Motorbike Tour

I'd booked the tour with a guy, Viet, who works out of the hotel I was staying in, Phuong Hanh. I was in the lobby when a guy walks up to me and asks if I am on a tour with him, I say no because I have no idea who he is. Then we go to talk to Viet, turns out he had palmed me off onto another driver, Tri. I was not happy and voiced my displeasure. I apologised to Tri because it was obviously nothing to do with him. Tri got my stuff onto his bike and off we went. Dalat is a quiet town and there was little traffic, I was nervous about what I'd committed myself too. When I'd left Vietnam I was very happy that I had survived the two years without accident now I was getting on a bike again. Our first stop was the Dragon Pagoda on the outskirts of the city. The pagoda building itself isn't exceptional but what's in the grounds is. They've crafted a huge dragon statue that curls and weaves it's way through the pagoda's gardens. It's richly decorated in bright colours, it's gorgeous and well worth seeing. A great start to my tour, I was happy so far. We made a few stops during the morning, at one point Tri got me off the bike and told me to walk up a hill for a good viewpoint over Dalat, he would meet me on the other side. This wasn't the last time I got to walk! There were stops at a flower and coffee farm and a silk factory. I never knew how silk was produced, I mean I knew it involved silk worms eating mulberry leaves but beyond that I knew nothing. What happens is that the worms eat themselves stupid and then weave a cocoon, this is where the silk comes from. After three days the worm dies and the cocoon is spun into silk thread. Who knew? The next stop was at Elephant falls. There are some rocks at the bottom of the falls that someone thought looked like elephants, hence the name. It's quite a steep climb down but so worth it. The falls are amazing but even better is that there is a cave that takes you right up to the side of them. I don't know if there is a way to walk behind them, I don't think so and I wasn't about to try. The sound of the water is phenomenal, I can't imagine what the force of it would be like. I walked back to the top of the falls and across to Chua Linh An pagoda. I think some locals saw how many people visited the falls and decided to put a temple there. Again the temple building itself isn't the main attraction but an outdoor statue is. They have a huge seated,happy Buddha, he's great! I love him. The tour was turning out very well indeed. After the temple the road started to climb as we went further into the mountains. There were times when I was a bit nervous, especially when going through turns. I understand that I need to lean into a corner when the bike goes round it but I still don't like having to actually do it. There were times on the back of the bike when I would just think of all the things that could go wrong. Not very smart I know. When it all got a bit too much I told myself to relax, that Tri had done the journey a hundred times, that he wasn't driving too fast and it was in his interests to get me to Nha Trang alive. At the end of the climb we stopped for lunch. The route we had taken is a fairly standard one by the looks of it as there were a few people on motorbike tours and a group on a day tour in a minivan from Dalat. Throughout the morning I had seen the same people at the various stops we'd made, this would continue for the next two days. In fact I wouldn't completely lose the other travellers until I left Nha Trang. If I thought the climb up through the mountains stressed me out, going down was worse. I am not a natural motorbike rider and I have a highly developed sense of fear. I'm even afraid to go too fast down a hill on my bicycle. Again Tri would stop every now and then, let me get off and then drive off! I'd walk to catch him up and he would use these times without me to go to the toilet and have a cigarette. We drove through some of the most beautiful countryside I have seen in Vietnam. It was made more beautiful by the lack of traffic and people. You could hear yourself think and another plus, it wasn't very hot. One of these stops was in a minority village, I felt a bit weird about this as it was presented to me as another tourist spot, that feels wrong to me. Vietnam has 54 ethnic minority groups and there seems to a higher level of poverty among them then among the Vietnamese. The village certainly was basic, there was only one new house, the rest were wooden and I'm fairly confident, with no indoor plumbing. Tri told me that they'd only gotten connected to electricity five years ago.