The new plan was to go to the market first before thinking of what to do for the rest of the day but we passed some 'easy rider' tour agents along the way and decided to see how cheap we could get one. Easy Rider tours take you around the area on the back of a guide's bike. We didn't like the idea of riding on the back of a bike but we knew we had little choice if we wanted to see the waterfalls. The first place we went in we managed to get the price down to 20usd which wasn't bad considering the amount of sites that were being offered on the tour (the price only started at $25 though).
Nevertheless, we jumped on the back of a motorbike (we had one guide each) and set off out of town. For someone who has never even riden on the back of a motorbike I was a little scared but after 10 minutes I realised I was perfectly safe (even when my guide got his phone out to use whilst we were driving). It felt quite exhilarating.
Our first stop was a flower farm, with many varieties of flowers in greenhouses. These flowers are sold all over Vietnam. It was quite nice but similar to some garden centres in the UK. We didn't stay for too long and instead set off again to a coffee plantation. I've never thought about coffee beans growing on trees and being green. There were various types of trees as well as weasels in cages for the weasel coffee. Weasels eat the coffee beans then what comes out the other end supposedly makes the coffee taste better and also adds a load onto the cost of it. I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little sceptical.
Next stop on the tour was a silk factory. I knew silk came from silk worms when they create their cocoons but seeing the way they put the cocoons in boiling water (in case a worm is still in there) and use these machines to pull the silk threads out of the water onto a real. The thread is then dried on another machine before being made into a piece of material. It was amazing to watch. They also fry the silk worms that they've killed in oil and eat them. I tried one. It didn't taste amazing but I didn't spit it out.
Finally, after another short stint on the road, we arrived at Elephant Falls. The rocky road down to the bottom of the waterfall was a tad precarious and slippery but that made it all the more fun. The water looked a brown colour due to the colour of the rocks below but it still looked impressive. Matt's guide took us round the waterfall (even behind it so we got soaked) and he was great. Always smiling and cheerful. My guide stayed by the bikes and gambled with some other Vietnamese men. I couldn't decide whether I liked him or not.
Next to Elephant Falls is a pagoda and a big Buddha. The pagoda was rather beautiful, probably the nicest we've seen in Vietnam so far, and the Buddha was blue and visible (we could hardly see the one in Hong Kong). The area was very tranquil, even though there were a few tourists.
We grabbed some lunch by the falls as well (we had to wait as my guide was still throwing his money away). The nice guide, who I'm pretty sure was called Nhan, got us a huge plate of food full of rice, different meats and spinach (although we refused to eat chicken, both of us are still a little cautious). Nhan told us about himself whilst we ate. He went to university in Ho Chi Minh and studied computing but now he designs websites and is an easy rider. The web designing only gets him $50 per website.
Back on the road, we quickly stopped at a minority village. These villagers are given free electricity and schooling as well as various other things. Not long ago they spoke their own language but now they have been introduced into the Vietnamese society and are learning to speak Vietnamese.
By this point it looked like it might rain so we were dropped off back in Dalat. It was only half 2 and we'd done pretty much all the site seeing in the area apart from ride the cable car. We knew it was 2 kilometres from the centre so set off. We asked directions at a bus station when we'd walked pretty far but unfortunately we misunderstood the directions and ended up doing a massive circuit which took us an extra hour. Some of the scenery was quite nice though. By the time we found the cable car it was half 4 and the last ride was at 5. This meant we could get the cable car down but would have to get it straight back up again. We didn't care too much so just got on. There was a nice monastery and a lake to see at the other side which we could partially see from the cable car but the views over the forests were pretty cool; low cloud covered the trees in places making it look mystical.
After a coffee stop and a long walk back into town we passed a massive supermarket, the first we'd seen in Vietnam. It was far too exciting and we spent about half an hour just walking round it, looking at all the nice things. I bought some wet wipes and some nail vanish. Super cool.
In the centre of town we came across a night market. It was pretty huge with lots of food places. We tried a pancake which was rice paper put on a barbecue, egg added to make it more pancake like and then topped with spring onions, melted butter, chilli sauce, some other sauce and some ham like meat. It was delicious but we were massively ripped off. Later Matt bought another one for less than half the price. They probably laughed at us.
The market was full of people and stalls selling clothes, shoes and souvenirs. There weren't many westerners though so I felt like I was experiencing a proper Vietnamese market. It topped off the day nicely.
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