In Nha Trang...

Like in the movie 'diarios de una motocicleta', during these last 4 days I felt like Che discovering Vietnam on a motorbike. It was supposed to be only one day from Mui Ne to Dalat, but at the end I've been riding all the Central Highlands for 4 days and I am now back to the rainy coast in Nha Trang.

The first day in Mui Ne we left very early with 'the River', the crazy guide and driver of the motorbike. We went riding throw small roads to the cool Dalat city, in the mountains at 1400 meters. It was long time now without feeling the cool weater and air in the mountains. I even had to dig in my backpack for a jacket and a scarf! That night in Dalat was quite interesting, we stayed in a backpackers hostel chating with other people that had been doing the motorbike trip to the mountains, arround glasses of hot peanut and soja milk to fight again the cold. So then I decided to go for it, and spend three more days with 'the River' in the mountains.

Next morning, we rode from Dalat to the Dalak mountains region, crossing small villages, nice landscapes and stopping to see different traditional jobs in Vietnam. We stopped in brick factory, a silk factory, a mushrom farm, tea and coffe plantations, green peper plantations and even we stop to see how it's done the rice paper where they roll the spring rolls... The children were going out to the street when they hear the noise of the motorbike and were waving 'hello'!! Unfortunatelly our motorbike broke in the afternoon and we had to push it a couple of kilometers until we found a garage. We were in the middle of nowhere, and people were looking at me as stranger. While River was trying to fix the motorbike, I went for a walk arround the town and all the children were following me...

It was getting dark, the motorbike was still broken, so River put me in a van that was passing throw the main road to go to the next village where there was a guest house. I felt bad to leave him alone but I got inside the van that was packed with 16 more people (it was supposed to be 12 seats only). They van left me in a Guest house in a village where nobody was speaking English and everybody wanted to tell me something. Finally I went for dinner in a Bar waiting for River. Everybody was looking a football match between Vietnam and Thailand, when the phone rang, the turn down the TV and the waitress looked and pointed at me. It was River, that he could not fix the bike. He was very sorried but he was going to get a truck back to Dalat and pointed me how to get the Bus back to Dalat on my own. I was a little bit sad, so I was alone in a place where nobody spoke English... Anyway, I went to sleep and arround half six in the morning, somebody knocked at the door. It was River that finally had come with a friend of him, Dennis, who I already met him in Dalat, to continue the trip with me. I really apreciated this. We had breakfast all three together, so Dennis had been awake since 2am to go from Dalat to pick River and come to the city I was staying.

So that day I did the trip with Dennis and maybe River would join us at night once the motorbike was fixed. That day rained a lot. We went throw the small roads to see waterfalls and very nice landscapes, but we were completelly wet. My feet were swimming inside my shoes, so it was not very funny but was a nice experience. We staied that night in Buon Nha Thuot. We went to have dinner with Dennis and he took me to a Karaoke bar, full of Vietnamesse people singing cozy songs... it was funny! The last day, it was sunny and was to come back the 200 km to get back to the coast in Nha Trang, stopping along the road. It was very nice!

Anyway, so I enjoyed a lot these days, from Mui Ne to Nha Trang, you can take a borring 4 hour bus, but I would really recommend to get the 4 days tour to the mountains with Easy Riders, where you can see the real Vietnam! River and Dennis were always very nice with plenty of histories to explain (not sure if all of them were true, though), I really appreciate that even when there were problems with the motorbike, I really felt that their first concern was about my seucurity and confort. If you ever want to do it, contact River (http://www.vietnameasyrider.com).

I am now in the coast, where is rainning a lot again. So far in Vietnam I am not lucky with the weather. In 2 hours I am taking a 12 hours bus to Hoi An, I am not sure if I can fit now in a bus after the amazing days in the motorbike.

I would really like to upload pictures to the blog, but so far it seems that the USB is not working on this computer... :-( I will have to call tech support!