The Easy Riders
Today was an incredible day! So incredible that we have packed away those bus tickets I was telling you about yesterday and adopted ourselves some easy riders instead!
Loc and Tin Tin picked us up this morning from our hotel and biked us around not only Dalat but the surrounding area for the day. Mr Loc - my driver - is a wrinkled little shrimp of a man with an incredible smile that makes his eyes go all squinty and a laugh like a little kid. He is old, I dont know how old but old in a balding, wrinkled, arthritic kind of way. He is lovely though! Tin Tin is much younger (and much taller) than Loc and is charming and funny and thoughtful and really hard to listen to because his accent is half french and half vietnamese.. very confusing!!
The bikes were great! Not at all like the little 100cc bikes that everyone around here drives but ACTUAL bikes! Its amazing how much safer I felt on a bike with a proper sized seat! The helmet also helped (although I look ridiculous it eases my mind no end!) Both Loc and Tin Tin were excellent drivers, taking it slow and being really careful (very unusual to see here!) I felt really safe - which I wasnt expecting!
Our first stop for the day was the 'Crazy House' right here in Dalat. The building is 15 years old and was designed by the presidents daughter, who is an architect.. it is just an incredible place! Like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. The place isnt finished yet but we are certainly coming back to see it when it is done. Each room is designed differently, some small and cave-like, others huge and spacious. the walls have been built up with concrete in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and designs and there are crazy staircases all over the place leading to different levels and different rooms. Each room is themed.. in one there is a giant Kangaroo (looking kind of evil with red lightglobes for eyes)! The windows are all crazy shapes and there are strangely hidden fireplaces in each room. Its so difficult to describe but we took heaps of photos so maybe you will get the idea. We walked around for about an hour but we didnt see it all.. there was so many details we didnt notice on the first or second look! Each of the rooms has a bed (with stategically placed mirrors which was a bit odd) and can be rented out for a night if you want to stay which we will do next time I think. The place was great.. so much fun!
Our next stop was to visit the 'Crazy Monk' (no relation to crazy house!) who is a bit of a local celebrity. He looks after one of the pagodas here (he is the only monk in residence) and has a reputation for being a bit loopy. He paints pictures and sells them to tourists who come and visit him. He is currently saving for a world tour and plans on visiting all the people who buy his paintings! According to the lonely planet he has painted more than 100000 individual paintings and has them hanging all over the temple! We were looking forward to meeting him and were wanting to buy one of his works so that we could become part of his world tour but when we arrived he lived up to his 'crazy monk' status. The temple was all closed up, all the wooden doors closed and locked.. which is unusual.. we wandered around outside making a lot of noise hoping to get someones attention. The crazy monk finally came out (or poked his head out at least) and said that he was too busy and we should come back later!!! Some Monk! We suspect that the crazy monk may have been having a little fun with a lady friend inside.. when he answered the door he was wearing a long coat.. flasher style! We went back out to our drivers who laughed about how strange the crazy monk was (the easy riders have a bit of reputation for not liking the crazy monk.. who they call the business monk because he makes so much money selling all his paintings and isnt really much of a monk at all)
After our not so successful crazy monk visit we left the town area and headed out the country.. we stopped by the side of the road at one point and chatted (or at least loc and tin tin did) to some workers there, they showed us how they cut the granite rocks off the boulders on the mountains and then chisel them all down to the same size to sell for making bridges and stuff.. such hard work! no machinery at all just a chisel, a hammer and a crowbar. When I exclaimed how much work it was he looked a little confused and asked how we make granite at home. I said I didnt know but I suspected we probably bought it from Vietnam.. he thought that was great!
We visited a whole bunch of private farms owned by friends of the guys. A silk worm farm, a coffee plantation, a rice wine distillery in some old mans basement, a bamboo weaving family, a mushroom farm, and the silk factory where they remove the silk from the cocoons and weave scarves (factory isnt quite the right word.. more like a rusty bunch of noisy machines and a lot of hard working girls).
For lunch they took us to a little vietnamese restaurant run by a friend of theirs where there was no english on the menu (in fact there was no menu!) and we sat on plastic chairs around a plastic table. They ordered a meal for us that can only be described as a feast! Delicious fresh vegetables from the area, salted fried fish, pork, a chicken dish, a tofu dish, curried prawns and a massive bowl of soup (all with rice of course).. it was - BY FAR - the best meal we have eaten since we left home.. absolutely delicious.. its incredible the difference in the food when you have locals ordering for you! We ate and ate and chatted and ate and chatted and then finished the meal with some green tea and a cigarette (which we ashed on the floor!! It is the vietnamese way according to Tin Tin.. I felt so bad!!)
After lunch we visited the biggest waterfall I have EVER seen. It was spectacular! Its called the Elephant waterfall because there are massive volcanic rocks at the base of the waterfall which - from above - look like a family of elephants. We made ourway down to the base of the waterfall, scrambling over hundreds of massive rocks.. it was hard work but well worth it.. the view was incredible! Getting up was hard work though, I am in such bad shape! It is pitiful!
The guys have a book (well two actually) that I think I told you about yesterday where people write about how much fun they had with them.. there were heaps of entries about the trip from Dalat to Hoi An which takes five days.. we read through the entries and quickly decided that spending New Years with these guys in a village somewhere would be SO MUCH better than spending it with a bunch of westerners at Nha Trang and we agreed to do it that way instead. With our bus ticket we go from Dalat to Nha Trang (4 hours) then from Nha Trang to Hoi An (12 hours!!!) the whole trip is along the national highway and they stop once every three hours for a meal break but we dont get to SEE anything. Loc and Tin Tin are going to take us through the guts of the country and the trip will take 5 days in all. We are skipping Nha Trang entirely and we will just pick up the rest of our bus ticket once we are in Hoi An.. it is going to cost (much) more this way but both Luke and I are incredibly excited about it. Both the guys are excellent, I was actually really sad to say goodbye to them this afternoon, even though we are seeing them again tomorrow morning! And from the sounds of it we are going to be seeing some really incredible places!
Anyway, we signed a contract with them today (over vietnamese coffee and green tea in a cafe this afternoon) and we take off tomorrow morning at 8:30.. not sure if we will be anywhere near Internet while we are gone so dont panic if you dont hear from us.. if there is internet though I will jump on quickly each day just to let you (mum) know that we are ok!!!
I am so excited!!! well that is enough for today! Check out our photos!!
xx
Loc and Tin Tin picked us up this morning from our hotel and biked us around not only Dalat but the surrounding area for the day. Mr Loc - my driver - is a wrinkled little shrimp of a man with an incredible smile that makes his eyes go all squinty and a laugh like a little kid. He is old, I dont know how old but old in a balding, wrinkled, arthritic kind of way. He is lovely though! Tin Tin is much younger (and much taller) than Loc and is charming and funny and thoughtful and really hard to listen to because his accent is half french and half vietnamese.. very confusing!!
The bikes were great! Not at all like the little 100cc bikes that everyone around here drives but ACTUAL bikes! Its amazing how much safer I felt on a bike with a proper sized seat! The helmet also helped (although I look ridiculous it eases my mind no end!) Both Loc and Tin Tin were excellent drivers, taking it slow and being really careful (very unusual to see here!) I felt really safe - which I wasnt expecting!
Our first stop for the day was the 'Crazy House' right here in Dalat. The building is 15 years old and was designed by the presidents daughter, who is an architect.. it is just an incredible place! Like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. The place isnt finished yet but we are certainly coming back to see it when it is done. Each room is designed differently, some small and cave-like, others huge and spacious. the walls have been built up with concrete in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and designs and there are crazy staircases all over the place leading to different levels and different rooms. Each room is themed.. in one there is a giant Kangaroo (looking kind of evil with red lightglobes for eyes)! The windows are all crazy shapes and there are strangely hidden fireplaces in each room. Its so difficult to describe but we took heaps of photos so maybe you will get the idea. We walked around for about an hour but we didnt see it all.. there was so many details we didnt notice on the first or second look! Each of the rooms has a bed (with stategically placed mirrors which was a bit odd) and can be rented out for a night if you want to stay which we will do next time I think. The place was great.. so much fun!
Our next stop was to visit the 'Crazy Monk' (no relation to crazy house!) who is a bit of a local celebrity. He looks after one of the pagodas here (he is the only monk in residence) and has a reputation for being a bit loopy. He paints pictures and sells them to tourists who come and visit him. He is currently saving for a world tour and plans on visiting all the people who buy his paintings! According to the lonely planet he has painted more than 100000 individual paintings and has them hanging all over the temple! We were looking forward to meeting him and were wanting to buy one of his works so that we could become part of his world tour but when we arrived he lived up to his 'crazy monk' status. The temple was all closed up, all the wooden doors closed and locked.. which is unusual.. we wandered around outside making a lot of noise hoping to get someones attention. The crazy monk finally came out (or poked his head out at least) and said that he was too busy and we should come back later!!! Some Monk! We suspect that the crazy monk may have been having a little fun with a lady friend inside.. when he answered the door he was wearing a long coat.. flasher style! We went back out to our drivers who laughed about how strange the crazy monk was (the easy riders have a bit of reputation for not liking the crazy monk.. who they call the business monk because he makes so much money selling all his paintings and isnt really much of a monk at all)
After our not so successful crazy monk visit we left the town area and headed out the country.. we stopped by the side of the road at one point and chatted (or at least loc and tin tin did) to some workers there, they showed us how they cut the granite rocks off the boulders on the mountains and then chisel them all down to the same size to sell for making bridges and stuff.. such hard work! no machinery at all just a chisel, a hammer and a crowbar. When I exclaimed how much work it was he looked a little confused and asked how we make granite at home. I said I didnt know but I suspected we probably bought it from Vietnam.. he thought that was great!
We visited a whole bunch of private farms owned by friends of the guys. A silk worm farm, a coffee plantation, a rice wine distillery in some old mans basement, a bamboo weaving family, a mushroom farm, and the silk factory where they remove the silk from the cocoons and weave scarves (factory isnt quite the right word.. more like a rusty bunch of noisy machines and a lot of hard working girls).
For lunch they took us to a little vietnamese restaurant run by a friend of theirs where there was no english on the menu (in fact there was no menu!) and we sat on plastic chairs around a plastic table. They ordered a meal for us that can only be described as a feast! Delicious fresh vegetables from the area, salted fried fish, pork, a chicken dish, a tofu dish, curried prawns and a massive bowl of soup (all with rice of course).. it was - BY FAR - the best meal we have eaten since we left home.. absolutely delicious.. its incredible the difference in the food when you have locals ordering for you! We ate and ate and chatted and ate and chatted and then finished the meal with some green tea and a cigarette (which we ashed on the floor!! It is the vietnamese way according to Tin Tin.. I felt so bad!!)
After lunch we visited the biggest waterfall I have EVER seen. It was spectacular! Its called the Elephant waterfall because there are massive volcanic rocks at the base of the waterfall which - from above - look like a family of elephants. We made ourway down to the base of the waterfall, scrambling over hundreds of massive rocks.. it was hard work but well worth it.. the view was incredible! Getting up was hard work though, I am in such bad shape! It is pitiful!
The guys have a book (well two actually) that I think I told you about yesterday where people write about how much fun they had with them.. there were heaps of entries about the trip from Dalat to Hoi An which takes five days.. we read through the entries and quickly decided that spending New Years with these guys in a village somewhere would be SO MUCH better than spending it with a bunch of westerners at Nha Trang and we agreed to do it that way instead. With our bus ticket we go from Dalat to Nha Trang (4 hours) then from Nha Trang to Hoi An (12 hours!!!) the whole trip is along the national highway and they stop once every three hours for a meal break but we dont get to SEE anything. Loc and Tin Tin are going to take us through the guts of the country and the trip will take 5 days in all. We are skipping Nha Trang entirely and we will just pick up the rest of our bus ticket once we are in Hoi An.. it is going to cost (much) more this way but both Luke and I are incredibly excited about it. Both the guys are excellent, I was actually really sad to say goodbye to them this afternoon, even though we are seeing them again tomorrow morning! And from the sounds of it we are going to be seeing some really incredible places!
Anyway, we signed a contract with them today (over vietnamese coffee and green tea in a cafe this afternoon) and we take off tomorrow morning at 8:30.. not sure if we will be anywhere near Internet while we are gone so dont panic if you dont hear from us.. if there is internet though I will jump on quickly each day just to let you (mum) know that we are ok!!!
I am so excited!!! well that is enough for today! Check out our photos!!
xx