Vietnam from the inside: Dalat to Dai Ninh

January 1, 2017

Be honest - you wouldn't have resisted taking this picture either, would you?

IT wasn't easy to find the hostel at Dalat because addresses in Vietnam can confound both us and our GPS. It was when we ended up in darkness kilometres from where we were supposed to be that we were rescued by a smiling young man on a scooter. He had ridden out of the city to find us.

This was a welcome kindness, naturally, but it took on extra significance when it turned out the hostel had opened that very day and that we were its first customers.

Phone selfie so the quality's not wonderful, but a moment in the hostel's history because we were its first customers

Le Win and Cherry - a name for the benefit of foreigners - chose the hostel's name because viridian, they said, was "a beautiful colour halfway between blue and green."

And we were glad to stay there and see in the new year.

There are two new years in Vietnam, of course, with Tet a few weeks later. But this was the more widespread change from 2016 to 2017 and the chance for a party with friends.

We were the only westerners, which would have limited our role to eating, drinking and looking appreciative were it not that everybody was in the travel industry and spoke good English.

We didn't seek opinions about the government and life because questions like that aren't polite or wise in some countries. They could have been compromising or dangerous. But not in Vietnam.

Everyone spoke openly, of the good and the bad.

"We don't have a free press," said a motorcycle guide. "It may be the government is telling us everything but we don't know. These days we can read the internet as well but, even there, you don't know what to believe, do you?"

Many small businesses like his had opened since the government relaxed its idealism, he said. Until then, there'd been shortages, even of food that was supposed to be free. Now small-scale capitalism was free but the big companies - petrol, rubber - were nationally owned and by all accounts barely profitable.

Many large projects were partnerships with foreign companies or governments. China was the biggest but things weren't going well, not least because of a dispute over islands that interested nobody until they found the oil that surrounded them.

The dislike extends to the Chinese themselves.

"They are noisy and crude and lack culture," someone else told us. "They come here to Vietnam and pack far too many people in a single hotel room and make a noise and a mess and...

"And they buy up everything they want. We know of a farmer who had a couple of Chinese arrive one day and say they wanted to buy his cows. They offered a good price. But all they wanted was the horns [I'm uncertain of the details but that's the drift] and so they slaughtered the animals and took what they wanted and left the bodies in the fields.

"Another time, they went to people to buy their bamboo trees. Well, these people were only small farmers and they didn't realise the bamboo was part of the flood protection and so they sold it.

"The Chinese come here but all they want is our resources."

Who can resist a good waterfall on a hot day?

It could have been the objection that many small countries feel about larger neighbours. But we'd heard a similar tale in Cambodia, that the Chinese were generous in building long and much-needed roads but they demanded all the neighbouring land in return.

It's a style of friendship not limited to China, of course. Few rich nations invest in poorer ones for the good of their heart. But, here, the rich nation is China and, to judge from this small gathering, it wasn't always well regarded.

I didn't sense these were rabid nationalists or xenophobes or, at the other extreme, frustrated capitalists anxious to overthrow their government. They were just a snapshot, that evening, of educated but by western standards little-travelled people who spoke of life as they saw it.

There will be many with a different view, who support the government and admire a system which gives many advantages.

I know... another steam engine, but I can't resist them. This one is an exhibit beside Dalat's little tourist railway

We left Dalat with our plans changed once again. One advantage of being with travel people and in particular motorcycle guides is that they know the country. When we said we thought to ride to Saigon by the obvious route, our minds were nudged out of the idea.

"Not very interesting countryside," one of the guides said. "And lots of traffic heading south. Ride down to the sea. It's a beautiful coastline and there are lots of quiet roads."

Steph was impressed.

"He's wearing a proper motorcycling jacket," she said. "Lots of motorbikes here but not many that look that serious."

And so, after sightseeing at Dalat, we set off west, tumbling down the other side of the climb on which we'd passed the suffering Scotsman. A hefty tailwind softened the impact of the inevitable traffic that joined us until we could turn off.

Part of the so-called crazy house, built by an eccentric just for the fun of it

There are more and more signs of being in the south. People no longer smoke whistling, metre-long wooden pipes. Instead, they lounge in hammocks outside cafés, restaurants and anywhere else with convenient hooks. They're a moment in the shade, half an hour to rest before continuing the journey.

The immediate difference for us is that the food in gargottes now tastes really good. We are again stopping for delicious iced drinks made on the spot by crushing sugar cane through rollers.

And I think it may have stopped raining.

More signs that we're in the south: coffee drying beside the road

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 1,358 km (843 miles)

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