Around Dalat

I was strolling rather aimlessly around in central Dalat, when i was approached by one of the easy rider motor bikers. Those who take people on short or long motorbike trips in the highlands. He had a menu of relevant daytrips in the area and i settled for a countryside tour worth 20 dollars. I was not to regret. Hip, my driver has a lot of knowledge. He also speaks enough English to convey that knowledge. That is something one soon learn to appreciate in Vietnam-where English is spoken a lot less than in the two other Indochina states.

Just outside Dalat begins the countryside-a land of greenhouses and vegetable fields. The climate here is European so the crops are different from the lowland.

Hillview towards Dalat and the nearest countryside.

Also may families get their income from growing flowers.

Flowers are packed for evening shipment to the markets in Saigon.

Good news-this yellow flowering tells the rainy season is about to end. Appreciated!The road, not so long a track-was where the Vietcong came when they attacked and liberated/"liberated" Dalat.

Pineforest dominate some areas. It is planted after the war as the original jungle was destroyed by American napalm and defoliate during the war.

Coffee country.

The harvest has begun. Every day the red coffee beans are picked and dried.

A roadside refreshment stop. They make ricewine and serve coffee. The furniture is made of the appropriate material-wood from old coffee trees.

It looks like shit. Technically it is shit. These coffee beans have been trough the system of a civet-where it goes trough a special chemical roasting. It is an expensive brew costing at least fife times the price of the best normal coffee.

But I had to try it despite the cost. I am not a coffee drinker at all. But this stuff I like. It has a soft and rich taste, a treat for the mouth! My taste is an expensive one!

Distilling ricewine. i got a sip of the 60 or so % version. Not a favourite-but a lot better than 30-40% ricewine.

Lizzards and snakes in ricewine. It is stored for a few months and the result is a drink supposedly good for your health. Including  the kidneys.

Drying the maize.

Harvesting tapioka.

Visiting  a silkfactory and welcomed by bundles of raw silk.

Silkworm cocoons placed in the typical bamboo racks.

The greedy silkworms themselves. Eating mulberryleafs all day long, growing into the right size, and cocooning themselves into the valuable material.

Boiling the cocoons and winding up the thread. The worms themselves are sold at the markets for food. Good with beer, by the way.

A weaving machine. Above it hangs the cards determining the pattern the machine makes. A low tech computer.

Machine woven silkfabric.

At the entrance of the silkfactory stands a 30 year old coffeeplant-now grown to be a tree.

The attractive elephant falls. Best seen from the bottom. To get there one walks down a slippery concrete path.

A rainbow crowns the entrance to a small cave and canyonformation just beside the waterfall.

At the parking lot beside the waterfalls some tribal women make and sell textiles. They are friendly, offer a cup or two of tea and don't push you too hard. That is something one really learn to appreciate in Vietnam!

The Linh An pagoda is the nearest neighbour to the waterfall. The reason is a good one: a waterfall in front and mountains behind means good feng shui.

Difficult not to smile of this funny Buddha at the Linh An pagoda.

Recitals and bellsound inside the pagoda.

A wonderful wooden carved window.

Mushromgrowing. The growingmedium is sawdust from rubber trees, sterilized in a huge, woodfired autoclave on the premises.

Visiting a small noodle factory. Good to see how one of my staples are made!

Bamboo weaving is a major livelihood-or at least secondary livelihood in one of the villages.

Cutting bamboo into thin sticks for weaving.

Products ready for delivery. The typical wheels used for drying basically everything, and racks for silkwormcocoons.

Old and small beside new and smart. Lot of people around here was more or less voluntarily settled here after the war. To begin with the houses were small and often of poor quality. A new post communism influx of money to the area-especially from overgrowing-has resulted in a lot of new houses. It is quite typical to see a small old house just beside a big, modern one. Some really big-beside some really small ones. 

Spearfishing in a river.

The old way of making stones for all sorts of constructionwork

Hard work-and it goes 4-5 stones on a dollar.

The stoneworkers camp.