Top Gear Experience - Nha Trang - Dalat - Mui Ne
It was an early start - well, up at 7 - to get ready for the bike tour I was under taking with my two friends Dan and Sarah. We loaded up my scooter and the guides bikes - Dan and Sarah were riding on the back of our two guides bikes - with our luggage and at around 8 o'clock and after saying goodbye to Alan we hopped on to our bikes and we were off!
We stopped off at a temple on the way out of Nha Trang to have a look at a huge Buddha statue.
On the out skirts of Nha Trang our guides stopped off at a family's house where they make rice paper - They burned the old disused kernels of the rice to heat up their ingredients which they then dry, roll out incredibly thin, and then put on bamboo mats to dry in the sun.
We passed out of Nha Trang and after about an hour I felt my rear wheel lose grip - At first I thought the tyre had melted - that's what it felt like! - it turned out I had a flat tyre. So the group came to a halt and Lan -one of our guides - took the bike off in search of a mechanic.
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While waiting we got quite a few strange looks from passing drivers as well as from the local fauna!
Both Dan and I were carrying guitars and so we ended up all having an impromptu jam session.
Lan came back around an hour later with my scooter and we packed up the guitars and got on with the tour. We stopped off at a minority village, these are all over Thailand all of them with their different languages and traditions. Originally from the mountains this particular tribe originally came from the mountains but had moved down to the river plains and were being helped by the government into farming.
To get the the tribe we had to cross a very suspect bridge on our bikes!
Soon we began to climb into the mountains up steep and winding roads, and with great views!
But with the altitude also came a thik pea-souper! It got very cold and we were all soon wearing jumpers, trousers and our waterproofs.
Luckily the mist cleared as we came back down out of the pass and we stopped off at a fish farm - it might have been trout.... but I can't remember - either way the best bit was when Bin almost dropped a fish as it tried to escape.
We continued the day stopping to look at incredible views and also to admire the coffee fields surrounding Dalat - the altitude brings a temperate climate not found else where in Vietnam and it makes for excellent coffee growing conditions - Apparently coffee is one of Vietnam's main exports!
We reached Dalat as the sun was setting and went and checked in to our hotel.
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| Driving through Dalat - driving in the cities is an "interested" experience! The one and only rule is that the biggest vehicle has right of way! |
We spent the night in Dalat and I even ran in to a friend that I had met in Chiang Mai! But it was an early night and an early start!
We stopped off at a temple with some very beautiful Japanese gardens.
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| The lake you could see from the gardens. |
From the lake we drove to another family run business similar to that of the rice paper - this time it was Tofu.
Then the family business of making rice wine! Yuk! And weasel coffee (coffee beans are eaten by weasels and passed through their digestive systems that contain a special enzyme that brings out flavours in the beans). We tried the weasel coffee that was actually very nice, but I couldn't help thinking about how the bean was processed!
We stopped off in a town half way between Dalat and Mui Ne for the night and went for dinner.... and some rice wine, this rice wine was a lot nicer than the stuff we tried in Sapa but still, it was quite horrible!
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| Dan, Bin and I having some rice wine! |
The next day we stopped off at some water falls - it involved a steep climb down and you could actually get round and behind the waterfall - though it was very wet and also quite treacherous!
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| Dan and I climbed around on the rock formations in front of the waterfall. |
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| Dan, Sarah and I on some model elephants.... |
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