The Easyriders, Dalat City, Central Highlands, Southern Vietnam

I'm overwhelmed already, just at the thought at how I'm going to suitably describe the amazing experience that we had today, here in Dalat, Southern Vietnam. No reflections so far, simply travel writing, it seems...

As per our last post, Sim and I organised yesterday to have a full-day tour of Dalat City - "The City of Eternal Spring" - through an organisation who call themselves "the Easyriders." Some 70 riders strong, this group are the "original and the best" tour guides of the city, and have been known to trek tourists across the country on the back of their Hondas. Their success has been phenomenal, as they intend to "give foreigners a taste of the real Vietnam;" so much so that copycat groups have sprung up across the city (and the country, for that matter). So we were quite pleased to be approached by a "real" 'Rider, named Mui, yesterday afternoon, whose sunny personality won us over in a second.

Dalat is a pretty city settled up in the Central Highlands of Southern Vietnam. It's known as the honeymoon escape of foreigners and locals alike, and while its natural surrounds are rather beautiful, the hoo-haa about Dalat kind of escaped us, at least initially. So we were determined to find the beauty of this city for our one-day stay. In which case there's nothing like a tour from the locals.

This morning we were set to depart at 7:30, only to allow Mui an extra hour to have breakfast. At a small cafe, sitting in the sun across from one of the city's famous lakes, Sim and I enjoyed the 'jolt' that is Vietnamese coffee - thick as oil, it's strong even for my tastes! (Vietnam is the world's fourth largest coffee exporter, though their focus is predominantly Robusta beans; that which you find in Nescafe.)

At 8:30, we headed back and apprehensively set ourselves on the back of our bikes. (Sim's first motorbike experience, and nothing like the one-ride I had on one when I was ten.) Our tour guides, the (aforementioned) Mui and Sim's driver, Niehp, are two lovely, jovial men, who set us up with good helmets and a safe ride. It was clear from the outset that they were extremely reliable and professional riders, with some 20 years experience between the two of them.

Thirty seconds into it, cruising along the dusty streets of Southern Vietnam, I couldn't believe it... So exhilirating! A totally liberating feeling. All feelings of apprehension slid off us in minutes; our guides took to the streets in a way that made us feel totally comfortable. The "defensive driving" techniques used in parts of South East Asia made me feel a little unsure of myself, but honestly, this is cruisy compared to Taipei traffic. Joyous!

First stop: the infamous "Crazy House" of Dalat City. The famous daughter of the second Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam (whose name totally escapes me) had studied in Russia as a young woman, and returned to Vietnam to build a "fantasy-land" of sorts. It's difficult to describe (will leave it to the photos?) Kind of Harry-Potter, Alice-in-Wonderland-esque museum-slash-hotel. Strange. But interesting.

Then, a quick stop at the oldest railway station in Vietnam. A French colonial building, which was relatively pretty. Niehp went into a fair bit of detail about it (I think the significance of it escaped me.) Nonetheless, we found out that Dalat had been largely unaffected (comparatively speaking) to other areas of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

From here, we headed out to a local temple-slash-pagoda-slash-bell-tower, predominantly Buddhist in its design. It was beautiful if only for the clearly pain-staking effort that had gone into its design; each element of the temple made up of mosaics of porcelain and coloured glass. Nothing like any of the temples that I've seen in either China or Taiwan, which was interesting, as there was a lot of Chinese iconography in the building; reminding us of the 1,000 year long colonial history that China shares with Vietnam.

This is evident in the language, also; we've already found strong similarities between Chinese and Vietnamese. For example, both are tonal languages and share similar pictograph characters. Common words like "flower" - hua - are pronunced similarly.

When we came down from the bell tower this afternoon, Neihp and Mui were eating some food from a local vendor which I recognised as the hugely popular Taiwanese dish, "dou hua" - soft tofu pudding would perhaps best describe it. Unlike the Taiwanese version, this version was much more delicious, tofu set in a warm sweet-ginger sauce. (A commentary, no doubt, on the marked difference in the deliciousness and quality of Vietnamese food compared to Taiwanese food, generally speaking.)

Then, a brief stop up at a lookout over the mountain ranges of Dalat, before onwards to the farm of some friends of our guides. Into the rural part of the city, this particular farming family had once been neighbours of our guide Mui, only to move out of the city to grow roses, strawberries, and other fruits. They welcomed us warmly into their home and onto the farm, allowing Niehp to take us into the greenhouse full of the budding season harvests... Red, yellow, orange, white and pink roses abound... Beautiful! Niehp mentioned that it had been the contribution of a foreign Dutchman some twenty years prior that had introduced the idea of a "greenhouse" to this part of Southern Vietnam, allowing for year-long harvests, instead of the once/twice yearly seasons.

The owners then stuffed us with some of their homegrown strawberries, fresh of the vine. Delicious!

Following this, we headed up to a coffee plantation, where Mui took pains to explain to us each stage of the coffee harvest process. After all these years in coffee, it was a complete joy to be at the place where it all begins.

Then, onto a famous Dalat waterfall... Where Leese encountered her first snake... (More dangerous than the biking, perhaps?) Beautiful. (Perhaps that goes without saying.)

Finally, a stop at a Zen Buddhist Monastery, set ni the mountains across from the largest lake in Dalat. This allowed Sim and I an opportunity to breathe and take in the course of our huge day in the city.

And so ends our day in Dalat - jam-packed, non-stop travel goodness. It's only 6:30pm but we're pretty stuffed, and somewhat pleased to be back at the beaches tomorrow (it's cold up here in the mountains, which is a bit of a shock to the system!) We've got another 6 hours on the bus tomorrow to Nha Trang, coast of the South China Sea.

All our love, L and S xo