February 10 Da Lat Countryside

We went on a country-tour the day after the Crazy House Expedition, and one of the things we saw was a Weasel Coffee Factory, complete with Coffee Weasels.  The way this works is, the weasel gets up in the morning, wanders over to it's Coffee Dish, and eats as many coffee beans as it can force down its gullet.  Then it lays down for a nap, gets up, poops out all the coffee beans, and ambles over to see what's in the coffee dish.  Not that different than a lot of Starbucks customers, actually....   They don't really look like weasels, though; more like Billy Bumblers if you've read the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.  In any event, once the poop is (more or less) removed from the coffee beans they are worth $200 CAD/kilo.  Over here.  God knows what they are worth in Canada.  Oh yeah, we tried a cup each and it was almost as good as the stuff I get at McDonalds.

 Why are these coffee beans all stuck together and lumpy?

 

Weasel coffee beans with the poop washed off.

 

Yes, this stuff does make your hair stand up on end.

 

These guys must work in the Decaf Division.

After we left the Coffee Weasel Place we stopped off at the Elephant Waterfall.  No elephants, luckily; they named it that because there are big chunks of columnar basalts that have fallen off the cliff face and apparently look like elephants if you've had WAY too much weasel coffee.  The parking lot was on the top of the cliff, and the guide wisely pointed us at the walkway down and told us to fill our boots and be back in an hour.  The walk down was really something; it's probably 500' vertical so the path down must be 500' long because it's pretty much vertical.  They have cut steps into the rocks in places, grouted in railings out of rebar in some places, and overall it's just pretty freaky.  Once we got to the bottom it was worth it, though, assuming you don't think about having to go back up.  On the way up Deb took a header and I thought she was going off the edge but a couple of us grabbed her and rolled her back up onto her feet.  Pretty interesting to say the least!  When we got back to the top, unbelievably, I realized that we were both so focused on not dying that nobody took any pics of the path.  After at least two seconds of reflection we both decided that we'd pushed our luck enough for one day so you just have to imagine it!

 View from the top.

 

 Deb scrambled out onto a rock for this shot.

 

 So I had to go too, right?  Right?

 

A shot of the elephants from above.  Can't see them?  Have another coffee....

 

There are a ton of things to see around this town, so we landed on a city tour to make sure we didn't miss anything critical.  'City tour' here means anything within about 10 km, so it actually included a lot of outdoorsy stuff as well.

We started with a tour of the King's Palace, a misnomer at best as there isn't a king and it wasn't a palace.  There WAS a king but he got the boot sometime after the end of WW2 (The Big One) when the UN installed a 'democratic government' and the king decamped to a life of luxury in Paris where I'm sure his offspring are doing just fine.  And of course being the king of Viet Nam was kind of like being the king of New Westminster.  But still.  It's a lovely French-colonial chateau and it still has a lot of cool stuff in it and it's worth a look.

Then we drove up to Signal Hill, which is about 2 km from town.  It has a gondola ride of about 3 km over to a big lake with a working Buddhist monastery.  The ride is pretty good, and the monastery grounds are lovely.  These guys could teach the Germans something about being clean and orderly and making everything Line Up.

  It's good to be the king.  From the reception room looking out on the gardens.

 

Heading down the gondola to the Buddhist monastery.

 

Pink things!

 

 The monks have woven the figs into a mesh tube, which have all fused.

 

A new fuel type; radiata pine / fan palm.  How can these two grow together?

Then it was off to another set of falls only about 5 km from town, this is a series of six falls all strung together with concrete pathways and stairs and things, and there is a thriving tour industry taking young (and stupid) people 'canyoning' which includes rappelling through the falls and other dubious undertakings.  So we just wanted to go down to the first falls, after which there was supposedly a cable car through a canyon to the second falls.  The tour guide herded us through buying a ticket, and then we were escorted over to what looked like some kind of two-person roller-coaster ride thing (I was tipped off by the sign saying 'roller coaster').  Not wanting that at all, I promptly made a scene until our tickets were exchanged and we walked about 1000' vertical downhill where we met up with the guys that actually got on the roller coasters!  I hate it when that happens. In any event, the first falls were good, the gondola through the canyon was definitely worth it, and when we got to the top of the second falls there was an elevator to go to the bottom!  On the way back up I was persuaded that there is a God, as we were able to buy one-way tickets back up the roller coaster so we didn't have heart attacks or aneurisms beating our sorry asses back up the hill.

 The first falls.  Water is crystal clear, very nice!

 

  The cable car through the Canyon of Death.  There was a rainbow, but very hard to capture.

 

 Every steep hill should have one of these!  Elevator down to second falls.

 

 This girl should be flipping numbers on Wheel of Fortune.  Second falls.

Hauling butt up a 100% slope on the roller coaster-thing.

 

There was more, including the Crazy House and the Old Train Station, but we had already done that and it was at least 10 minutes after Beer, so we excused ourselves and called it a very good day.



Feb 5 Da Lat In and Around Town

The road to DaLat was one of the worst roads for potholes I have ever been on and it was so twisty windy that there were a lot of corners that had 3' round mirrors on them & the horn was honked to warn traffic the bus was coming. The bees nests are huge and sometimes 3 or 4 of them per tree. There goes that theory of not building in the same territory like our bees. Dalat has turned out to be a very nice city. It’s up in the mountains, about 5,000 feet, and the weather is almost perfect. 24-27 in the afternoon, it drops down to the low teens at night. So shorts and tee-shirt all day, light sweater after 5pm, and you don’t need aircon. The weather reminds us very much of Morelia or Guadalajara, cities in the Mexican highlands; spring every day! It’s pretty easy to see why the French colonists picked this as their go-to spot to beat the heat. The city is arranged on a (large) number of hills, so there are scenic vistas everywhere. It’s very clean and pretty, and there are lots of things to see and do here. If you are not walking down hill you are climbing stairs.

Eating on the street in the evening; best pho in town!  Note the parkas.

 

 Organic weasel coffee?  Who knew?

 

This guy is selling aquarium fish off his motorbike.

We decided we should check out a couple of the local sights, so one day we laced up our runners real tight and went looking for the Crazy House.  It turned out to be only about 2 km from our hotel but of course on a completely different hill, say no more.  This place was built by a successful Vietnamese (lady) architect who painted the interiors and exteriors she wanted and then had local (non-professional) builders put it together.  Sometimes you are on a tree, sometimes you are in a cave, and sometimes you’re walking over a 30 foot drop on a tiny walkway out of The Hobbit.  And somehow she stuffed 10 hotel rooms into the whole thing to help pay for it.  It seriously has to be seen to be believed, and walking in/over/through it was an experience.

 Taking a break on the way up one of the numerous birth canals.

 

A tiny and precipitous walkway between two roofs over a vertiginous gap

 

On top of the world!  Well, the roof anyway.  This is WAY up in the air!

There’s a very nice lake 3-4 km long right smack in the middle of the city with roads and walkways completely around it, you can rent paddle-boats and goof around out on the lake or you can clop around behind a horse in a carriage.  The entire shoreline of the lake is edged with stone retaining walls, so you don’t have to worry about muddy feet or any of that uncivilized stuff.

The north side of the lake is dominated by a nice-looking golf course and a large flower-garden complex.  We checked out the golf course, and after adding up the green and caddy fees and the cart and club rental we decided that $300 US each to play what for us was a mid-range course was a bit much.  Clearly golf remains an upper-class sport here! The garden complex, on the other hand, was pretty cool.  Sadly, as in all of Viet nam, we are here right in the middle of the dry season so the flowers are at their lowest; the gardeners are all ass up – head down getting ready for spring.  One of the interesting things here is that they have large flower arrangements all over town, and they are ‘plug and play’ meaning the arrangements are all made up of big racks and the flower pots go in the racks and that’s that.  When a flower stops holding up it’s end of the deal they yank the pot and put a new one in.

 Paddle ducks on the lake, with city in background.

 

 The island in background is all gardens and coffee house.

 

 Of course they put the welcome on the INSIDE.

  

When the bombs drop, the washrooms and atm will be fine.

 Replacing pots in the Welcome Arch.

 

The south side of the lake has a large complex of in-the-ground bleachers built into the proverbial Grassy Knoll and there are some weird metal-sculpture things on the hill above that look like they are still under construction.  We just figured they were the legacy of some VietNam Games thingy or for public affirmations of The Workers’ Paradise.  Then one day Deb needed a new hair dryer. One of the ladies from our Hostel said she would come back to the night market where I had bought one the day before but it didn''t work. When we finally found that stall, the woman there would not give me back my money. Its a good thing nobody peed in my cereal that morning & I was in a good mood. Anyways, off to the only mall DaLat has. We walked about 2 kms before we went in between some bleachers and found this enterance to an underground shopping mall.  We went through a little tunnel between the bleachers that looked like it would lead to a hockey-team dressing room, and there was a complete two-story shopping mall complete with supermarket, food floor, and arcade!  I guess they didn’t want to ruin the view from the lake so they just buried the whole thing and grassed it over. I bought a much better hair blower for 50 dong cheaper...grrrr.

Dancing broom from Fantasia (remember the water buckets?)

Deb fell in love with this guy, but no room in the suitcase.

The topiary is getting pretty ratty.  (Rat-ty.  Get it?  Sigh.)

Far Right:  One of a zillion unique and beautiful orchids in the greenhouse.

Then we checked out the Old Railway Station, which is really just The Railway Station as there is no New Railway Station.  They must have hired the same PR firm that decided the smallest cup of coffee at McDonalds should be called ‘The Medium’.  But I digress.  There isn’t a whole lot there, but the station building is nice and they have one old ‘train’ which is composed of a non-functional steam engine and a boxcar converted into a coffee shop.  Reminded both Deb and I of the CN way-freights we used to ride in the 70’s!  80-90 years ago the French spent a ton of money extending the railroad from the lowlands up to Da Lat, then during the Vietnam War (that would be the Third Liberation War to the locals) the Americans bombed it right back into landscape.  So, no train.

 The old girl is looking pretty rough.

 

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

January 31 Mui Ne Fairy Stream and Sand Dunes Working

Steve: We decided we had better get a look at some more of the local area, so we booked a one-day tour of the main attractions through our hotel. That gave us one of the most clapped-out jeeps I’ve ever ridden in plus a driver guaranteed not to speak English, and off we went. First stop was the Fairy Stream, which is a little creek you can walk in for about a kilometre along with 100 other tourists and a herd of milk cows. The fairies must have had the day off, but it IS a pretty interesting walk as the creek has undercut the sand banks which are starting to hoodoo.

January 15 Mui Ne Around the Town Working

Steve: So, here we are in Mui Ne (pronounced Moo Nay), a very pretty little strip of hotels and restaurants along one of the better beaches in southern Vietnam. I can’t call this a beach community as there isn’t one. Community, that is; the beach is definitely there!  The town of Mui Ne is at the north end, and the city of Phan Thiet is at the south end, and us tourists all hang out in the strip in between. Today that’s Deb and me and about 50% of western Russia. This place is at least 80% Russian, and the Phan Thiet newspaper refers to it as ‘little Moscow’. We liked it enough when we showed up to extend our hotel stay for an extra three weeks, so we’re here for 24 days in total. About 90% of this place is one street which holds all the hotels and restaurants and shops, there are lots of palm trees and once you set your personal filter to screen out the taxi and moto drivers and the restaurant touts, it’s very nice. 28-31 degrees during the day, but in the afternoon there’s always a brisk wind to make things feel cooler. In the evening it plummets all the way down to 23-24, so sitting out in the evening is very pleasant.
 

Peanut vendor bundled up against the morning cold (25 deg)

 

Our hotel is about 300 metres up one of the very few side-streets (about 10’ wide) and is perched on a series of sand dunes, giving us an excellent panorama of the town and the ocean, and at night we can see the lights of the squid fleet filling the horizon. Very romantic if you’re not a squid. We have a pretty good room on the second floor overlooking a small pool, and there’s a big pool at the excellent restaurant which we can use as well. Not bad for $22.50 USD/night! And the restaurant has REAL COFFEE and we get refills.

 

 

Our little pool. We're on the second floor looking down.

Restaurant and main pool from the upper terrace.

 

Deb: When we arrived, I was really sick with food poisoning from the hotel in Ho Chi Minh city, so I was pretty much out of it. When we discovered we were not given back our passports from 'that' hotel, the Receptionist right away said 'no problem, we will get them for you.' You can't imagine the relief we felt. That was the beginning of a relationship with the staff that became very endearing & we were treated like family. Originally we booked for 3 nights but booked another 3 weeks.

 

Steve: We have the local bus sorted out now, so it’s time to go for a look-see at Mui Ne town. The single most striking thing about the town is the fishing fleet. There are a humungous pile of boats anchored just off-shore, and they use little round plastic coracols with inboard motors to get back and forth to shore and to haul their nets in and out. Other than that it’s a very forgettable little town.

A very small part of the Mui Ne fishing fleet.

A side-street in Mui Ne. Motorbike good, car bad.

 

Deb: The market in Mui Ne was your typical fishermans village market. They sell the meat & fish in the back, the vegetables, food & 'restraunts' in the middle, and everything else as you first walk in.

These pancakes have scallion, squid, & shaved potatoe in the middle. Very tasty indeed!

 

Phan Thiet is completely different, though. The only thing in common is the big fleet of fishing boats, which they keep in a river. It is a fair-size city (ca. 200,000) and has shopping centres and movie theaters and such. We wore our feet off walking, as usual. And we found a tiny little liquor store that sells decent Chilean wine in a box for a good price. Yippee!

 

Fishers and their round things in Phan Thiet. 

These people don't know whether they're coming or going....

 

The restaurants in Vietnam will cook up anything & everything. While us 'westerners' may not approve of some of the items, here it is just something that is natural. Having said that, I tried Alligator. The belly meat is more tender than the tail, which is quite chewy, but it was just meat, no fat and I guess the taste is somewhere between chicken/rabbit.

This is not a chicken, or a rabbit.
 

Here are a few interesting doors in our neighbourhood.

 

Elephant Doorway: This place did not have the bricks in place for a door when we arrived. We got to watch the whole transformation from no brick walls to the competion of lock-up.

 

This door has an additional safety lock of Cactus.

 

Kite surfing/boarding and surfing is the #1 sport here and they hold international competitions usually in November. The wind is up around 11 each morning and believe me, you get blown around pretty good. The surf was too rough for us to go in and we watched as people who were trying to take selfies and photo's of others, get knocked down and they were only in water up to their knees...quite entertaining at times. I only saw 1 shop selling boogie boards and 1 person using them...which I found strange, until I saw how rough the surf was. If you were not paying attention, you would be slam dunked in the blink of an eye. 

A typical mid-afternoon, with the sky full of kites.

 

A kite-thingy.

 

Taking off from the beach. These folks really get moving.

 

This monkey has a guy working for him selling ice cream.

Doesn't want to be recognized - probably not declaring his income.

January 6 Cu Chi Tunnels and Water Puppet Theatre

Deb: Then its off to the Cu Chi Tunnels (pronounced Goo Chie). This is a system of deep underground tunnels having several floor, alleys and branches like a spider web of more than 250 kms. The tunnels were dug with simple tools and bare hands during the French occupation in the 1940s, and further expanded during the Vietnam War in the 1960s to provide refuge and a defensive advantage over the American soldiers. Despite all the bombings in their towns, the Cu Chi people were able to continue their lives beneath the soil, where they slept, ate, planned attacks, healed their sick, and taught their young. Some even wed and gave birth underground, but over 10,000 lost their lives here.

The spider in his hole. Too small for me to get both shoulders through!

 

Going down...

Typical tunnel. This is roughly 20' below ground level.

Coming back up in a different place. Big ladder!

A guy can go a little funny down there.

I had a choice of guns to shoot: AK-47; M16 Carbine; M60; M1 Carbine; or a M1 Garand & Russian SKS. I choose an M16. I never did hit the target but was surprised there was no recoil...kinda liked that.

Happiness is a warm gun.

 

 

Steve: We have a few more days in HCMC, so time for a bit of sightseeing and a couple more tour-things. Deb was very disappointed that we didn't get to see the water puppets when we were in Phu Quoc, and it turns out that they must be long-distance swimmers because they are here now! Not only that, they are within walking distance of our hotel. The bad news; they are All Sold Out. We put our names on a waitlist and hope for the best. 

We were staying in District One, which is pretty much where all the Happening Things are. Having said that, this is a honking big city and you can drive for miles and miles and there's just more miles and miles. The main market is just 3-4 blocks from our hotel, so we checked that out a couple times and we mooched around on foot checking out the McDonalds (4 floors, the 3rd-floor kitchen delivers everything to the main floor via dumbwaiter, GOOD COFFEE.) and the parks and public squares and things. Oh yeah, we went to a 5-storey shopping mall that had a theatre, bowling alley, arcade, and food floor all on the top floor. The Hobbit plus popcorn and a drink for five bucks. The Hobbit won. Again. You would think with all the effort they put into the Orc Breeding Program it wouldn't be too much to ask that they could kill one elf, at least a dwarf or two, they're just little fellas. Yawn.

HCMC is just another stinking city, but they have made a real effort to beautify the downtown with enormous led lighting displays that stretch for miles, and lots of city parks alongside the main streets where people can come and hang out, do their tai chi, etc. Pretty civilized.

 

 

Lots of long narrow parks like this along the main thoroughfares.

Not Rush Hour.

 

Hangin' out at a typical (on the) sidewalk cafe.

Overhead led lights. They often go for a mile or more.

There were about 50 of these on a median, each with about 10,000 lights.

Better than a backpack!

 

Lo and behold, the day before we were to head for Mui Ne, two tickets to the Water Puppet Theatre showed up!

Deb: Well this was a treat. It was fun and very entertaining even though we were in the nosebleed section. The puppets are run by people behind the props who are also in the water. The photo's did not turn out that great because we were so far away. The puppets are made out of wood and then lacquered. The shows are performed in a waist-deep pool. A large rod supports the puppet under the water and is used by the puppeteers, who are normally hidden behind a screen, to control them. Thus the puppets appear to be moving over the water. When the rice fields would flood, the villagers would entertain each other using this form of puppet play.

 

 

Dragon boat racing.

 

Duck-stealing cat in the tree

Obligatory fire-breathing dragon

 

These ones are real. I think...

 

Steve: There were fishes, ducks, tigers, dogs, children, and fire-breathing dragons. It was interesting. After the show we decided to take a long circuitous walk back to the hotel and we discovered a group of really nice restaurants, and we had a great meal in a lovely setting. A great ending to our stay. Except for the food poisoning...

 

Believe it or not, we jay-walked through this. No one bats an eye.

Remember that rule about not eating in fancy restaurants? Why are these people smiling?

 

Deb: Our last night here we went to this fancy restaurant where I got food poisoning. I am not sorry to see Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon in the rear view mirror. I'm glad we experienced it but also glad to leave the city. It doesn't matter what country you're in, a city is a still just a city.