Smooth as Silk - Journey to the Highlands
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2008
1
36
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Buon Ma Thuot,
Buon Ma Thuot,
Vietnam
Monday, April 28, 2008
We start out at 8:00 a.m. We want to put some distance on in hopes of avoiding the rain. It's less likely the further in we go.
The tour would take me to the Dragon Pagoda, a vegetable farm (I think Peter doesn't think we grow vegetables in Canada), 'Breast Mountain', a silk worm 'ranch', and a mushroom grow op (not those kind!). I saw how rice wine is made. We went into a village and met some basket weavers. Peter bought two of the kind they wear over their backs for his farm. It was interesting to watch them negotiate the price. I saw an area that had been significantly hit by agent orange. Only grass will grow there now. They tried reforesting but the stuff goes deep the trees won't take root. It looks like a clear-cut with no stumps.
After seeing how silk is made--raw silk comes from silk worm cocoons for those of you as daft as me and the process is amazing--we had a fantastic 'real Vietnamese' lunch. Two bucks. After lunch it was a two hour drive to our overnight in Lak Lake, stopping along the way so that I could look at vistas and Peter could smoke. We beat the rain. Peter thought I went to quickly through the stops.
Near Lak Lake in Buon Jun Village the rice harvest was going full-on so I got to see rice picking, drying and bagging all in progress, all of it done without any machinery. This food shortage issue is having quite an impact here. A kilo of rice had gone from 8000 dong (50 cents) to 16,000 in just a couple of days. I took a stroll through the village and encountered the strangest villagers I've seen yet. Usually you get several 'hellos' and a few waves, especially from the children. Not so here. In typical Vietnamese fashion, the place and by extension, the people, appears to be set up as a tourist attraction. I don't think they like it much. Peter was surprised at how little time I spent in there. By now I've seen a few villages and frankly, there's not much to distinguish one from another and if the people are going to be like that, then forget it.
The chosen hotel at Lak Lake was a tad expense at $15 but the dinner was amazing--two bucks again. The food on this tour was easily the best I would have in Vietnam. There were a few other Easy Riders at the hotel, including Heather and Eilidh. We did a little socializing before heading to bed fairly early. Riding on the back of a bike in the hot sun takes its toll on you!
Day two would take me to see a brick factory which was surprisingly interesting. So much is done by manual labour in this country. I saw a couple of battlefields from the american war but you'd never know they were battle fields if someone didn't tell you. One featured a bombed out church, the other a concrete bridge pockmarked by bullets. I also saw a small pottery factory. And coffee and tea plantations. I now know the difference between Mocha, Arabic and that other kind of coffee, small leaves, wide leaves and long leaves, respectively. I've seen coffee plantations before but these are large.
Day two's highlight would be the Rusap Waterfall, Dray Nur Falls and Dray Sap Falls (literally north and south, respectively). I spent quite a bit of time hiking around in there while Peter napped and smoked. Every now and then you have a funny encounter with locals, more so in Vietnam. This was one of those times. There were a few hanging about in this park. As I was following a path to get really close to the base of the Nur Falls I came across three younger fellows, I'm guessing around 18 or so, eating lunch and having a couple of beers. One of them jumped up and gave me a big smooch on the cheek and they all started laughing and spoke only Vietnamese, not in any way threatening but off putting nonetheless. Only one of them asked me 'Where you from'. They offered me a bite from a half eaten papaya which I declined and a swig of beer, which I also declined. I think it is offensive to this culture to refuse an offer of this sort but these guys were a little sketchy. Besides I wasn't particularly pleased with their treatment of me. When later I returned down the same path with some trepidation, the one who'd offered me the fruit wouldn't make eye contact whereas at least the other two smiled and waved.
Visiting stuff like this here is pretty cool because they don't put up any fences and ropes. You can walk right up to the edge by the falls and scare yourself a bit if you like.
After the falls we drove into Buan Ma Thuot and had what Peter says is the best pho in Vietnam. It was pretty damn good but I've had better, interestingly enough, mostly in Laos. Funny, the Vietnamese think quite highly of their Pho (and themselves too perhaps) but I found Laos' pho consistently better.
Peter dropped me in downtown BMT at around 2:30. He gave me a hug! My bus didn't leave until 10:00 p.m. so I had loads of time to explore a bit. Being in the heart of coffee country, BMT has coffee shops all over town. Finding a cold beer was another matter. Despite Lonely Planet's assurance that coffee would be cheap here, it was the most expensive I'd had yet. There's few tourists--I only saw one other gringo, likely an expat and that means little english is spoken (I'm okay with that--I had to refer to my LP book to get the words for ice coffee) and fewer and harder to find internet cafes. I later figured out that they don't use the word 'internet' on the signage, rather 'photocopy' usually meant there would be internet as well. It's a friendly place town and I think they still appreciate tourists. I think it was instrumental in the american war as there is a lot of hype, banners and posters, etc., surrounding the upcoming reunification day holiday, Apr 30.
My bus was not a sleeper bus but I had two seats, one for me and one for my pack. After a reasonably good sleep I arrived in Saigon at 4:30 a.m. (Yeah, shit.) I decided to wait inside the massive and surprisingly crowded station until it got light before grabbing a moto to the backpacker ghetto in the centre.
