation seems to work like a sleeping potion on Asian people because as soon as the motor fires up they seem to drop off like lights. It beggars belief but we seem to see it time and time again. Truly mystifying stuff.


So anyway after our last needless purchase was made, the clothes were sent off and we had eaten all the yummy food we could manage we headed about twenty kilometres up the beach to the 'real' China Beach. We were going to stay at a place called 'Hoa's place' right on the beach where they run it kind of like a half guest house half home stay. It's a really cool place, they actually have surf boards and Hoa is a real character. But more about that next time. 'Til then.



Tim and I.



The crew waiting in anticipation for the famous Hoi An noodle dish, cau lau. You can see that we are sitting on very small seats - the seats given to the Vietnamese were even smaller than ours!



Amanda, Jake, and Tim eating cau lau. The dish consisted of fat noodles, herbs, a few slices of roast, dough fritters (which actually may have been bits of crispy pork) and some broth. Authentic cao lau uses only water from a special well in the city - I'm not sure if ours were authentic. They were reasonable cheap 20,000VND ($1) per bowl. The boys needed 2 bowls to fill them up.



Across the street from where we ate our cau lau, were really old ladies (probably in their 80s) selling heaps of touristy things like whistles. To the left was an old lady selling sweet black seseame soup for 5000VND per bowl ($0.25). I am a big fan of black seseame ice cream so I thought I would give the soup a go - and yes it goooood!! After finishing the bowl, I was given a cup of tea to wash down the soup.



Amanda eating her food at the $US6 restuarant.



Building in the ancient town.



View of the river which runs through the old town. If you look closely you can see a boat on the river.



The bridge with heaps of lanterns hanging from it.



Another photo of the bridge with lanterns.



One day we thought we would get out of Hoi An and have a look at one of the beaches and the country side. We ended up at a beach with a few restuarants on the shoreline as well as on the beach. The ladies on the beach were selling soups, bbq squid and more noddle soups!



The fishermen use these round boats. Thin oars are used to propel the boats forward which must use a lot of man power!



Amanda, Jake and Tim sitting on deck chairs at the restaurant we ate at. We think the prawns Tim ate here made him sick the next day!

My Son

My Son was destoyed in the Vietnam war. There are a few archeologists who are trying to preserve the ruins and have tried to reconstruct the buildings. You can see this inside one of the buildings where on the right side of the wall there are numerous bullet holes from the fighting that occurred here and on the left hand side of the wall it has been reconstructed with cement.



A picture of the some of the buildings. They say if you have seen Angkor Wat then you would be disappointed with My Son.



A lake filled with water lillies.



Rice paddies.

Vietnam, Nha Trang - Mon 26th April to Wed 28th April

Nha Trang…Ahh Nha Trang. Now this place was cool. The hotel we arrived at via a recommendation from the crew at Jungle Beach was awesome. A big roof top balcony that we spent many a minute sinking a few ‘Tigers’ and chilling out on. The rooms were tidy and it was right in the heart of the main city area. Kate, who is probably the smartest person I know just quietly, thought to Google skate shops in Nha Trang before we arrived. This was something I must admit hadn’t occurred to me and we were both surprised to see a skate shop had opened just two weeks prior to our arrival.

Now this next bit I’m going to write definitely has a skateboard slant but that is unavoidable I’m afraid as most of the time we spent in Nha Trang was spent sampling the many fine local skate spots. The skate shop was owned by a solid as bloke named Paul Trinh. Paul was an American of Vietnamese descent born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He had recently moved back to Vietnam to start a skate shop in a city with about five skaters. Brave guy. He was also as it happens a top bloke and within thirty seconds of meeting him, Jake and I had a ’skate date’ arranged for the following night. Sweet. Paul’s shop had some really nice stuff in it and anyone who skates that is reading this, if you go to Vietnam, go to Nha Trang, hit up Paul at Anchor skate shop and he’ll suss you out. But I’ll return to the skateboarding later.

On our second day we decided to go on a boat trip around the picturesque Nha Trang Bay and check out a few of the sights. Our tour cost about $7 AUD and promised exciting activities such as, a trip to the aquarium, snorkelling, lunch, local music, traditional singing and dancing, floating bar and a visit to a nice local beach for some sun and swimming. Holy Yassis!! This turned out to be a boat trip with a difference.

First of all, our host initially came across as a bit of a sleazy young buck who offered to rub all the girls sunscreen on and help them with their bikinis all the while reminding us that he was ‘single’. To start with I thought this guy was a chump and I didn’t hold much hope that our boat trip would turn out to be memorable for the right reasons. Thankfully once we got going, this guy kind of grew on us once it became apparent that he was more of an irreverent larrikin than a greasy sleaze merchant.

The first stop was the aquarium which was set in a building made to look like an evil pirate ship. This place was tacksville and even the fish managed to look embarrassed. To top it off the place was packed with about ten tour boats worth of tourists snapping away at the giant fish in tiny tanks and it’s hard to believe this place would have ever had a ’glory days’ that it could reminisce for. Packing thirty or so massive turtles in a tank that had more in common with a bathtub than a suitable habitat is never going to be cool and I was even starting to feel sorry for the hideous Moray eels!

Shock horror aside we continued our journey from here to an island across the bay that promised snorkelling and the chance to see lots of fish. What we got though was probably the worst snorkelling I have encountered. There was almost no coral and certainly very few fish so we were pretty disappointed. To top it off we were not snorkelling in a channel or off the beach, we had simply pulled up at a pontoon just off the beach that had about five other boats moored, a restaurant selling food and beer, and a cowboy run jet-ski operation. One jet-ski operator did give us all a laugh though when he came in far too fast with two tourists on the back. He tried to be cool and chuck a big rooster tail by the edge of the jetty but he instead succeeded in flipping the jet-ski and sending his clients flying into the water quickly followed by himself. The jet-ski was completely capsized and we were losing it as the poor unfortunates surfaced and the pilot was forced to rescue his ski rather red-faced.

At this point I thought it was going to be a long afternoon but thankfully things were about to turn around. Jake and I soon discovered that although the snorkelling sucked, the jumping off the upper deck of the boat into the water was much better. We amused our selves diving and bombing off the boat for the best part of the next hour and, wouldn’t you know it, once we started the other guests on the boat all decided to give it a try. Pretty soon people were jumping in all over the place and many a person was coaxed into giving it a shot in spite of their initially vehement protests.

Now I realise so far most of this boat trip sounds pretty negative but after we had a delicious lunch served to us on the boat things began to look up. We had been promised some singing and dancing, what I didn’t realise was that it was the people on the boat trip that would be required to do the singing and dancing! It turned out that ‘the band’ was actually the host and the other boat staff. The drum kit consisted of literally a bunch of old cooking pots arranged as a kit and the singing in particular left a lot to be desired, but it was all great fun. The host pledged to sing a song from every country of the people present on the trip and he set about doing just that. Once he asked where you were from, he demanded he join you on top of the table with the band to sing a song from your country with him. We had Germany, China, The Netherlands, we even had Russia! When it came to our little Kiwi corner I was hiding my eyes pretty well below the peak of my cap and as luck would have it, our host focused in on Jake. What followed next was one of the most moving displays of New Zealanderness I have ever had the privilege of witnessing.

Jake was literally dragged up there to the cheers of the mini UN assembled and to the relief ridden ‘pheeews’ of our contingent. Jake was asked by our host to perform, of all things, a haka! Not one to be easily rattled, Jake led the young Vietnamese host fellow in one of the most blood curdling, spine-chilling hakas that has surely ever been performed. All I can say is the All-Blacks ain’t got jack-shit on Jake and by the end of his performance the whole boat was cheering and clapping wildly, even if some of our more mild mannered Asian guests looked suitably terrified.

The next component of the trip was the ‘floating bar’ and this involves our host being attached to a floating bar like device, jumping in the water, throwing everyone else a life saving ring, and then proceeding to pour free drinks for us all to enjoy whilst bobbing around off the side of the boat. The boat trip had certainly improved and we all had a blast, splashing about in our floatation devices drinking cheap and nasty port tasting wine. All the while our barman/host shouted things like ‘up the bum, don’t tell ya mum!!’, putting everyone in a kind of ’this is so bad it’s good’ mood and as it was we all enjoyed the floating bar tremendously.

Alright so after a visit to a pretty average beach the boat trip ended and it was time for mine and Jake’s skate date. Paul turned out to be good to his word and we sampled a fine offering of Nha Trang’s many street skating options under cover of darkness. I will save you non-skaters the gory details but suffice to say Jake and I had a great time. Paul was pretty stoked to be having a ’real’ skate with a couple likely lads like us and ended up getting a bit carried away. He snapped his board on a perfect bank spot next to a bridge and it was time to go drink at his mate’s bar and dissect the skate session that just was. I had a pretty fun jam, Jake did too and even managed to squeeze in some photos and all in all it was a hell time. One thing I’ve learned is this; it doesn’t matter where you go, if you skate, and you’re not a dick to people, then the skateboarding brotherhood will always hook you up no matter where you are. Thanks Paul.
The next day, Jake and I spent the day drinking 50 cent cans of Tiger and watching skate vids at Paul’s shop whilst the girls sunned themselves down at the beach. Perfect. We also managed to make a few small purchases of essential items just for good measure. Paul then took us out, courtesy of the skate shop account, to the best seafood dinner I have had in a very long time. Local knowledge means getting local treatment rather than the usual tourist fare. Paul took us to a place with mouth watering BBQ prawns, crab that we were able to pick out of the tank before sacrificing for our dinner and squid that was simply the best I have tasted anywhere. Thanks Paul-you’re a bloody good bloke! We were all genuinely sad to be leaving Nha Trang as we had had such a great time but Kate and I had vowed to drop in again on our way back down Vietnam in a couple of weeks. After our amazing dinner it was time to head to the train station for our twelve hour overnight journey up to Da Nang and the tailor’s paradise town of Hoi An. Twelve hours on a train overnight with Jake and 50 cent beers, you know it’s going to be fun. But more about that next time. ’Til then.

Local seafood restaurant.

The crew at the local seafood restaurant.


We had prawns [the best i have had in my life], squid, and crab. These are our yummy crabs!


Paul.


The locals drop all their food rubbish on the ground. I thought I would try and be a local and this was the result!!

Boat crew.

Dancing on the boat at karaoke time.


Jake doing the haka.


The boat band.


Tim and me.


Tim diving off the boat.

Vietnam, Jungle Beach - Fri 23rd April to Mon 26th April

Jungle Beach…Jungle beach is located sixty km’s north of the smallish coastal city of Nha Trang on the South Eastern seaboard of Vietnam. After another long bus ride to cover a relatively small number of kilometres we arrived in Jungle Beach via mini van taxi from Nha Trang. Jungle Beach is not a place as such but is the name of the beach camp where you stay on a relatively nice beach which has a local name that I’m not sure of. I had been expecting for Jungle Beach to be in, well, a jungle. So I was surprised to see that it was actually at one end of a small town’s beach, albeit a very quiet one. This aside, the camp itself was actually pretty cool. The owner Sylvio, an ex-pat Canadian who has built the place up over the last ten years, gave us the usual speech explaining how it all works and you got a sense that this was the ten thousandth time he had delivered his spiel as he managed to do almost all of it with his eyes completely closed!

The place is run like a kind of camp where all your meals are included in the daily rate and everyone eats together. This was a new experience for Kate and I as we were used to doing our own thing, but the plus side is that you get to know all the people who are staying there. At the time we were there, there were about a dozen to fifteen people, many of whom were working in Vietnam as English teachers. A group of oldies from NZ were there for our first night and one of the old girls had actually lived two streets away from where I grew up in Christchurch, Edinburgh St represent! Most of the nights were spent drinking the 50 cent bottles of beer and yarning to the others staying there.

They also had a table tennis table and Jake and I had many good games of which I must confess I usually won. Full credit to Jake though, he finally did get one back off me on the last night, after about twenty beers and twenty straight games of trying!!

Jungle Beach also had another surprise in store, for me in particular. Surf! Alright so it wasn’t exactly Bells beach, but if you throw a starving man a morsel he’s going to think it was the best damn food he ever tasted and this kind of sums up how I felt. The waves were small and clean and there was certainly no-one other than Jake and I surfing. The only drawback was that the boards that the camp had would probably been rejected from a surf museum for being too old. They were just about unusable. ’Bertha’ the long board had a busted nose that would flap back and hit you in the head if you tried to duck dive and this board was the best of the bunch! Like I say, starving man and all that so I was out there anyway and I did have a lot of fun. It was actually very clean and surfable so I even got up for a ’dawny’ on the last day-around 8am! The only trouble was that due to Bertha’s poor state of health and her being basically toxic she gave me the worst rash on my chest and backs of my knees. Oh well, no complaints here, at least I managed to get about a hundred waves all to myself-stoked. On the last night Jake and I even got a night surf in the piss warm water of the South China Sea under a full moon which I must say was a pretty awesome experience.

Surfing aside there wasn’t a whole lot of activities to do other than chill on the beach under one of the camp’s special bamboo shade sails that some poor bloke had to set up on the sand each morning. The girls were definitely pretty happy with that but as usual I, and normally Jake too when he wasn’t chilling, needed a little more to keep me occupied. As luck would have it there was a nice waterfall complete with cliff jump about thirty minutes walk from the camp so off we went.

The first time we went to this place there was a group of about twenty or so Vietnamese people having picnics and, of course, a lot of beers for the men. The boys were pretty much smashed when we turned up and greeted us like long lost friends. In an instant I had a beer in my hand and a whole swag of new best friends to pose for pictures with. They were all very friendly, but it is a little sad to see that most of the beer cans and rubbish got turfed straight into the pool below the waterfall. Oh well, I guess conservation and protection of the local ecology hasn’t quite taken off in Vietnam amongst a lot of the locals yet, hopefully one day I suppose.

The waterfall was actually pretty sweet and you could swim right underneath it and let the water caress your big bald head and…well anyway, you get the picture. You could also scale up the rock wall and have a jump off a ledge about five metres above the pool. There was a jump a lot higher above the pool but in order to reach the jumping spot you had to climb over a rock that I, unfortunately, was just not nimble enough to get over. The locals however went up there like spider man and were literally raining down on the pool like a tropical afternoon shower.

We actually came back here the next day and met a group of kids that were the definition of rambunctious scamps. They dived, bombed, and laughed their way through the entire time we were there and took great delight in beating each over the head with a polystyrene chilly bin lid. Pieces of this they used as floatation devices to stay afloat as they weren’t the most competent swimmers but, unfortunately, all the broken pieces stayed in the water and floated down into the lower pools.

So Jungle beach was a pretty nice place to chill for a few days and we all had a nice time talking to all the other guests from around the place about their experiences teaching and/or travelling in Vietnam. After three nights it was once again to pack our bags, say good bye to new friends and move on. This time we didn’t have far to go as we had decide to go back to Nha Trang to stay for a couple nights. We had passed through on our way to Jungle Beach from Da Lat so we were keen to see what this well known amongst the locals tourist destination had to offer. Once again we were in for some surprises but more about that next time. ’Til then.



Strange insect or moth we found on our walk to the waterfall. There must have been at least 100 of these insects on the tree. Very stange!


Tim on the cliff {on the left} before his jump.


Tim and the little kids at the waterfall. They were having a fight with pieces of polystyrene. Many of the locals cannot swim so they use the polystryrene as a floating device.


Tim surfing.


Someone found this tiny green snake near or in their bungalow. It is very poisonous so the workers at the guesthouse killed the snake and then threw it into a nearby bush.

Vietnam, Da Lat - Tues 20th to Thu 22nd April

Da Lat….After the seven and a half hour bus journey required to cover the 300km’s to Da Lat from Saigon we finally arrived brow-beaten and weary in Da Lat. Seven hours to go 300km’s! This gives you some insight as to the traffic and the state of the roads. At one point we saw a truck on it’s side, the front axle with the wheels still attached lying about five metres from the rest of the truck. It also had a nasty split in the windshield right about where the driver would have been sitting but as our bus lumbered past we pushed this thought from our minds.

Da Lat is supposed to be ’beeerry beaut-a-ful’ and is a popular spot for Vietnamese honeymooners and holiday makers alike. After we arrived I must admit I was struggling a bit to see why. First of all it was cold! That’s something we certainly haven’t been many times on our trip so far and it came as a bit of a shock. It was also quite wet as Da Lat is at an elevation of about 1500m’s above sea level. Each afternoon there would be a sudden storm in which the heavens would open before the cool sun faithfully returned. We pottered about in and around the town courtesy of our scooters that we rented for about $4 AUD per day, but the whole place seemed a little lack lustre and I began to fear that this place was one of those over-rated tourist spots that consists of dreary attractions and inclement weather.

What we discovered was that it is the area around Da Lat that really makes this a place worth visiting. As we had motorbikes already we decided to hire one of the renown local motorcycle guides known as the ’Easy Riders’. Joseph was one of the original easy riders who have now been copied by an array of locals trying to pass themselves off as the real thing. He led us around the surrounding countryside on an epic tour that lasted a bum-splitting seven hours! We visited coffee plantations, mushroom factories, silk factories, waterfalls and ’minority’ villages. The food and drink farms don’t sound particularly exciting but you don’t actually go to a proper factory, you just stop at a place that is growing the coffees or mushrooms and have a wander around! Joseph gave us all the local info as we went and was a great guide. At the waterfall you could walk right underneath the falls and get totally soaked which was great fun. A huge storm came through as we went to leave the ’Elephant falls’ and we were forced to sit in a corrugated iron food and drink shack enjoying 50 cent beers until the storm passed and yes I only had one…

The minority village was a real highlight as the local lady we met there gave us a lot of awesome information about how the ethnic minority people live in Vietnam. The Vietnamese people as we think of them today actually came down to the south from the north and before they arrived there were many ’minority’ people living there. There are some twenty nine different minority groups living in and around the southern highlands area all with their own distinct language and culture. Our guide Joseph pointed out the irony of the fact that the North Vietnamese during the war vehemently opposed the colonialism of the South where their ancestors had long ago enslaved the minority groups that had previously inhabited the same area!

The group we visited is a matriarchal society which basically means the woman is the boss…sound familiar?? Jokes aside, in this village the woman really does rule and the men have to follow the woman’s orders at all times. We learned that if a girl wants to marry she approaches her chosen beau’s family and has to pay them a fixed dowry. The dowry consists of five cows and twenty sarongs that she has to hand weave herself and then she is allowed to marry the bloke. If a family has a daughter that they can’t afford a dowry for then she simply stays single for life, in spite of this it is still considered better fortune to have a lot of daughters-go figure! They also have children often starting from a very young age. Contraceptives provided to them gratis from the government often end up given to visiting foreign tourists or used as substitute balloons by the numerous small children of the village J Having huge families is also part of their culture so it looks like the government has it’s work cut out for them.

The central market in Da Lat is also worth a mention as this place gives a whole new meaning to the ’fresh food people’. Huge frogs in woven cages, dozens of hens cooped up in the same basket, fish chopped in half and freshly bleeding onto the ground, chickens gutted and splayed openly on the counter tops covered in flies and so on. One fish we saw had jumped it’s bucket and was leaping valiantly away from its captors down the street. We actually cheered the little fella on in his nose-thumbing of his tormentors but we may have unintentionally alerted them to his plight and all too soon he was back in the bucket with his friends, road dirt and all. At least he tried… I think Amanda might have struggled with the ’realness’ of this particular market as she disappeared. Kate however seemed just fine and was busy taking lots of snaps of the assorted delicacies including a top shot of an old lady napping at her stall while the market carried on around her. Typical country girls, they’ve seen it all before!

As I am struggling to recall much else of note that occurred during our stay in Da Lat I may as well end here. All in all it was a nice place to visit. Kitsch lovers would enjoy this place but for me the highlight was seeing the countryside around the city itself. After several days in the highlands it was time to head back down towards the coast to a place called ‘Jungle Beach’. After a few days cooling off I was looking forward to warming my bones and seeing what the beach in Vietnam has to offer. Once again we were in for a few surprises but lots of cheap beer and sun. Sounds good eh? ‘Til then.

Easy rider countryside tour
Tim, Joseph, our guide, and me.


Rice paddies.


A road we travelled down. Amanda and Jake are in front of us on their scooter.


An old looking truck.


Amanda and Jake on their scooter.


Super cute kids from the minority villiage. They absolutely loved getting their photo taken.


Minority villiage vegie patch.


Cute little kid. The day before the little boy had fallen over and grazed his nose.


Inside this little shed were 2 cows and a calf. These cows are used for the dowries.


This young girl was 'sewing' a sarong out of silk.


Workers at the mushroom farm putting the mushrooms out to dry in the sun.


Eating dinner at a local place that Joseph {our guide} recommended. We had sooo much food for 30,0000D per person {AU$1}. It was a feast!


The view of the man-made lake from our restuarant. It was filled with fish.


The view of some misty hills.


Elephant falls.


Elephant falls.

Coffee beans. Vietnam is the third biggest exporter of coffee.


Tim posing in his helmet. This was our first stop on our tour - we stopped for the view. In the Vietnam war, the Da Lat district was covered in Agent Orange. Now, the country side is covered in pine trees and Euculypus trees.


The country side.


The country side.


A ceremontry and the country side.

Da Lat Market
Geese in a cage.


The fish that got away!


Chickens packed into a small cage.


Eels


A fish seller.


The meat market.


Market lady sleeping on the job.


View of the street and houses next to the market.

Da Lat life
View of houses from our hotel.


View of the main street from our hotel after it had rained.


An old, cheerful man on his motorbike.


Vietnam is one of the 3rd largest exporter of coffee. Suprisingly, Vietnam has a huge cafe culture - but the cafes are slightly different from ours in that they only serve drinks, mainly, coffee {Coffee is called Cafe here}. Every morning while we were in Da Lat we went to this little cute Cafe which served coffee in shot glasses and free tea. The kind owners taught us a few vietnamese phases as well!