We’ve now finished our six day tour from Dalat to Hoi An with an Easy Rider guide. Lionel rode his own bike while I rode on the back of our guide, Xuan’s bike. Amazing experience with lots of cool stops along the way.
In the morning Xuan rocked up to our hotel and then expertly strapped our bags to his bike. He gave Lionel a quick rundown on the other bike and then took off – Lionel just had to catch up!First stop was a quick look at a Cao Dai Temple. A religion based on a mixture of Buddism, Christianity & Hinduism.
Cao Dai Temple
Lionel riding
Lionel & Xuan at a flower garden
Cows on the road
Lionel passing some kids
On the road with our bikes
Beautiful Dalat
Xuan explaining something to Lionel
Rice Wine being distilled – I had half a shot and was reeling for the next 30 minutes. Lethal.
Weasel Poo – otherwise known as coffee beans
One of the weasels. Probably knackered from eating and then excreting coffee beans.
Weasel Poo Coffee- expensive at 50,000 Dong compared to a Vietnamese coffee at 10,000 Dong
Snake Liquor – there’s a hand in there. What snake has a hand????
Snake WineSome lovely silkworms800 meters of silk will come from ONE cocoon. That’s a whole lotta silk.
Silkworm cocoons being boiled and then sorted
Me with silky white hair
Elephant Falls
Lionel riding around a corner
Lunch with Xuan. At every meal he would organise our forks, spoons and chopsticks. He would also put food in our bowls. Pretty fatherly!
The 1st Day on the roads was the busiest with other Easy Riders, with most people either doing a day trip around Dalat or heading to Nha Trang. This was clearly the lunch place for Easy Riders!
We did a bit of a loop around Dalat which was good as we hadn’t seen anything around Dalat in the previous two days on account of me throwing up from food poisoning. It was a very popular route with other Easy Riders and we kept bumping into the same tourists at every stop. After lunch however, we headed out of Dalat and onto Lak Lake which was to be our first overnight stop.
Lionel with his bike
A view from aboveRocky Road – in order to bypass the rain, Xuan took us on a detour. This road was crazy bad but pretty fun to ride. At times we had to go over rocks like these!
Xuan stopped at a small village, and handed a bag of sweets to a mother. This little girl wandered over to us and wouldn’t stop smiling!
Xuan probably thinking ‘what have I done’ agreeing to ride with us.
We suddenly stopped by a house on the main road, and Xuan led us inside the family’s home to show us their silkworm farm.
A motorcyclist on the bamboo bridge
I didn’t like being on this bridge
I mean, look at it!
Silkworm Cocoons – another sudden stop by Xuan to show us a family who had silkworm cocoons by the side of the road.
Then the rain started. We stopped by the side of the road to get our wet weather gear on.
A small fishing village
Son & Daughter of Anarchy
Xuan explained that these were minority workers heading home after a day in the fields.
One Comment
Lisa
I like this blog post style.