Mud Bath

Banh Mi Op La Stand

Vietnam Coastline

Broken Glass Temple

Caged Weasels

Silk Factory

Hand Weaving a Scarf

Sleeping Bus (bottom bunk)

Elephant Falls

The Vietnamese sleeping bus. It is a necessary evil in a country of over 2,000 vertical kilometers plagued with narrow and winding roads. Our first (but surely not our last) experience on a Vietnamese sleeping bus was quite memorable. The interior of the bus is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. First, all passengers entering the bus must remove their shoes and place them in a bag for the duration of the ride. The layout is three “seats” across (think reclining seats with foot cubbies), stacked two rows high with five seats across in the back (you really get to know your neighbor). Lastly, once all of the storage space has been taken up with food products, household goods, motorbike and all other completely unnecessary and incomprehensible items, the westerners luggage is thrown into the aisles. Good thing we took our shoes off since it’s time to step on each other’s bags! After conquering some mild claustrophobia and searching for the closest emergency exit, we settled into our trip. Even with the frequent hard turns, absurd passing and lengthy horn blowing, we were able to sleep. But let us not forget an added bonus … it is guaranteed that multiple locals will be vomiting from motion sickness as many of them are not accustom to driving in large vehicles. But hey, we didn’t have to pay for a hotel that night!

We eventually arrived in Dalat, a mountain town and former French getaway with elevation similar to Denver.  While we’ve slowly grown accustom to the 90 degree heat and humidity of the last two months, it was incredibly refreshing to step outside and feel the cool mountain air.  Although we had fantastic short and t-shirt weather in the high 70’s each day, the Vietnamese still wore hats, gloves, scarfs and winter coats.

Dalat, as with most of Vietnam, is extremely tourist driven. Each city we have visited offers scores of guided tours.  Some are in buses, some on bicycles, some on motorbikes, some on boats, some walking, some in cars, you get the idea? However, after our tour of the Mekong Delta, we were not ready to be lead and guided and robbed of our freedom again. Therefore, we rented our own motorbike and followed a small pamphlet of other tour company’s destinations. In theory, this sounded like a great idea; we could tour the area at our own pace, have the freedom from the tour van and save some money at the same.  However, we soon realized the reason for the tour guides was that NONE of the signs outside of the city are in English!  Fortunately after about 45 minutes of driving on twisty mountain roads, we saw one sign that read “welcome” and met one person that spoke English and realized we were at The Elephant Falls.  We were seriously surprised and very relieved we had made it! From, there we were directed onto the other destinations.

We visited the Elephant Waterfalls, which is a large waterfall hidden by huge rock formations.  To view the falls, you have to climb steep stairs and very slippery rocks.  Next to the Elephant falls was a temple with a giant smiling Buddha, we also visited an eclectic but colorful temple known as the Broken Glass Temple due to all of its broken glass pieces. We also found ourselves touring a silk worm factory where we learned the manufacturing process of silk and snacked on some larvae. Silk is extremely inexpensive in Vietnam, with farmer’s harvesting millions of silk worms. We stopped at a coffee plantation and sadly saw the cooped up weasels, infamously known for aiding in the productions of the pricey “Weasel” coffee (yes they poop out coffee beans), as well as tasted rice wine (pure alcohol). Dalat’s landscape was quite diverse and beautiful, a truly pleasant surprise. A highlight of Dalat was eating at a vegetarian restaurant for two nights in a row and paying $2 for the entire meal.  The food was delicious and we were the only westerners there!

After three days in Dalat we took a three hour bus to the beachside town of Nha Trang. Nha Trang is a fully developed city with a downtown full of high rises, but the rough waters of the South China Sea help to drown out the urban noise pollution. We spent our days checking out various beaches, some secluded and some populated. The water was the coldest and roughest we’ve experienced to date, but was incredibly refreshing. We also experienced our first mud bath. For less than $15 per person we were able to spend an afternoon in a top notch resort soaking in an outdoor private tub of warm mud, hopping in and out of various mineral baths, pools and waterfalls.  Surprisingly the mud was very thin and made us float and of course left our skin silky smooth. It was certainly not a bad way to spend a Tuesday.  Strangely, Nha Trang and many of the beach towns in Vietnam are dominated by the Russians. The Russians remind us of the Adams Family in bathing suits. It’s common to see a restaurant menu or store sign written in Vietnamese, Russian and English. We still haven’t figured out why the area is dominated by the former USSR, but if anyone has an idea, please inform us.

In Nha Trang, we also discovered the Bahn Mi Op La. A French baguette stuffed with an omelet, veggies and hot sauce that we consumed for breakfast. This became our go-to morning stop, along with a variety of new fruit shakes combinations including strawberry/mango and banana/peanut butter. We were able to enjoy this feast on the balcony of our hotel, a first for us on this trip and a welcome sight.

Next up, Hoi An where custom dresses, shirts and shoes are calling our name.

Almost, forgot to mention, we met someone who was able to give us Homeland Season 1 and we might be addicted:)