Dalat: Mountain High

12-14-12-18
I took a bus to Dalat today.  Its supposed to be the most alien city of Vietnam complete with telepaths, oxygenated wine, and strawberry coffee.  The driver slid around tight curves quite recklessly though.  The Mario Kart super slide is a great tactic, but not when there could be oncomming traffic.  It took about 8 hours to get there.  The ride gifted us with beautiful scenery, roller coaster intertia, and vietnamese stand up television.  One girl got sick and had to keep her head in a yellow plastic bag for much of the trip.
I stayed in a hostel called, The Pink House.  At first I thought it was some honeymoon retreat, but it was the only place with rooms available so I went ahead and booked it.  It wasn't a honeymoon place at all, but it was stlil very pink.  The family who ran it was Norman Bates nice.  One of them liked to interrogate the guests too, always demanding to know what they did or plan to do.  I signed up for a motorbike tour for the next day, got some fried calamari for dinner at a local place, and then went to bed.
The motorbike tour was a 120 km loop all around Dalat.  Our group had 6 people and 3 guides.  Some people got to drive their own motorbike, but I didn't have any experience driving one in Vietnam, so they made me ride with one of the guides, a guy who had vampire teeth that I later found out are a sign of beauty here.
First we visited a grasshopper facillity that raises grasshoppers and then deep fries them.  No way would I have eaten a live one, but a fried would have no chance of hopping around your insides so I gave it a go.  It tasted like shrimp.  Unfortunately it is more expensive than shrimp, so if it came to a choice, I would probably always have shrimp.  But when the Biblical plagues start maybe the price will go down.

Next we checked out a local market.  It wasn't much different than the other markets I had seen though.
After the local market we took another nice long, backside hurt inducing ride, to a silk farm.  It was really cool to see how they harvest silk and turn it into garments.  They also harvest the silkworms from the silk cocoons and sell them for food.  I tried one and it was mostly gross.  

Our 3rd stop was at a waterfall with some Elephant scultpures at the top.  The hike wasn't far, but it was really treacherous with steep terrain, wet rocks, and muddy roots.  One girl fell sideways and smacked her head into a rock.  She didn't talk much after that and started to worry she might have a concussion.  The guides really didn't seem to care.  I don't think they would be held liable here and they belive in reincarnation anyway.  Earlier in the trip this guy from Australia got really mad at our guide because his motorbike had bad brakes, but when he told her she just kinda smiled and laughed, as if it wasn't a problem.  He scolded her and she continued to laugh, which only made him angrier.  Finally she got it and had someone fix his brakes.

After the waterfall we went for lunch at a local family house.  We got some amazing spicy noodles.  A titan discus of spicy noodles.  Then they brought out an assortment of fruit--a lot of new fruit for me.  My favorite was something they called "Custard Apple", but it looked like a brain and had grape sized seeds inside.  The taste was amazing.  There were a lot of other fruits I had never had before, or seen.  They were all amazing, actually.  I sure wore my Galactus helmet to that lunch.

After lunch and a lengthy nap on concrete hammocks with vertigo, we got back on our motorbikes and headed home.  We stopped at a muchroom farm along the way.  It was just a bunch of mushrooms in room covered in tarp--a bunch of very expensive elephant ear mushrooms.  I was about at my limit of riding on the back of a motorcyle, as comfortable as it looks, it feels about 5 times worse.

I was hungry as soon as my feet hit the pavement again,  and I had seen this vegetarian place not too far from the hostel.  A guy from my tour and his mother, also from the tour came with me--they were Australian, and it turns out that the guy, Steve, was 3d Animator, so we had a lot to talk about--enough to drive his mother to leave restaraunt early.  The vegetarian food was, by the way, my favorite in Vietnam.  It was just an assortment of vegetables on a huge bed of rice.  The lady was super nice too--I found out she had actually lived in Boston for a while.  I begged her to move to San Francisco and bring her vegetarian magic powers with her.

For my second, and last day in Dalat I kept to my feet, much to the chagrin of the Norman Bates of the hostel, who was anxious to rent me a bicycle.  First I walked to the crazy house, which was much like the Winchester House--just a random structuer with random rooms and hallways that don't make sense and would probably frustrate anyone living inside.  It was more earthy than the Winchester, and also more curvy.  You could say it was a temple to the lovechild of Henry David Thoreau and Frida Khalo.

Next I took a long walk to ride the cable cars.  On my way I stopped to get some water and everyone in the convenience store laughed at me, even the little girl.  Well, she was at least polite to try and hold it back until I left, but still.  I got to the cable cars and they weren't running.  Nobody was there to ask either.  I had to assume it was closed for the day.  I wish Norman Bates would have warned me.  After the cable car I walked back through the market and bought heaps of strawberries.  Dalat is supposed to be famous for their strawberries.  They were averaging 2.50 per Kg, which is way cheaper than any strawberry in California, even at the height of the season when supply is ridiculous.   The taste was more consistent with the price.  They were worse than Driscols.  I went back to the vegetarian restaraunt to get the bad taste out of my mouth.  I got some baked buns that came with vegetarian friend chicken.  It was unreal.  It was Paula Dean gone Vegan.  The next day I got up early and found my ride outta there--Saigon here I come.