January 23, 2007
Rest Day Dalat: Dalat Tour
At breakfast we mention to the hotel owner we want to do a tour of the countryside. We have a brochure of TM Brothers (the tour company we used in Saigon) and he calls for us to sign up.
We are picked up at 830am by a nice van with lots of headroom. There are 2 older couples from Israel. In front of us is a solo woman, Uschi, talks with us as we drive to the Meditation Center. Over the course of the day we find out she is a retired teacher, a German, who married a Frenchman and lives in France. Two years ago she hiked the Annapurna Circuit. After walking around the meditation center flower gardens, we are back in the van. At least we found out the end of the cable line was this center.
We drive and see 2 falls, not too impressive, now in the dry season. The second falls, elephant falls known as the biggest has a "natural" path to the bottom...i.e., a scramble over rocks. Next to the falls was the "happy Buddha" temple. There was a HUGE, smiling Buddha statue. Oops! Rachel forgot that the first visit before the falls was...the Chicken Village...and we finally see the Giant Concrete Chicken. Rachel bought a couple of souvenir scarves.
Lunch is at a cafe by a pond. We have spring rolls, beef satay, pork, rice, vegetables. The afternoon is a drive through the countryside, stopping in tea fields, mushroom growing, flower gardens and silk farm. We see the cocoons with the silkworms. They are placed in a bath of hot water, the single thread end is found and fed into a machine that makes bundles of silk threads...a single worm can make 1km thread. Rachel buys 3 silk scarves.
The last stop is the Crazy House. Rachel doesn't get it...Patrick is fascinated by the architecture. We are back at the hotel by 4pm and we rest before going out to the V cafe at 630pm and met up with the French woman, Uschi.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |