Easy Riders of Dalat

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Trip Start Jan 22, 2008 Previous
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  Dalat, Vietnam
Monday, February 18, 2008

Thanks for joining us in Dalat. We got to our hotel - Peace Hotel 1 - which had a little restaurant on the main floor - Peace Cafe (of course), which looked right out of an episode of the Twilght Zone. The place had character like an old diner one might find along a road somewhere in a place people hardly ever go to. Something just lost in time.

Anyway, it didn't take long for one of the locals to start chatting up Norm. His name was "River". He and his buddy, "Rainbow", were motorcycle guys (not members of a gang, but members of a travel group called 'Easy Riders'). Long story short...we planned a day-trip with the two of them so hold on to your hats as we're off on a road trip on the back of a couple of motorcycles. 

Of course, it was an early start to the day. A quick breakfast at the cafe and we were off and riding

Coffee Beans

. We started our journey with a stop at one of the many local greenhouse which produce beautiful flowers for various parts of the world. This particular place sent most of their stock to the UK. Dalat is known as the flower capital in Vietnam. Then we headed for a coffee plantation. The photo of Norm's hand shows the coffee bean at the point of ripeness for picking (red). The flesh is edible down to the actual bean (white colour). From this point the bean would be dried in the sun and then roasted. We were told that they used the dried outer skins as a fuel for burning (cooking, most likely).

We then went to a little family-run restaurant on a hillside, which grew mushrooms in what we thought was a most unusual way. As you can see in the photos they hung sacks of sawdust and spores which were twisted together with string. They would puncture the side of the bags and voila...mushrooms would grow. It was pretty neat. We later sampled some with our lunch.

From here we went to a silk farm. The silk worms (see photo) will only build their cacoons in Mulberry trees. Each cacoon can have as much as 500 metres of silk thread in its natural form. We saw a variety of machines which produced the thread (in various stages) and the actual silk fabric.

Off we went to Elephant Falls - named this due to the numerous large boulders that are found in the area that remind the locals of elephants

Dream Weavers

. It was very beautiful. We were able to hike down the hillside, through crevices in the rock formations, and down under the falls (not quite right under the falls, but we could have if we really wanted a good soaking). At the top of the falls were a few women who were weaving various scarves, blankets, purses, etc. It was pretty impressive to see the amount of work that goes into one piece.

After visiting with the ladies we walked over to a pagoda which was celebrating something, but we didn't know exactly what as there were many people chanting and praying with the monks.

Back to the family-run restaurant for a wonderful Vietnamese lunch (see photo) and then onto our final destination - the 'Crazy House'. This so-called house was created by a woman (artist) about 15 years ago. From what we could see they were adding onto it as it appears to be quite a draw for both the locals and foriegners that are passing through town.

We had to hurry back to our hotel as we had a 1:30 bus to catch which was to take us to Nha Trang. Unfortunately for us, the bus was a mere 2 hours late. We, along with the rest of the passengers waited in the hot sun until the bus finally came for us. This ride, unlike the one mentioned in our last blog, was a lot more pleasant. Norm and I had seats 1 and 2 along side of the driver of the regular size bus. Everyone had lots of room as it was only half full. Nobody got sick - even though the driver was just a crazy as the last guy. Thank goodness for that!

Please be aware that computers are wonderful, but one must have a great deal of patience when in some locations around the world as things just don't seem to move as fast as we are accustomed to. Oh well, at least we have access to all of our friends and family - regardless of the time spent to stay in touch. Take care. We're off to bed to rest our weary heads. Nighty-night.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Easy Riders Sharon and 'River'	Elephant Falls	Flower Power in Dalat	Hiking Down to the Base of the Falls
Inside the Peace Cafe	Looking from the balcony of the Restaurant	Lunch with the Easy Riders	Mushroom Growing Under the Verandah
Mushrooms Ready for Picking	Riding down the Highway	Silk Worm Cacoons	Silk Worm Facotry Production Line
The Crazy House	Tight Sqeeze for the Little Guy	Worshipping at the Pagoda

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