Dalat / ho chi minh - from siem reap
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
42
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Monday, December 1, 2008
tuesday 11 november
this morning, no walking about for days trying to look for breakfast. instead, we head straight to the sinh cafe hotel for breakfast. it's far too place a gaff to us to afford, but they seem to do a bloody good hot chocolate, so here's for having their breakfast! after getting ready back at ours, i go try and find internet at a hotel down the road, populated by no-one it seems! maybe there are so many that some are completely empty in low season? after, sean arranges a bike with our hotel and we ride out of town. the map we've been given plus the fact that none of the roads seem to match up perfectly with this map plus the fact that the roads are absolutely manic with motorbikes again make for a tricky ride, but we make it out of town soon enough, no probs! and i'm quite happy hanging onto the back of sean again. easy life! during our jaunt out of town, we see loads of kids on their way back to school, after having their lunch - we've just got up! - all dressed in yellow, wool jumpers with their huge backpacks hanging off them! after reaching the edge of town and now thoroughly off the map, we decide to take a chance and a left hand turn, only to later discover that we actually went the wrong way and that the small hill-tribe village we wanted to see was only a matter of km away! anyway, so we take this left and head down a hill, overlooking a valley filled with the local people's allotments and massive greenhouses, filled with hundreds of flowers. while trying to find the da lak village, we end up stopping at the entrance to a tourist attraction, we suppose, seeing the bus filled with southeast asian tourists. i get off the bike to ask an old lady tourist 'where the hell we are?', to which she laughs and beckons over her son, i assume, to help. i try to get across that i want to know where we are, to which he keeps saying 'go in, it's good in there!' i try to explain that i'm sure that it is, but what is it that i'm supposed to go into see, and still where are we? well, none of this seems to be getting across, so we end up riding the bike down to the main ticket booth to ask there, where the hell are we, to which they explain we are at the entrance to a huge garden encompassing a waterworks, supported by denmark!
contd december 2, from bangkok, the riverline guesthouse, the original and still the best, stay no. three, and this blog written from inside cheap internet cafe no. one!
so, we think well we've come this far, and we're not sure where we're headed on this bike trip of ours so we may as well take a look at this strange garden. we pay for our tickets and ride the bike through alpine forests overlooking a huge lake below, until we get to the parking bays and where the garden stretches out before us. here, there are rose gardens and bonsai trees and ornamental gardens and wooden carts and fake anchors and small bamboo bridges crossing pools of water, and in the far distance lays a huge lake or reservoir, surrounded by so many pine forests that it feels like we could be up in the mountains in europe. after wandering around the garden for some time, we realise that maybe we should ride onto one of these waterfalls listed in the lonely planet. a little way on, we pass a restaurant with a caged market sat out front, the poor creature clawing at the bars, looking desperate to escape. i don't think the vietnamese are ones for being animal friendly. i mean we've seen caged monkeys in cafes, and dogs or goats crammed into crates like a tin of sardines, riding on the back of someone's motorbike before. it isn't a pretty sight. a short way on, we reach a sign that points us in the direction of the antloek (really not sure if that's the right spelling!) falls, which we have read have been created by a reservoir and waterworks. we ride the bike down the hill to where we believe we might be able to go in to see this waterworks and waterfall, but from the gates we can see a man waving his arms up in the air, and shooing us away. so much for that little excursion! we ride up the hill and catch sight of a couple of falang climbing up the side of the hill leading up to the road we're on, half dressed after swimming around in the pools below. it's not the warmest day for dalat, and i've just seen this girl step out of one of the pools below wearing only a bra, so i don't know how she must have been feeling on such a chilly day! anyway, after breaking the news that it's quite late in the day and them realising that they've been cavorting - i'd expect - for some hours, we ride away in search of elephant falls and the laughing buddha. we ride on for ages through whole fields of sunflowers and more allotments and greenhouses containing vines and cabbages and roses, before we reach a small town, where we finally ask for more directions. we are told by a friendly looking lady that we only have to go back about five minutes and we'll reach a turning for the falls. once there, we are welcomed by two more ladies and their kids, and seem very happy to help serve us with drinks and snacks, though they don't have pringles OR mister potato, which have become a staple, and so we bid them farewell and hope they don't take offence and get one of their men folk to steal our bike, and we make our way to the steps down to the bottom of the falls, where, the lonely planet, says gives the best view of the falls. the only other problem, they say, is that the walk down is treacherous enough, especially when wet, so you can imagine what a state i get myself into! at first, i feel fine and the steps are good, but once they appear as only tread marks in the rock, and you're able to see between the rocks to the wet floor below you, you start to wonder if you're really the right person to tackle the rest of the climb down the fall! i mean it's no everest to climb up or pot hole to fit down and squeeze yourself into, but being the most clumsy oaf ever, i decide that maybe it's time to halt the mission when my feet freeze between a rock and a hard place and start turning to jelly! so much so that they're shaking! anyway, sean continues down the falls to try and take some photos, so not a completely wasted trip, while i stand dead still on the rock i've made my new home! after too long he returns and we make our slow way back across the rocks up to safety, where we return to the bike, take some photos of the hugest laughing buddha of them all, and ride off into the sunset in search of this famous silk worm factory, before dark! well we ride up one ride for ten minutes, say we'll stop and ask for directions at 'that' next sign, ask for directions from another lady to shake her head and laugh at us, before turning around and heading off down the road for another ten minutes, before saying we'll stop our search after 'that' next sign, before we finally see this tiny sign poking out from within a bush that says 'welcome to the silk farm'! so we stop and take the dirt track down to the factory, minding that if they say they're closed, we have to get a wriggle on to get back into town before sunset. well a little old lady, maybe 90, pops her head out and i try to explain that we want to see the factory, and ask if they're open, to which she looks at me confused and wanders off to find someone else, i'm presume, who comes out and simply beckons us in. he switches on some lights that were previously switched off and leads us to a huge weave, which he feeds with silk thread before switching it on... and my god, is this thing the most violent piece of machinery you ever did see?! i mean, back and forth, these huge slats of wood move, with these gentle threads just being woven into position, and the spindles turning faster and faster as it goes. it just amazed me that to create something so delicate, you must first work with the most brutal of tools! anyway, he leads us next to a machine where upon a handful of silk worms, covered in their thread, bob about in a pot of cold water. it is here that a girl picks out a few of these worms, throws them into the watery vat below the machine, and then after switching the whole thing on, starts hooking at the worms floating around in the water, trying to finger at the threads hanging loosely off from them, and feeding the thread onto metal hooks hanging from the machine, which work to feed this thread up into the interior of the machine, where you can see row upon row of spindles, upon which the refined thread is collected. this refined thread is then taken to the weaving machines, where the silk is worked to create a wearable garment. lastly, he shows us a fire, upon which a shelf sits balancing a mass of what appears to be the bundles of silk thread still wrapped around the silk worms, and finally the wooden towers, which hold the silk worms still producing their silk. if that all makes sense, you'll realise that the poor man showed us the whole process back to front, but having paid absolutely nothing, it was a good experience. well, i say having paid nothing! you can't leave, after they've opened up especially for you, so i just had to buy one of their scarves! but it cost near to nothing! after leaving the factory, we realised that we maybe only had about another 15 minutes before we were going to find ourselves riding back in the dark, so we put our foot down and just hoped for the best. all i can really say for the journey back is that, even if sean knew where we were at all times, i was absolutely lost. we were both freezing by the time we got back at the outskirts of town, though i'd imagine he felt worse having been blasted by the wind coming at the bike! and i have never wanted to just curl up infront of the radiator, scorching my back, with a cup of tea and auntie gertie's apple pie and custard - let's say! - more than at that very moment! after we returned the bike to the hotel and got back into sensible winter clothes - i'd been wearing a fleece and a pair of shorts all day - we went for dinner at the lotus restaurant in town, before we then tried our hardest to stay out and enjoy as much of dalat as we could before we leaving the next day, but tonight was just too damn cold to stay out! maybe as cold as any night in winter back home, so we did just that and returned 'home'! hope it's nice and cold back there! i miss it. x
