Easy Rider

Today was day one with our Easy Riders Mr. Thai and Mr. Young and it was excellent. These two men might just redeem Vietnam. Mr. Thai is Michael's loquacious driver and Mr. Young is my laconic driver (those are my two favorite GRE words). Mr. Young was in the American war of destruction but as part of the South. He spent 6 months in a "reeducation" camp after Saigon fell. Both men speak great English, are funny and have an undying love for the beauty of their country and are more forward thinkers then I would expect from these parts.

We spent the early morning sight seeing around the gorgeous city of Dalat, flower farms, old train station, French villas, Elephant waterfall where my charming and graceful husband somehow fell ankle deep in thick mud. At every stop they gave us information, let us tour the sight and never forced us to buy anything. We stopped at a local silk factory and got to see the whole process from bug to scarf.

We stopped for an amazing lunch just as the rain started. This is where the fun starts. We asked how meals work when we signed up and they told us that we'd eat Vietnamese style, lots of food shared and then equally split the bill. We were a bit nervous since Asian food is not our favorite but this was so good. There was so much food on the table, rice, soup, salad, chicken, tofu, cabbage, kale we couldn't keep up and it was all so delicious. It came to $3.00 each and that was with Michaels beer and ice coffee. After that we donned our rain outfits (provided by the drivers) and headed out.

First stop was to a rice wine distillery, known to us Americans as a Whiskey farm. They steam rice, place it in covered buckets where yeast forms on top. They then heat the yeast which forms steam, which goes through a condenser into a settling tank and out comes 120 proof rice wine. Fun fact: what's left after the yeast steaming is fed to the pigs so they are drunk and lazy therefore gaining more fat. From there we mostly saw coffee field after coffee field and wove up and down beautiful mountains until we left Dalat province. The next providence would have been amazing but they've cut down most to the forest to plant coffee and other crops. We stopped for the day around 1730 but we must have been behind schedule because our dudes were really racing it. They said tomorrow will be shorter and more relaxed, I thought today was just fine.

Pics:
-rain ready
-drunk pigs
-literally a floating village
-silk factory, she stinging the silk from the worms. They save the larva to eat
-look I found the Easter bunny!!