Durian Express

You can spend a lot of time planning your itinerary, but on a trip like this plans are bound to change as was the case for Dalat. Not on our list but we had read about a group of guides calling themselves the “Easy Riders”. They can show you the surroundings of this hillbased town or even drive you all over Vietnam if you want. This is done on their nice vintage motorbikes. The moment we got off the bus they had already spotted us, guided us to the hotel we wanted to stay and said they were going to wait for us downstairs. Might seem a bit pushy but we wanted to take a tour with them anyway so we didn't mind. Checked in at the hotel where we were given a room with two double beds and nice wooden floors and this all for only 8usd. Went down and arranged our tour with the ER for the following day.

When we arrived at this city,located in the middle of the coffee growing region, we saw something that we hadn't seen since we left Belgium: sweaters and jackets! What to us was a cool breeze probably felt like a siberian chill to the Vietnamese living here. In all honesty at night we put on sweaters and long pants aswell and Jonny's Cambodian Krama came in very handy here and has since then never left his side.

At night we had a nice stroll around the city and we saw an outdoor warm drink stand with some tasty looking pastries. We sat ourselves down on tiny plastic chairs ordered 2 coffees with milk and watched life go by. This is the best way to get the feel of a city and what this city lacks in architecture, being a concrete monster straight out of the USSR, it makes up for in atmosphere. Instead of milk we got a big dollop of sweetened condensed milk, that congregated at the bottom making for an ebony/ivory division and when stirred gave a strong yet rich and creamy hot coffee that reached all the way to your toes casting away the evening chill. The accompaning pastries were just the icing on the cake and we fell in love with this city.

Not only with the city but also with eachother. We had been travelling for 2 months now and were always busy plotting the next step, looking for places to stay and to visit, soaking up impressions and just giving ourselves enough time to process them, but not fully grasping the totality of it all. Here in Dalat it all seemed to fall into place. We felt very fortunate and extremly happy and it hit us that we were experiencing this wonderful journey together as a married couple, something that seemed hardly feasable many years ago when the only connection we had was the one through the internet with an ocean in between us.

Enough smoochie smoochie!

The next day was motorbiketime VROEM VROEM! We each took place on the back of our motorbikes and our virtualy perfect english speaking guides kickstarted their engines and we set off, for one of already many highlights of our trip.



It's an amazing feeling sitting on the back of a proper motorcycle (not like the scooters from Mui Ne) looking at the magnificent scenery passing by. Wasn't just a ride but also a tour of local sights.

The ornate Linh Phuoc Pagoda, where you could witness the art of tessalation (breaking... well...breakables and then remaking them ie Barcelona at Gaudi's Park Guell); the crazy house where the daughter of the second Vietnamese president got carte blanche building a hotel, made up out of weird structures linked with eachother through cavelike stairs;



the ricewine factory where we got a sample (hickup) and where the huge pigs were always drunk, as they got the fermented leftover rice to eat; a silkfactory where you could see the process from silkworm to scarf; delicious and abundant lunch, that our drivers picked out for us. Was also perfect timing as the rain fell in biblical proportions, turning the roads temporary into rivers. Then time to hop back on the motorbike to see the elephant waterfalls where Angela feared (yet again) that Jonny was going just a bit too far trying to get a nice picture and needlesly risking his life by doing so. Time for the hour long ride back home feeling at peace looking at clouds breaking lose from the treetops and being stretched out by the winds that roll off the hills.

We said goodbye to our guides and thanked them for a lovely day, wishing them more tourists, as the so called economic crisis causes a downfall of tourism of 30% or more in all the countries we visited, which means less income for the many people depending on tourism.

As the romantic mood lingered on, we sat down in a nice cosy restaurant with an attentive owner where we had an exquisite fish caramel pot and a rice and vegetable dish topped with roasted cashew nuts. After softly singing along to the instrumental pianothemes and improvised short dance, we left a happy owner and a smiling audience, that probably was wondering how much Dalat wine we had enjoyed (only one white for Angela, one red for Jonny) Time for coffee and a pastrie and dare I say that we would look great in a commercial promoting this black gold...




We left the cool of Dalat for the heat of the beach of Nha Thrang, where we got traintickets for the nighttrain to Hoi An that same night. Nha Thrang is a coastal city that reminds you of the ones in Spain with big hotels close to the beach. We left our backpacks at the station and went for a nap in the park next to the beach. Aaah the life of a hobo! Found a nice coffeehouse next to the station, where we passed time enjoying the free WIFI yet again till it was time to take our spot on the train. We were in the hard sleeper which sound less comfortable than it actually is.
There is a fruit in SE Asia that is called Durian which is actually prohibited in certain places, the reason being the smell. We were ever so lucky that someone in our cabin had brought a tiny amount of it with him and after nine hours marinating even the clothes in our backpack smelled like it.

Hoi An is a stop over for many tourists as it is the place where you can get clothes made for relatively cheap prices. Angela got sized up for a shirt and Jonny got very tired of the abundance of choice and decided not to get anything.

Our hotel came with pool, which was welcome at 39 degrees every single day and this only for 12usd. Of all the staff there was only one friendly guy Tuk. Jonny always smiles at people but that seemed to make the owner even more cranky, so Jonny went out of his way to smile at her at every possible occasion.

Vietnamese food is excellent and was enriched here with specialties of the region. We came across a Belgian couple, that we met at the Sherathon in HCMC and they advised us to eat at one of the street stalls for even better and cheaper food and they were absolutly right.

Except for having clothes made Hoi An is also on the Unesco World Heritage list for its nice architecture, which was influenced by Western and Chinese culture, as it was an international trading port in the 17th century. Almost all the houses are converted into a clothes shop or a restaurant, so you tend to look more at fabrics and menus than at the structures which is pity.


You can buy a ticket with which you can visit 5 of many sights of the town, of which the 200 year old Tan Ky house and the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall are the ones worth visiting the moat.

Said goodbye to Hoi An with an extra smile for the hotel owner and it was off to yet another Heritage town namely Hue, famous for its citadel and mausoleums of previous emperors.

When we arrived into a town Jonny always gets out the map and follows the trail the bus is making. We drove past the area with all the accommodation to drive out of town, where the bus stopped at a hotel claiming this was the final stop. All the tourists got off and it struck Jonny that all the Vietnamese stayed on the bus. He asked one of them and they said this is what the buses always do but eventually drive back to town. He explained this to the others and all the tourists got back on board which made the hotel owner and busdriver (bye bye commission) less than happy and sure enough they drove back into town where everyone needed to be.

After checking in at the Phong Nha Hotel, it was off to the citadel with its imperial enclosure and forbidden purple city which was the private living quarters for the emperor, his concubines and the eunuchs. Before we got there however Angela was mobbed by a group of middleaged vietnamese that wanted to have their picture taken with this exotic colombian princess. Many full memorycards later we got in to the imperial city.



The tourgroups don't venture too far so if you walk away from the central building you are virtually alone and rewarded with nicely decorated ceremony halls and a tomb here and there.



After our two hour stroll it was time to treat ourselves to some pain au chocolat from the french bakery, which employs street kids to give them a better future.

Hue is only a 4 hour bus ride away from Hoi An and even then does it have excellent additions to the Vietnam cuisine which is best enjoyed at Lac Tien's restaurant which is run by a deaf mute owner, who is all smiles and gratitude when you empty your plate and come back the second day for more!

The city also has a nice boardwalk where at night you can enjoy the changing lights that illuminate the motorcycle bridge and we did just that.
Next and last day we hopped on the bicycles and had a fun day visiting the Thien Mu seven storied pagoda. It was made famous by the monk Thich Qaung Duc, who publicly burned himself to death to protest against the cruel regime of president Diem, who was helped in power by the USA and, as on many other occasions in which the US intervened, they would proclaim: “He's a son of a bitch but at least he's our son of a bitch!”

The mausoleums are grand and represent the megalomaniac characters of the emperors who, we must say, had a great eye not only for aesthetic beauty, but also for location. The mausoleum of Tu Duc has nice water parts and Forrest incorporated in its outlaying, whereas the mausoleum of Khai Dinh is set on the side of a hill overlooking the surrounding rice paddies.



Even though we had already checked out of the hotel they offered us to use the shower and who were we to decline such an invitation being covered in sweat and dust? We have stayed in many hotels so far and they were all more than ok offering virtually the same standard. The difference however is in the people that run it and can make a stay memorable or just another place where you slept and showered.

After looking into the prices of transport too Ninh Binh (our next location that wasn't on the initial itinerary) we decided to take the sleeper night bus this time. To find out about this means of transportation and the conclusion of our Vietnam trip tune into our next post.