Vietnam - From Dalat to Nha Trang (heaven and hell)
So its a while since I left Nha Trang, but I figured I should pen down some of my journey before I commit the memories to the grave through excessive partying.
I decided to take a 3 day motorbike tour to get from Dalat to Nha Trang. On the way the guide stops off at many beauty spots and many interesting locations. The trip involvd me sitting on the back of a motorbike for 3 days ( roughly 6 hours a day) earning myself one of the finest 3rd degree sun burns on my knees the world has ever seen. I now refer to it as the EasyRider knee. I eventually covered them up with a bandana( thanks Jacinta!) and a torn t-shirt. So the rest of the journey was a pure joy.
Cruising through the countryside, stopping off along the way to hear about coffee plantations, the history of highway1, where the americans unleashed the much reviled agent orange. Its clear to see still the areas that were affected. The trees lining the route are obviously younger and of a different breed than that which would have originally existed there. Agent orange takes a while to leave the soil, and as such the legacy of the chemical scarred the land just as much as it did the people. BTW, the American government has yet to apologise for the use of agent orange. They cite the need for scientific proof...as if generations of mutated children isn't enough...such is the power of the Chem. Industry.
Further along the route we stopped to watch local children (bonafide ethnic Vietnamese) harvest bamboo. Filling baskets made by their own people, (each basket unique to their own local group) with the fruits of their labour. With the end result being a basket that weighed around 50kg. If you check the picture you'll see a particularly menacing looking Richard with said basket on his back. I look more like an axe wielding maniac than anything else, but the kids didn't seem to mind - we'd bought their trust with sweets. ( mental note - must inreduce, "Danger Stranger!" concept to Vietnam).
Throughout the route as we rode through roadside villages and mountainous regions the people went out of their way to give the broadest smiles and "hellos" they could muster. I quite frequently threw the bike off balance as I turned 180 to wave at the folk we'd just passed.
Along the route we met men cracking rocks for a living, by choice. Hammering away at boulders the size of your average mini car and splitting them in short time. I can't recall the exact rate of pay, but for them it was quite lucritive if not exceptionally backbreaking business. I opted out of picking a fight on this occasion - they looked a little frazzled from all the strenous muscle building work!! Seriously, these folk were built like - well like brick houses...
Further along the journey my guide Hong stopped off at various places just to let me soak in the country. I really appreciated that. He didn't prattle on about history or any such nonsense. We just sat in silence and soaked it in. Frogs chirping like birds, birds cawing like the sound of trees being felled and those friggin beetles...man the noise they make - I need to check if they have ears and if not, then god gave them one of the most annoying and useless skills on planet earth. The gift of a 130 decibel humming noise that couldn't possibly be used to attract a mate. Now that I think of it, maybe its the communication method *after* beetle marriage....hmmmm
At one point I had the opportunity to ride an elephant( put your puerile giggles back in their adolescent bags this instant!). As I was on my lonesome they paired me with this Vietnamese girl who mentioned as we took to the road in a Hannibal'esque caravan, that she was prone to travel sickness. "No fear here love" I thought, its an elephant - not a JJ Kavanagh bus. But no sooner had our Elephant made his way into the lake( oh yeah, the elephant trekked us through a lake, suhweet!!) than my new colleague started barfing over the side...onto the side of our Elephriend.I can't imagine he was too happy, and I think I caught a snap of him glaring at me. As if i'd do such a thing....puking on an elephant, thats such a Kilkenny thing to do! ;) ( just testing to see who actually reads the blog!)
There are countless other memories to recollect, too many details to write in the blog and to be honest I dare not fall foul of that damn Formatting error again.
Arriving in Nha trang wasn't much of a thrill, and its funny - the gut instinct was too subtle to properly perceive on arrival. But by the time I left I was
delighted to put the place behind me. It was the closet to Ibiza I've ever gotten in my life. That said its nothing like Ibiza. But the party atmosphere there was a little too much in the end. And although the younger me got sucked in, ah the folly of a 29 year old! :) the older me now knows better....ummmmmm yes...yes he does!
Check the photos for some nice shots along the route from Dalat.
Curious fact for the entrepreneurs out there - 4 rubber trees produce 1kg of rubber a day. 1 kg of rubber sells for 10$. You can plant 4 trees in a 3 metre sq'd area. So given my rough estimates you could plant atleast a million trees...okay not a million, I'm shit at working this kind of thing out. But lets say for arguments sake that its 1000 trees(it is more like 1300 me thinks). You've got a daily yield of 250 kgs of rubber a day! which if prices remain static that equates to $2500 a day. You can harvest for about 200 days a year. All that from 1 acre! Money does grow on trees apparently..
Feel free to work out the real amount of trees you could get in an acre - but needless to say it seems like a damn lucrative business. Also, the trees are very robust, you hit them a kick and they just bounce back! Arf! Arf!
I decided to take a 3 day motorbike tour to get from Dalat to Nha Trang. On the way the guide stops off at many beauty spots and many interesting locations. The trip involvd me sitting on the back of a motorbike for 3 days ( roughly 6 hours a day) earning myself one of the finest 3rd degree sun burns on my knees the world has ever seen. I now refer to it as the EasyRider knee. I eventually covered them up with a bandana( thanks Jacinta!) and a torn t-shirt. So the rest of the journey was a pure joy.
Cruising through the countryside, stopping off along the way to hear about coffee plantations, the history of highway1, where the americans unleashed the much reviled agent orange. Its clear to see still the areas that were affected. The trees lining the route are obviously younger and of a different breed than that which would have originally existed there. Agent orange takes a while to leave the soil, and as such the legacy of the chemical scarred the land just as much as it did the people. BTW, the American government has yet to apologise for the use of agent orange. They cite the need for scientific proof...as if generations of mutated children isn't enough...such is the power of the Chem. Industry.
Further along the route we stopped to watch local children (bonafide ethnic Vietnamese) harvest bamboo. Filling baskets made by their own people, (each basket unique to their own local group) with the fruits of their labour. With the end result being a basket that weighed around 50kg. If you check the picture you'll see a particularly menacing looking Richard with said basket on his back. I look more like an axe wielding maniac than anything else, but the kids didn't seem to mind - we'd bought their trust with sweets. ( mental note - must inreduce, "Danger Stranger!" concept to Vietnam).
Throughout the route as we rode through roadside villages and mountainous regions the people went out of their way to give the broadest smiles and "hellos" they could muster. I quite frequently threw the bike off balance as I turned 180 to wave at the folk we'd just passed.
Along the route we met men cracking rocks for a living, by choice. Hammering away at boulders the size of your average mini car and splitting them in short time. I can't recall the exact rate of pay, but for them it was quite lucritive if not exceptionally backbreaking business. I opted out of picking a fight on this occasion - they looked a little frazzled from all the strenous muscle building work!! Seriously, these folk were built like - well like brick houses...
Further along the journey my guide Hong stopped off at various places just to let me soak in the country. I really appreciated that. He didn't prattle on about history or any such nonsense. We just sat in silence and soaked it in. Frogs chirping like birds, birds cawing like the sound of trees being felled and those friggin beetles...man the noise they make - I need to check if they have ears and if not, then god gave them one of the most annoying and useless skills on planet earth. The gift of a 130 decibel humming noise that couldn't possibly be used to attract a mate. Now that I think of it, maybe its the communication method *after* beetle marriage....hmmmm
At one point I had the opportunity to ride an elephant( put your puerile giggles back in their adolescent bags this instant!). As I was on my lonesome they paired me with this Vietnamese girl who mentioned as we took to the road in a Hannibal'esque caravan, that she was prone to travel sickness. "No fear here love" I thought, its an elephant - not a JJ Kavanagh bus. But no sooner had our Elephant made his way into the lake( oh yeah, the elephant trekked us through a lake, suhweet!!) than my new colleague started barfing over the side...onto the side of our Elephriend.I can't imagine he was too happy, and I think I caught a snap of him glaring at me. As if i'd do such a thing....puking on an elephant, thats such a Kilkenny thing to do! ;) ( just testing to see who actually reads the blog!)
There are countless other memories to recollect, too many details to write in the blog and to be honest I dare not fall foul of that damn Formatting error again.
Arriving in Nha trang wasn't much of a thrill, and its funny - the gut instinct was too subtle to properly perceive on arrival. But by the time I left I was
delighted to put the place behind me. It was the closet to Ibiza I've ever gotten in my life. That said its nothing like Ibiza. But the party atmosphere there was a little too much in the end. And although the younger me got sucked in, ah the folly of a 29 year old! :) the older me now knows better....ummmmmm yes...yes he does!
Check the photos for some nice shots along the route from Dalat.
Curious fact for the entrepreneurs out there - 4 rubber trees produce 1kg of rubber a day. 1 kg of rubber sells for 10$. You can plant 4 trees in a 3 metre sq'd area. So given my rough estimates you could plant atleast a million trees...okay not a million, I'm shit at working this kind of thing out. But lets say for arguments sake that its 1000 trees(it is more like 1300 me thinks). You've got a daily yield of 250 kgs of rubber a day! which if prices remain static that equates to $2500 a day. You can harvest for about 200 days a year. All that from 1 acre! Money does grow on trees apparently..
Feel free to work out the real amount of trees you could get in an acre - but needless to say it seems like a damn lucrative business. Also, the trees are very robust, you hit them a kick and they just bounce back! Arf! Arf!
 | Gemma Hayes - Tomorrow |  |
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 | Found at skreemr.com |  |
ok, so I'm a little late with this comment, but the Kilkenny joke was funny!!!
Anon in Ireland, it's damp and it's cold!