Da Lat

After happily leaving Mui Ne behind, I headed to Da Lat, an old French Hill Station in the mountains of South Vietnam. The ticket from Mui Ne to Da Lat said that the bus would leave Mui Ne at 8:00 a.m. and arrive in Da Lat at 4:00 p.m., the schedule that I had gotten from the tour operator said that the bus would leave at 8:00 a.m. and arrive at 1:30 p.m. In reality, the bus left at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at 12:15 p.m. I was thrilled. On a few rare occasions, a bus I have ridden would arrive on time. Most of the time they would arrive late - from five minutes to two hours. Not once have the been early. It was a nice surprise.

I immediately liked Da Lat. The 'bus' that picked me up at my hotel that morning, wasn't a bus at all, but more of a airport shuttle that some company cast off in the 70's and has since been carting tourists up and down the mountain roads of Vietnam. About half way to Da Lat, I realized why.

Most of the road to the base of the mountain and a little way in was nicely paved, but as soon as we began ascending, the smooth pavement disappeared and in its place was left the rocky, gravelly roads I'd thought I'd left behind in Cambodia. While not nearly as bad, the sheer drops on the side of the road, coupled with the lack of a barrier and the scalloped edge of the cliff from the pressure of countless vehicles causing mini-avalanches of road gravel, it was a still little unnerving. I always think of my mother on trips like this, holding tight to the dash board and repeating my father's name like a mantra, decibel level rising with every increase in speed or especially sharp curve.

Nearing our destination, the curtain of trees parted, revealing a vast, colorful city built on a plateau surrounded by misty green mountains. The windy streets were lined with old French villas and more recent additions in the narrow, new age style I've come to associate with 20th century Vietnamese architecture. Against the natural back ground of gray and green, Da Lat shows off its splendor in every imaginable color; blues, greens, oranges, yellows, pinks, reds, purples and a myriad of variations there of. I was immediately taken in and new that I could spend days just walking the hilly streets, marveling at this city that one would expect to find nestled in the hills of Southern France, not tucked away in the mountains of Vietnam.

That first day, I spent the afternoon wandering around my little neighborhood, stocking up on funds, picking up some snacks at the grocery (still trying to find those delicious little sesame crackers that Steven and I lived on in Cambodia to no avail) and settling in. I hadn't yet decided on my plans for my stay, when I was accosted by one of the local tour guides, who call themselves "Easy Riders," aggressively selling his personal tour against the "touristy" tours offered by the hotels, who had too much money already. I was prepared to brush him off, when he showed me a book in which past customers had written reviews and, one after another, I read rave review after rave review, proclaiming 'An' as an alternative to the 'Open Tour' and 'a way to see the real Vietnam.' Even though I wasn't too thrilled with An himself, I figured that it would be a good way to see the area and to contribute to the local economy instead of to the tour agencies. I agreed to meet him at my hotel at 8:30 the next morning.

The next morning, at 8:30 on the dot, An was sitting outside my hotel, having what looked like a not so friendly conversation with the man from the hotel. Apparently, An 'steals' business from this hotel on a regular basis and they are not very happy about it. I felt bad for a moment, but then rationalized that this was my decision to make and that by buying the bus ticket, I had in no way obligated myself to stay at the hotels they chose or take advantage of the tours they provided. After a few more dirty words directed at my driver, we were off.

An asked me if it was okay if another girl went along with us, because she had wanted to go with him, but wasn't comfortable going by herself. With my approval, we stopped at another hotel where we were joined by two other girls, one Dutch, one Irish, who accompanied us for the day (each with their own driver).

The tour he had sold us on was one that stopped at numerous destinations around the city and we soon learned that these were the same destinations that every tour bus stopped at. We visited an old French railway station, a Chinese monastery, and a waterfall, the only difference between us and the other tourists, being that while they boarded buses, we rode of on motorbikes. After three such stops and much lamenting between the three of us, I brought up to An that the day before he had promised me "the real Vietnam" and said that his tour wouldn't be touristy and all we had done so far was exactly what every other tour did. He replied, arrogantly that his tour was the best tour and that if we didn't want touristy, we wouldn't get touristy, that we would go to a minority village and then to his village for lunch, both of which were off the beaten path. Placated, we mounted the bikes and sped off.

While the stops themselves were nothing to speak of, the rides from one to the other were spectacular. Many of the roads took us high above the city where we could look down into the valley and marvel at the city from end to end. On the other side of one stretch of mountains, lay rows of rust colored soil interspersed with rows of fresh vegetables: cauliflower, carrots, celery, tomatoes, peppers, onions. Brilliant green rice fields dotted with conical hats swaying above the heads of their owners as they bent and rose tending to their crops.

When we reached the minority village, we found that the village itself had been turned into somewhat of a tourist trap, with women making silk throws on manual wooden looms while others invited you to browse and buy gifts for your family. Even so, it was definitely rural and when you got past the shops, you were greeted with the sights of barefoot children playing in the mud, while naked younger siblings looked on clapping. Women sat in door ways, grooming each others hair and men ran hoes through their fields.

After the village we went up to a Chinese Pagoda in the mountains, which to me, although I've never been there, seemed like something you'd find on a mountain top in China.

Now time for lunch, An began his pitch about his longer tours into the Central Highlands, and both of the other girls immediately declined. He looked at me and said, 'Okay then, I will take you to my village for lunch.'

Thinking we were all heading in the same direction, I climbed aboard, but when we reached An's home, I found that the other girls were no where to be found. I figured that perhaps the other driver's were taking them somewhere else to eat and sat down at a stool in a shop run by An's family, while he pulled out his pictures and more rave reviews of his trips.

I browsed through the pictures, but knew that I was not interested in spending any more time with this man, not to mention more money and once I had made it clear that I wasn't interested, he turned on the TV and spent the next half an hour watching Chinese soap operas and slurping his soup in a way that almost made my stomach turn. I was not going to be adding to An's book of rave reviews.

After lunch, we went to see what turned out to be the last stop on the tour. Waiting for us outside, I found the two other girls, who apparently had been taken straight there and not even offered lunch, a delicacy reserved only for those from which there appears a possibility of getting more money. We were all disgusted, but I decided not to harp on it, paid An his money and spent the rest of the afternoon touring the city on my own.

The next day, I rented a mountain bike from my hotel and tooled around town enjoying the views and using up my current role of film. As I pedaled up and down the hills (okay, I walked up most of the hills), I began to feel a little more positive about my tour with An, because I realized that, even though it was touristy and a bit of a disappointment after reading the reviews, I would have never seen so much of the area on my own.

Today, I went canyoning with an adventure tour group, which basically consisted of hiking through the mountains and instead of going around steep cliffs and avoiding rivers and waterfalls, we went over them, through them and down them, with the help of harnesses, ropes and life jackets. I can now say that I have repelled down a waterfall (and that I'd be up to do it again some day).

Tomorrow I head back to the coast to take in the sun, sand and surf of Vietnam’s answer to Phuket - Nha Trang.