The 'Real Vietnam' and a free Honda tatoo

Day 1 Eddie (Kanh) and Anh arrive to pick us up at 8.30 and we gaze at the bikes and wonder how all our gear will actually fit on these bikes with 2 humans aswell! However, true to their word within about 10 minutes they had all the bags loaded and us and we hit the road. Getting out of Nha Trang itself didn't do much for my nerves. As we swerved in and out of bikes, cars, pedestrians, cyclos and women wheeling sandwich stands along the road I wondered how my nerves were actually going to withstand 3 days on a motorbike and I sent another prayer up to keep us safe.

Our first stop was a samll fishing village on the way out of town. Here we had our first pic of many for the day taken. Turns out our driver was very into taking pictures. We carefully climbed off the bikes being careful not to hit our legs off the exhaust. We had been warrned of the backpacker Honda tatoo and were determined not to get one! Eddie pointed out the colour scheme of all the local fishing boats, painted blue to represent the water, some red to represent the Vietnamese flag, yellow for the sun and white to represent the wind. The boats made for a very pretty picture as we stood with our lovely helmets on watching the locals hard at work. They also have these great little round basket boats here which are made of bamboo and tire and they paddle around in these filling them with fish.

As we moved up and inland from the coast the scenery started changing dramatically. Soon we were whizzing past lush green paddy fields and temples in the middle of nowhere. Being on the bike is a great way to take in Vietnam life through all the senses. We saw more than we ever would have out a bus window and the smells of rice, corn, bamboo etc. were amazing. Admittedly there were some places where you'd rather not be able to smell what you were going by! We were amazed at the differenece in housing. Dwellings ranged from a simple straw or bamboo shack to a giant mansion and anything inbetween. We asked the guys where the mansion owners got their money from and we were told these people were the ones who owned coffee plantations or struck lucky some other way. After Brazil Vietnam is the biggest exporter of coffee in the world-seemingly!

We pulled in off the side of the road numerous times for scenic pictures and often the bike would go on ahead and we would catch up walking. This was to give our bums a rest! We got so many strange looks from locals going by on their bikes or tractors probably wondering where on earth two Western girls were off to in the middle of nowhere. We really were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by bamboo forests , old war bunkers and paddy fields. The landscape was hilly and colourful and we marvelled at the men and women working high up on the steep hills planting coffee trees or cutting down bamboo.

That morning we stopped at a coffee plantation, a cocoa tree farm,a black pepper tree farm, a mushroom farm and a brick making factory. The brick making was run mainly by women , except for one or two men who did some of the shovelling. I had a go of cutting some of the bricks off the conveyer belt and embarassingly messed up the first batch and lost them at least 8 bricks! I soon got the hang of it and kept going for another few minutes. I really don't think I could stand there all day doing that though! It was really interesting to see how they made them, I'd never really thought about the process of making a brick before and how much work is actually involved.

We learnt so much over these days in the highlands including how mushrooms grow from sawdust, how trees are tapped for rubber and how rice and cashew nuts are harvested. That was just day 1! We passed so many weird and wonderful contraptions of vehicles , I couldn't help but smile and think how much you'd love all their tractors Dad! Some very similar to Alice Chamber in style. We drove over dirt tracks and sand, through tiny minority villages with a population of about 50 and passed so many smiling waving children on their way to and from school. They almost always had a big smile, wave and a hello for the rare passing westerner and we will never forget the sound of their laughter or their bright smiles.

We stopped for lunch in a roadside cafe that couldn't be any more local. It had the obligatory red plastic kids chairs, dirt all over the ground and on every cooking surface ,men sitting around drinking beer and a giant flat screen TV blaring in the corner. This contrasted nicely to the ancient, looked like a small bomb had hit it stereo system underneath it. On the upside the food looked and smelt really good, apart from when I spotted all the chicken boiling whole in a big pot.

There was no menu it was get what you were served up which was fried rice and chicken. It was very tasty albeit quite chewy chicken but better than first impressions gave! Sufficiently full we hopped back on the bikes and onward bound. We passed more women working ,the men are very lazy here and spend most of their time sitting around in hammocks drinking beer, watching TV or playing backgammon-like board games. Meanwhile women and children layed out rice and cashew nuts on the side of the road to dry. Some places the road only had a narrow passge left in the middle and you had to carefully manoeuver your way though the drying products.


At about 5 pm, after a long day in the saddle we arrived in a small town called Lieu Son in the Daklak region. This was a minority viallage of an ancient hilltribe who after the war had been moved down to lower ground and given money and resources to set up life here. As we approached the village (which consisted of 2 streets with long bamboo shacks on either side) we were met by 4 huge elephants ! It wasn't a sight we were expecting! We stopped at the one and only restaurant in town and picked up our key for our 'homestay' where we would be sleeping in some family house. We're not sure if they moved out and slep tnext door for the night or they kept this space just for visitors, but we only caught glimpses of them coming and going as we went to and from our outside bathroom.

The houses are built up on stilts to keep predators away and room for storage of livestock underneath. Up to 15 people may live in the one room at one time, sometimes up to 4 different families. Our house was completely empty except for 4 mattresses on the floor with a mosquito net and a fan. Oh the simple life! We headed down to the lake for a sundowner beer and watched as the elephants were taken for their evening bath. We'd only spotted two other Westerners the whole day and felt pretty privlidged to be spending the night in this village.

When we got up to pay for our beer our height was the cause of great amusement with the local men. With no English they amused themselves by measuring themselves up next to us and marvelling how tall we were. Luckily they didn't highlight how big my feet were which has caused great amusement amongst the women of Vietnam!!After our beer we had a quick shower ,luckily it was too hot to need hot water because there wasn't any. After our showers we headed for the restaurant where we were meeting the guys. We were still full after our huge lunch and had not being expecting them to order for us. The table was laden with food minaly pork, pork and more pork, pretty much every part of the pig was on the tble in some form or other! Very apologetically we explained that we didn't eat pork and that we weren't really that hungry. They wouldn't hear any of it and soon there was a plate of fried eggs, some green veg, some snake fish (which made me wretch) and a plate of whole chicken chopped up , all bones and fat included and covered in sauce (yum!!!)

We managed the egg and greens and Jo took one for the team and downed her 'happy water' aka rice wine in one go. Her facial expression was far from happy after that shot! Smelling like tequila and tasting like whiskey I took a sip to be polite but knew if I downed it it wouldn't stay down for long!I'm gettign too old to do shots that don't taste nice!After a couple of traditional Vietnamese cocktail stick puzzles we were off to our house on stilts and soon tucked up under our mozzie nets. We went to sleep to the sound of weird and wonderful animals and insects and awoke at about 4am to more of them. Welcome to the real Vietnam!!


Day 2:
We woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of birds and more unknown animals and insects and headed to 'the' restaurant again for some greasy fried egg omelette and bread. Starting to crave cereal or simply something different than egg and bread usually accompanied by a pile of vegetable oil. After brekkie it was time for our elephant ride. We climbed up the ladder and hopped onboard 'Nellie' whose driver was securely positioned barefoot on her neck. We were given some traditional hats to wear and felt very touristy as we headed off down the road and across the Paddy fields for our hour trek. After a few snack stops (for Nellie) we arrived at the river / lake and presumed we would just be going in for a little dip , maybe up to the elephants ankles. The driver / rider every so often would make clucking noises and other strange sounds at Nellie so we presumed they were a well in tune team. We soon learnt otherwise!

Withing 5 minutes it was clear our elephant man had no control over what Nellie would do or where she would go and soon enough we were up to her belly in manky dirty water and he was getting a little bit flabbergasted at her. His solution to try and direct her back out towards the shore was to get out his mobile phone and play some soothing music. This didn't work, so he changed tack and went for some more poppy tunes. This also failed. As you may know Jo has a bit of a fear of boats and unclear water and I could feel her body tensing as the elephant went further and further in to the manky water. I wasn't really loving it myself but it was kinda funny at the same time! Although I felt for Jo and I tried to work out a plan how to keep a hold of Jo's hand and at the same time keep the camera and wallets out of the water if we went in (which at this moment in time was looking highly likely!)

The elephant man was soon right up on our seat with us , as the elephant's neck and head were completely immersed in the water, as was most of it's trunk and body. Our feet were now in the water half way up our calfs and suddenly Jo screamed. I looked down and saw a HUGE spider by her leg. This was not good. I hate spiders and now I was wondering what on earth else would be in the water . In my mind I saw us trying to swim away from water snakes, rats , fish and goodness knows what else. We stayed at this level for a good 15minutes and then thankfully Nellie decided she'd had enough and was able to be coaxed back out of the water. Phew!! We were very glad to be back on dry land and to be honest quite releived our hour on Nellie was up! We climbed off her and climbed back on the more reliable bikes!

On our way out of the village I popped my head into the local school, the children were all quietly sitting at their rows of desks immersed in repeating whatever the teacher was saying. It was lovely to see a school in action here and made me miss being in the classroom. I'm sure I won't be saying that after a few weeks back at work! As we were walking back to the bikes from the school we passed a few of the local men, typically drinking beer while lying in a hammock all before 10am! They were soon up on their feet to come and measure up against me and exclaim at how tall I was,it was all very amusing and as we said goodbye they asked us to come join them for a beer. It had been a long time since we'd had a beer before 10 in the morning and we weren't about to change that habit now. We said thanks but no thanks and in a few moments were back on the bikes and heading towards Dalat.

That morning we stopped at a Passion fruit farm and ate passion fruits straight from the tree, they were so delicious and sweet. We stopped at another market shortly after and bought some pineapple and mango for lunch which we ate at the top of a very steep set of steps in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains! As we got higher into the highlands the temperature started to drop and soon it was lashing rain. We stopped about 3 times during the day to donn the rain gear and cover up the rucksacks. We were really hoping tonight's accomodation would have hot water!

Our next stop was a bamboo bridge. We couldn't believe that people walked over this, let alone rode motorbikes over it, but it was surprisingly strong and obviously the huge gaps didn't prevent them ccrossing it. We watched as a group of young boys played around in the filthy water and gave their younger siblings their daily wash! Then it was on to the Silk Worm farm. This was fascinating. We watched the worms spin themselves into cocoons. They import the worms from China, feed them on strawberry leavs for about 2 weeks, then they start to make thier cocoon. After that they are brought to the silk factory where they are boiled and the silk is extrated from the worm. You can actually eat the worm after it has been cooked and removed from its cocoon - we declined this tasting!! It was amazing to watch the silk being made,the machines were so noisy and old looking and I pitied the young girls who had to man those machines all day without any ear protection.

We stopped at Elephant falls and the temple where the GIANT Happy fat buddha resides, he really is huge! While we went to check out big buddha the boys (our drivers) went to have some lunch. Wheen we met them in the 'restaurant' after our temple visit we were very glad we'd already eaten as the level of hygiene in this place was on a level all of it's own! There were dogs, babies, insects, and goodness knows what else lying around and any food we saw looked like it had been there for at least a week! The boys made Jo a passion fruit shake with the obligatory truckful of sugar in it and after that it was back on the bikes and the next stop was our stop for the night.

We had read in the guidebook that you could be forgiven for thinking you were in the French Alps in Springtime when you arrived in Dalat. Having read this we were both looking forward to chalet like buildings, a small village and hopefully boulangeries! Sadly I think whoever wrote this comment has never actually been to the French Alps and the only link was the cool mountian air! We checked into our hotel and thankfully there was hot water as we hadn't managed to dry off from our last soaking on the bike. We had a lovely warm shower, got back into the jeans and settled ourselves in a lovely restaurant with yummy food, hot chocolate, and live jazz and blues. We even treated ourselves to a glass of wine and a Baileys as we soaked up the atmophere and enjoyed a break from rice!! It had been another good day apart form my momentary lapse where I got the free Honda tatoo as I climbed on the bike - ouch!

Day 3:

On our way out of Dalat we stopped to visit 'Crazy House'. This is a hotel designed by a local woman who studied architecture in Moscow for 15 years. I think she must have spent some part of that time eating magic mushrooms while she was there if this design has anything to go by! The house is described as Gaudi meets Alice in Wonderland which is a very apt description. It is an amzing place which is still being completed, at present the restaurant and cafe are being added on.You can actually stay here aswell, although not sure I'd like tourists traipsing around my oom every day.

After Crazy House we visited another minority village called Chicken Village which is basically a tiny one way road with a few houses , a couple of shacks selling silk products and one giant concrete chicken! The story goes that a young girl from the area wanted to marry someone her father and tribe disapproved of. The only way he could get permission to marry her was if he went into the forest and found a chicken with 4 feathers or something like that hanging off the back of his legs. he was gone for days and days and eventually the young girl decided that she must go look for him. She found him dead in the forest and killed herself beside him. A very sad story and from the story the town is now known as Chicken Village and hence the giant chicken statue! After Chicken Village we drove through some more really cool rural towns where lots more children waving and saying hello and running after us down the road made us smile. One town we have christened 'crazy girl town' in which we stopped for a bit of shade and a drink stop. There was about 6 families living in this town , and one space that operated as the barber shop, mechanic, a bar and a bedroom! The guys dropped us off at one end ofthe one road village and we were t meet them at this one-stop shop. As we walked down the deserted street we felt like we were in some weird movie set, children and adults started appearing fromm both sides of the roads, some waved, some said hello , some just stared. However one girl, crazy girl, chased us down the road. Unfortunatey I imagine a vast amount of inbredding goes on in this town and we reckon she was the result of some of this. She muttered stuff at us and nervously reached out and touched us as if we were something alien to her eyes. Maybe she'd never seen a Westerner before, who knows. Anyway she followed us to the place where we were meeting the others adn proceeded to rob everybodies drinks in a crazy manner. There was a lot of shouting going on by the locals and eventually she was shooed out of the place with the crack of a stick like some stray dog. It was really sad to watch and a real eye opener and as the guys said, now you are really seeing some 'real Vietnam'. We weren't too sad to see the back of that town and within a few hours we were back near the coast, we could feel the heat rising but at the same time the sea breeze was a welcome feeling. We passed amazing sand dunes and red rock formation of which Mui Ne is famed for and soon we were settling into our hotel where we would stay for the next 3 nights.