Central Highlands of Vietnam...on the back of my hog! (Day 1)

There are a lot of pictures and well....let's be honest...I don't actually enjoy writing. I like sharing my story with you all but I am not a writer. So you are about to get the short version...aka...a picture journey of my 2 day motorcycle tour threw the central highlands of Vietnam.


We met up with this tour group called the "Easy Riders." Here is my guide Loi getting our bike ready.


Woohoo!!! Let's go! (Courtney and I)


Don't I look like a natural on the back of a motorcycle? This picture was taken while we were moving...Joe took this when he was passing us!


We started our tour with a visit to one of the famous shrines in Da Lat area. There were many dragons. Here I am under one...


and next to another...

there is some importance to the dragon. Something to do with life...wish I would have paid a better attention...


As we were leaving Da La we went on a short hike by a large water fall. The fall was called Elephant Falls. It was a dangerous hike but beautiful!


Me with one of the little falls:

I wish I could show/explain the series of rocks we climbed down just to stand at this spot....and then the series of rocks ahead just to see the falls...


But after the slippery, scary hike...we made it to Elephant Falls:


And it was beautiful...(and bright!)


Right next to the falls was a large shrine. The shrine itself was beautiful. It was famous for the Giant Laughing Buddha and for the Buddha with 100 hands and 1000 eyes. At the entrance was another dragon...


Here is one of the Buddhas. This type of Buddha is from India. The fat, laughing Buddha is from China. Both are used everywhere but have different origins. In this temple, the Indian Buddha is inside and the laughing Buddha was outside.

and here are the 100 hands and 1000 eyes...


Outside was the Giant Laughing Buddha that this shrine was also known for. There was a door to enter at his belly but it was locked!


The was a meditating Buddha outside and we felt the need to join in for a moment of peace and prayer...



After this hard hike it was time for lunch. The guys said they would order for us if we could eat everything...we were daring enough. The place was pretty gross...stray dogs, lots of flies and a very unsanitary looking kitchen...but the food was so delicious!

This is chicken with something. The chopsticks you can see are bright green...many places had the same ones. they are a lot longer and thicker than the chopsticks in Japan.


This is the whole table...


The guides were so impressed with our ability and desire to try the new foods. A lot of it was spicy...but so delicious! As we were finishing they ordered dessert for us. It was a fresh fig. It was an interesting taste and texture. The texture was like syrupy juice and then you just had to swallow the seeds quickly. Overall it tasted alright. Not sure how safe it was to eat but we all survived.



We stopped many times (mostly to save our bottoms from going numb) but also to take in many beautiful scenes. You can see all the farms in the background. Vietnam grows a wide variety of vegetables, sugar cane, coffee and so much more. Here is us enjoying a view of central Vietnam in all it's glory...


At one point we were told to take a hike (those were the exact words) and on top of the little mountain (hill) was another wonderful view...


Every so often the guys would pull over and get off to show us something else. Here we stopped at a flower farm and learned that Da Lat is famous threw out Vietnam for growing the more beautiful flowers. They are shipped daily to Ho Chi Mihn (a 6 hour bus ride!)


We also learned a lot about the coffee industry in Vietnam...there were coffee trees everywhere. Here we are getting a lesson about coffee trees:


Coffee beans on the tree:


and then they would dry it out on HUGE tarps in the front yard, back yard, on top of the house...everywhere was coffee:


More "factories" (aka...someone's house). Here was a family making brooms.

The guy just collected the brush and then rolled it all together...it was pretty amazing how tight he could roll the handle. And the finished product:


One of the most interesting things we saw was the silk factory. We were able to see all stages from the harvesting of silk worms to the making and selling of silks. Here is the first factory. At this factory the worms have already made their cacoon. The cacoons are brought here and stacked for when needed. Here are some of the cacoons:

When you broke open many of the cacoons, there were still live worms in there!

The cacoons are put into boiling water to soften. Then when a stay strand is found, it is pulled onto the spinner by this worker. You can see the silk strand being spun onto the green wheel. ( I am sure there is a name for that but I have no idea!) We learned each cacoon can produce about 80 m of a silk strand.


From here, the silk is strung onto larger wheels...(again, I am sure there is a technical name...)


Then the silk is used to make scaves and cloth. This machine was imported from Japan. They just started using machines in the last 5 years, before that, all silk was weaved by hand. If you look at the brown like paper in the top of the picture, that has holes in it. It looks a lot like braille. It is actually made from wood and it is the pattern. It clicks threw at every strand to let the machine know what do to. It made a loud clicking noise. It was very cool to watch.


We went to another "factory" where the Vietnamese version of sake (or Happy Water according to our tour guides) is made. We watched them boil, ferment and distill. It was amazing. Everything was done over a wood burning fire. We were able to try some and bought some to enjoy that night at dinner. It was strong and burned going down.


After visiting the silk factory we visited a "factory" where they breed the worms! Here are millions of worms just fattening up!


Our day is almost over. We take a short break to walk threw the town center of what we were told was one of the ethnic minority groups of Vietnam. We later figured out that they are Hmong people.

We visit another ethnic minority group and were able to tour their houses. The tour guides told us their names but said they usually just call them "long house people" as you can see from the shape of their homes. These groups are now receiving finical support from the government to build better homes. They also get to go to high school for free unlike the rest of Vietnam.


Here is the inside of the house. The center has a loft sort of area. This is where everyone sleeps. The fire is built under it. This is how everyone stays warm!


The day is coming to a close. We are tired and our butts hurt from sitting on a bike for nearly 10 hours! We took a break and had to do a little stretching!

a good night sleep and then on to day 2....

Ho Chi Mihn, day 1 (after midnight!)

We are ready to head back to our hotel. It's a little after midnight. We start our walk and suddenly we are stuck. I mean really stuck. We are crammed between other people, bikes and motorbikes that are so compacted together that we cannot even move. No one is moving...except a few pushy walkers. There are thousands of motorbikes sitting on the road. Many of them have a second passenger who is holding a Vietnam flag. Everyone is cheering like CRAZY! We enjoy the moment, push our way out and head back to the hotel totally unaware that Vietnam had just beaten Thailand in football in Thailand for the first time in an extreme number of years. (yes...cause for celebration!)


and we thought the streets couldn't get any more crowded...

We also had the great joy and fear of crossing one of the main roads to get back to our hotel. I took a video from the side. It is hard to explain the experience of crossing the street. The video helps a little but still does not capture the essence of the experience.

Ho Chi Mihn, day 1

And we are off...bright and early! We arrive at the Fukuoka airport and laugh at this sign. Head upstairs to the restaurants...where??? to the roof? ceiling?? We are THERE!!




We then had the pleasure of hanging out in what I will consider the worst airport I have ever been in....Taiwan International Airport. Small, smelly and like something out of a bad 70s movie. We weren't there for long and enjoyed another game of phase 10 (the game of the trip!) We walked around, enjoyed the duty free shop and wanted to donate oh so badly to....help Taiwan, help you.
We finally arrive! It is about 8pm. We take a taxi to our hotel, check in and head right back out onto the town. It is Christmas Eve after all and we are ready to celebrate as much as 3 people who spent the day on an airplane can! The city is totally insane!! There are people everywhere. We are fearing for our lives as we cross the street (the idea is just to go-weave your way between cars!). We wander around...not really knowing the city yet and totally lost in the stream of people. There was a HUGE stage being built for a huge New Years celebration and a few Christmas decorations around. We took in some of the street shopping, people watching and street food.



And this wasn't even the crowded part of the street:


The Christmas decorations were lovely. There were lights in nearly all the trees and this giant "Happy New Year" sign in the middle of the street:


There was also this dome. It was sponsored by Heineken and had a train running around it that I don't think you can see in the picture. Everyone was in this town square area, taking pictures and celebrating.



Children we also all dressed up. There were little Santas everywhere. They were so cute. Something that we could not explain (or ever get a good picture of) is that the children (and young adults) all wore devil's horns that would light up. We don't know why...not really in the Christmas spirit but it was funny to us none the less.

We were starting to get hungry and there is no better way to experience that eating from the streets...especially when you have NO idea what you are eating. We bought these...thinking there was meat in them. They had some sortof sea food...we never did figure it out. Either way...they were SO good!



Don't know what the sauces were either...the orange one was spicy!




American born idea...Tooty Fruity. I have found my favorite frozen yogurt place in the WORLD. You pick a cup, fill it with as much frozen yogurt as you want, get all the toppings you want from the topings bar and then pay by weight. I LOVED my mango ice cream with oreos. yummy!


People in Vietnam were so friendly towards us. People were constantly shouting "Merry Christmas" and "Hello" at us. We always shouted "Merry Christmas" in return. After a few hours of this, Courtney decided we need to take a picture with the next people who shout at us. These junior high school kids pulled the short straw. They were in total shock when we turned around and asked. They refused at first but we convinced them. The girl next to me is the one that orginally shouted at us. She was so embarassed!



I am all for safe sex campaigns and sexuality education! Vietnam believes so too...there were many signs that talked about AIDS and this famous post we saw around the country. We learned...condoms equal love.