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Easyriders - Dalat to Saigon
July 30 | Comments (0)
Our flight to Dalat was delayed so we arrived later than expected but we managed to find a clean room fairly quickly. We stayed at the Peace Hotel which was fine but, the best part is that we found our Easyriders...rather, they found us. We booked a 3 day journey from Dalat back to Saigon through the Central Highlands and a night at Cat Tien National Park.
Our drivers, Mr River (Mr Giang) and Mr Forest (Mr Lam we called him) provided two very comfortable motorbikes, rain gear, helmets and great conversation. The price was a little on the steep side (but well worth it), $260 including accommodation (for us and them), petrol and two English speaking guides/drivers. Note to travellers - these guys were great; if you're thinking of doing a tour ask the receptionist at the Peace Hotel (one of them is married to Lam) as they'll know how to get in touch.
Day 1 - The first stop was Crazy House which is right in Dalat; a cement bad dream full of winding staircases and rooms with colourful names like kangaroo, bamboo and gourd. The design of each room reflected each name, gourd for example had a giant cement gourd - nice! The next stop was a flower farm, Dalat produces a large amount of flowers (roses, gerbera dasies) for most of the major cities in Asia. Next stop was a coffee plantation where we saw the Arabica variety of beans growing - they don't harvest them until September/October time so it's early in the season yet. Vietnam is supposedly the second largest exporter of coffee in the world, after Brasil that is. All I can say is that the coffee is great - very strong and served black on ice with loads of sugar is the best way to have it. Silk worms in action was the next stop, we saw the first stage of silk production which is where thousands of silk worms gorge themselves on mulberry leaves (it sounds like a river in the distance - weird). Later we would see the cocoons transformed into the finished product. We made two more stops during the day, one at a mushroom farm and the other at Elephant waterfall where we saw a pagoda as well - with huge smiling buddha. We stopped to sleep in Bao Lac; the hotel wasn't great but it was clean and a good place to lay our heads, especially as we'd been driving for the last hour in torrential rain.
Day 2 - A short ride to Cat Tien National Park; on the way we saw some beautiful views, tea, coffee and cashew plantations and even stopped for some fresh rambutans which we picked fresh from the tree. We had to leave the bikes behind once we entered the park as you have to cross a river by boat. Once on the other side we were free to walk through the park and trek as we desired; but we decided to play cards and wait for our night tour which was cancelled due to rain (it IS the rainy season...). We did however, get to see some monkeys, many many butterflies and some bears as well as a poisonous snake.
Day 3 - For me, the best of the 3 days as most of the ride back to Saigon was through little villages and on small roads through the amazing countryside. We saw a rubber plantation as well as a floating village along the way, but the best bit was staying on the bikes. We ran into rain again late in the day and after waiting an hour or so for it to die down, we donned the rain gear and pushed the final 60km into Saigon. We're back safe and happy and will be having one final meal with River who's staying in the city to see if he can find some more tourists to take back with him. Lam had another tour booked already so he was heading part of the way back tonight.
Tomorrow we're off to Cambodia; we'll be sad to leave Vietnam but what a great way to end this part of the trip!