The Easy Riders of Dalat

Oh wow - what an amazing place Dalat was! It was the first time that Lani and I have actually been cold during this trip. It rained on us each day, and we bundled up in our fleece, gortex jackets and tennis shoes.

We stayed in Dalat for about 2.5 days. The first day we just strolled around the city and did some cafe hopping. The clouds were low on the mountains and the rain was on and off, so we couldn't fully see the surrounding mountains, green trees, and hillsides scattered with colored houses and villas that get raved about here. They call it the French Alps of Vietnam, and I could see why...and could've seen better if the clouds would have ever lifted during our stay.

The other full day in Dalat, we took a tour with the Easy Riders. The story behind these fellas, is that they're veterans of the area - been touring for about 15-18 years, and they call themselves the "genuine" or "distinguished" Easy Riders - as the popularity has picked up and there is a younger crew of drivers trying to be like them and lead similar tours. You know the good ones by their grey hair, Uncle Tom (Lani's driver) told us. Basically, our day was amazing, and it didn't rain too badly. We jumped on the back of a moto and toured the countryside and surrounding areas and villages of Dalat for about 8 hrs. There were coffee plantations forever and local produce was being grown on the hillsides as far as the eye could see. We visited a big, fat, white buddha on the hill and saw some waterfalls. We wandered through a minority village - where they still very much live off the land and operate day-to-day without any modern day conveniences. The children there were adorable - they followed us down the muddy road just saying "hello, hello."


We also saw how silk gets made - the entire process - which includes the basket weaving of bamboo to hold the silk worms. We looked inside a family's home in a village where the children were busily working on building the bamboo baskets for their after-school activity. We saw a lot and Titi and Uncle Tom shared all they knew with us. We had such a great day on the back of the motos, cruising through the countryside of Dalat - and only got rained on briefly (hence the sweet rain ponchos). It sure beat seeing the scenery through a bus window.

The next day we were up early and headed out of the rainy hills of Dalat to the sandy beaches of Nha Trang.