ON TWO WHEELS ACROSS THE HIGHLANDS TO BEACH PARADISE, MUI NE
DALAT AND THE HIGHLANDS
After the fantastic few days in Hoi An, and the aforementioned flight that we had to take to avoid the alternative 19-hour bus drive, we got to Dalat, the capital of the Central Highlands. Although it’s only a few hundred kilometres away, in Dalat we encountered yet another world. Due to the high altitude the Central Highlands enjoys a much lower temperature, about 20-25 degrees vs. 35+ degrees, therefore it has become an escape for locals in the hottest months. It is also the main honeymoon destination for local couples, although as we learnt, many can only afford a few days’ break. Foreigners come here for active tourism – which is not bearable in the heat elsewhere – like trekking, rafting or cycling, although our impression was that either they were all on tours at the time of our visit, or simply there was not so many of them as we barely met a few.
Due to the pleasantly cool climate the Highlands and also the area around Dalat is famous for agriculture, mainly flowers, vegetables and fruits. The city is home to a flower park where many artistic floral creations are on display, and visitors can also purchase many type of plants to take home. The view of the countryside is dotted with greenhouses for roses and other flowers, vegetable fields with cabbage, sweet potatoes, strawberries and many more. It’s also rich in orchards, mainly filled with passion fruit, jackfruit and avocado trees, and a bit further, once the altitude gets a bit lower, there are dragon fruit, pepper and cashew nut trees along the road.
Around Dalat:
Surprisingly, the town has also a very different atmosphere from other cities due to its elegant architecture with many newly built houses, most of which resemble a little holiday town in Europe. A charming lake dominates the city with a few lovely cafés on the side, which compensate for the noisy centre where thousands of crazy motorbikes drive in all possible directions, seemingly without the slightest consideration of traffic rules. The town was lucky to remain intact in the WWII as it was mainly a site for negotiations and conferences.
As our flight arrived late at night, the first full day in Dalat we were free to just hang around and arrange our activities for the following day. The town itself is not abundant in sites to visit, the few that you can see are spread out a bit, therefore a motorbike is essential to see them. We decided to only cover a few of them so that we could have a nice relaxing walk. We started in the market, where a wide range of the local produce is on sale from vegetables to fruits and flowers. Later we left the hectic centre and walked around the main lake with a visit to the Flower Park and spent a nice lunch at the furthest café by the lake with a leafy park around it.
Fruits and vegs of Dalat:
We decided to discover the region in the most original way, on a motorbike, on the back of an Easyrider driver (well, two). Easyriders are basically authorised motorbike drivers who show you around an area or city by motorbike or take you to your next destination in the country while taking you to unique points of interests on the way. The Easyrider concept was actually born in Dalat, probably as tourists wanted to see the nice countryside, and some of the thousands of bikers offered them a tour around. Today it’s extremely popular, and is considered as one of the “must-does” in Vietnam. While in Dalat motorbikers stop you on the street and offer tours, not all of them are qualified Easyriders (apparently there’s a qualification you need to get to become one) and we were warned that some of them try to scam tourists, as they request a deposit when you book a tour but they never show up on the departure day.
Hence we wanted to be on the safe side and booked two drivers through the hotel to our next destination, Mui Ne, two days away by motorbike. The main guy was a polished businessman, he tried all tactics to push up the price after we had already agreed on it (which, for clarification, was more a Western price level than a local one anyways!) by mentioning that the entrance tickets and the petrol are not included, or if we want a nice accommodation for the night on the way, we would need to pay extra – all that he and his brochure had previously said were included in the price! Luckily we are probably just as polished by now, so we foresaw his tactics and referred to the brochure that stated the details, then we got it all in writing from him with the hotel owner as a witness (who surely would not want us to have a bad experience with the driver who they recommended as that could generate bad reviews for him too). Well, we were not the driver’s favourite this way, but we learnt and heard too much about how foreigners are ripped off to leave any space for manoeuvre.
The tour itself was excellent, we saw much of the countryside and heard a lot about how people live there. We visited a few hill tribe villages on the way, where people look different and speak another language from Vietnamese, although children now need to learn it at school. These villages had a single dirt road running through them with many livestock free on the street including not only poultry of all sort but pigs too (which is apparently much tastier if it grows on the street and runs a lot – they call free range chickens “running chickens” here!). People observed us in these villages but were nice and welcoming in general, with the kids waving to us and showcasing their English knowledge of only a few words with a big smile.
The road also passed by flower and vegetable farms, all very well-maintained in precise order. As our guide told us, the government realised that collectivised farms weren’t very productive, and started privatising land back to people around 1985. Farmers were happy to take back ownership of the land and grow some more lucrative crops, generating good incomes and leading to higher living standards in Dalat than elsewhere in the country. Today, many of them sell part of these fields to cash in on an even better investment, the education of (at least some of) their children – since education is chargeable at all levels, including primary school.
One of our stops was at a silkworm factory where we witnessed as workers boil the silk cocoon, with a living worm in it, and roll down the silk from it. The silk is then rolled up to a machine, dried and sold for production. We found the overall process very interesting, so here is a quick summary:
Specialized worm producers own silk butterflies and sell silkworm eggs which were laid and kept under special conditions. The eggs are sold to ordinary farmers, who will hatch and raise the worms.
The eggs are sold to ordinary farmers who want to supplement their income, who hatch the eggs and raise them for a month. The worms are fed a diet of 100% mulberry leaves – strictly no water allowed.
After a month the worm starts spinning a protective cocoon around it, which is made out of silk. If left alone, it would eventually metamorphose into a butterfly.
However, the farmer sells the cocoon to the silkworm factory, which boils the cocoon (with the silkworm still inside), and rolls the silk from the cocoon into a thread, which then gets processed.
I felt sorry for the worm that gets killed just to get its cocoon (although the meat gets eaten), hence I asked why they can’t wait until the butterfly leaves the cocoon behind and then they could use the silk without killing it!? Apparently it would be hard for the farmer to collect the cocoons then as the butterflies leave them all around the place. Well, I don’t find this an adequate answer, surely the butterflies could be somehow controlled, if this was the only problem (Szilveszter thinks that letting millions upon millions of butterflies loose every month would be an environmental issue), but probably as this is the traditional and the more comfortable way, this is how it is.
Anyways, silk production is a lucrative business, the raw silk is sold at a high price in local terms, for about $8-10 per kilogram. To put this in perspective though, from this amount about 4 scarves can be made, meaning that the silk for each scarf costs about $2. Even if you add the cost of production including labour, colouring and logistics, you find a massive gap between the cost you will pay for the scarf in the shop in Western countries. It raises the question whether there’s any fair trade initiative which would redistribute more of the revenue to the local farmers...
We also saw a few Buddhist temples on the way with interesting statues, the most spectacular of which was the Happy Buddha, made out of some metallic material and an enormous smiling face.
We spent the night at probably the best place we’ve ever stayed as part of an organized tour, as tour operators try to reduce the costs to the lowest possible. This guesthouse, called Juliet Resort was literally in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, but in a fantastic environment, with a large natural waterfall and a swimming pool in the garden and their own coffee plantation on the hillside. We got a beautiful bungalow and enjoyed the scenery in the morning from a natural rock terrace by the waterfall. The place is popular with Easyrider travelers, who are the main guests, since others would hardly come to this part of the countryside.
Along the road we also stopped at the Elephant Waterfall and the Pongour Waterfall, both at beautiful natural settings. The Elephant Fall got its name from the elephants that used to bath here before the surrounding jungles were cleared. Here we could even climb through some rocks and get right behind the water to enjoy a drenching shower! The second is at a more developed spot with a park and food vendors around, and it’s also a bit more limited where you can climb. A year ago a new hydroelectric dam was built on the river which reduced the amount of water here by at least a half, nonetheless it’s still a nice phenomenon that’s worth a visit.
One of the most relaxing stops was at a coffee plantation in the countryside with a café terrace overlooking the fields. We learnt here the main difference here between Robusta and Arabica coffee from the perspective of locals: The Robusta plant is a quicker investment because the owner can start harvesting beans from the plant only 2 years after planting, while Arabica produces beans only after year 3 although the selling price is higher. This is why on government-owned fields today Arabica is the most common bean, while individual farmers grow Robusta. In the Highlands the weather is ideal for coffee, due to the abundant rainfall the field requires minimal irrigation, only a couple of times per year, which saves much cost. The plant also allows 1.5-2 harvests per year here.
Another exciting type of coffee they have at the farm is the Luwak or weasel coffee that we have seen a few years earlier in Bali too. The way it’s produced is that farmers feed caged little hairy weasels the coffee beans, the animals have the sense to select the best beans and only eat those. The animals don’t chew or fully digest the beans but the beans get some special enzymes during their digestion process. The farmers later on collect back the beans from the poo they find, clean and roast them to sell them at about 400% of the price of the beans before the contribution of the weasels! The most extreme was the price change in the Arabica beans, non-weasel beans cost £1.5 per 100g, weasel ones cost £13.5! Poor animals work all night (and sleep during the day) to make sure they ‘produce’ as much of the precious stuff as possible!
We tasted the real Vietnamese coffee at this plantation, which is made by a special coffee-making tool. It’s a little metal cup that gets filled with roasted coffee then gets hot water added to it. In the little cup the water creates hot steam. In a few minutes the fresh and incredibly strong coffee flows through the cup into the mug underneath and is ready to serve. It has a dense, almost syrupy consistency, and it equals a few European espresso shots in strength. For hot coffee they add hot water to it, or locals add ice cubes, and sweet condensed milk and drink it as an ice coffee. Szilveszter, who does not like coffee, tried the weasel coffee and so we had to realise that we are not real gourmets as we were not able to differentiate the Luwak taste from the normal beans, even if the smell was a bit difference (it did not smell of poo!). I tried the butter Moka, which was roasted with butter, a new concept to me. It tasted creamy, almost reminded me of my favourite vanilla coffee capsule from home. Whenever someone comes to Vietnam, they need to try these local delicacies, which will be easy as there’s a long tradition of cafés here.
It was very interesting hearing how our Easyrider guides and locals in general view the Vietnam war. On the one side, they don’t consider it so much a struggle between capitalism and communism, but rather an anti-colonial independence war – something which hadn’t really occurred to us beforehand. On the other side, it is incredible how they are willing to move on from the past, and don’t bear any animosity to Americans (even veterans of the war) despite the enormous suffering they endured, only 30 years ago. Our time in Vietnam coincided with Obama’s visit (although we were in different cities), who was treated as a very welcome friend, with newspapers emphasising the need for closer ties between the two countries. Even more surprisingly, at temples huge billboards highlighted Obama’s greetings to the world’s Buddhists on the occasion of Vesak (the Buddha’s birthday), which he had given only a couple weeks earlier. I wonder how many countries are able to move on and focus on the present and the future rather than clinging to historic grievances in such a manner.
On the way the weather started showing the first signs of the rainy season, which has come 1.5 month early this year, due to El Nino, as the locals believe. This might be a good news for them, but we’re a bit worried as traveling in thunderstorms and heavy rains is a bit harder, and not so much fun. The first day of the tour we were lucky enough to be on our lunch break under a roof when the pouring rain arrived, so we could wait there before heading further in a poncho which provided enough protection against the then light rain. The second day, however, we were on the way when it caught us, and even the waterproof clothes had no chance helping. It was a sudden and so heavy rain with lightning that the roads turned into rivers in a few minutes, and the water flew into our shoes in creeks from our coats and from the ground as we drove through the deep water. At a point we simply had to stop as we couldn’t see much further anymore, I could only guess the shapes of coconut trees around us bending in the storm, which reminded me of the news about natural catastrophes. We walked into a random house yard to wait till it calms down a bit, and to kill time sampled some of the watermelons the locals sold from huge piles in the yard. It had the size of maybe around 20 centimeters, much smaller than the one we know from home and weighed around 2kg. It was surprisingly sweet, I would not have guessed based on the size!
Due to the heavy rain our drivers decided to take us to Mui Ne on the quickest possible route from here, skipping the famous sand dunes, but we were happy to dry up and relax the rest of the afternoon by the large swimming pool in the hotel with views over the sea where we decided to spend a few days recharging our batteries.
MUI NE
Mui Ne is part of the central coastal region, one of the four main areas in the country, apart from the North, the Central Highlands and the South. It’s a popular beach resort, which is now a regular stop on the backpacker itinerary due to its proximity to Ho Chi Minh City (previously known as Saigon), the capital, its nice beach that stretches over 10km which is famous for kitesurfing, and its favourable prices. Actually, the prices are much lower than in Hoi An, in the average restaurant a meal costs about £1.5-2, and even in the fancy restaurant by the pool it was not more than £3, which would be the average price for Hoi An wherever you eat. Obviously these are all so little amounts, but it can add up for the budget traveler over weeks.
For us it was the ideal place to do nothing for a little while apart from reading and sleeping by the swimming pool, walking on the beach, and motorcycling around to some neighbouring towns and villages. To our surprise, the beach was unfortunately only clean in the areas that belong to hotels, while everywhere else it resembled a waste landfill, and right in the village it reached absolute extreme levels: it was covered with piles of rubbish and animals’ body parts.
Our hotel:
The clean part of the beach and the port in the neighbour town:
The non-tourist area only a few kilometers further:
Another surprise for us was the dominance of Russian tourists in Vietnamese beaches. We heard that Nha Trang, the number one beach resort, is fully specialized in Russian travelers, including Russian signs on each shop, spa, hotel and other establishment. Apparently at some places even the staff is Russian, and even some of the Vietnamese learn the language. In Mui Ne the situation is not too different from Nha Trang, you see signs everywhere in Russian, and a few spas and yoga centres do not even have an English or a Vietnamese webpage, only a Russian one. The hotel we stayed in had a mix of different nationalities, so most likely the beachside hotels are specialized to the Russian audience.
The arrival of the rainy season showed its signs to us in Mui Ne too. A few thunderstorms, mainly overnight, created rivers on the roads that even stopped some cars and the sun was decided to not come out a day or two. Luckily, apart from this we had a fantastic time and could fully recharge our batteries for our next stop, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta.