Brangelina makes an appearance in Dalat, Vietnam

industrial sewing machine cranking out designs on silk, can't you see the pattern?;)

over the hills and through the woods...

Elephant Falls (just don't mind the trash you see at the top of the river, the locs haven't learned proper waste disposal yet...and the river seems like a good option?)

Tiger Falls (the dogs here were finally friendly, but then chased us for a few hundred meters when we left on the moto)

Phew, it's been awhile, I know you all have been missing the Bill Bryson-esque writing talent (pick up his book "In a Sunburned Country" for some insight into where we'll be shortly), welcome back.

So comedy insued the day we had planned to leave the coast and head up to the mountains of Southern Nam. All seemed easy enough, well, easy enough when in Nam, we had spoken on the phone with Sinh Cafe (they do open buses in Nam) back in Nha Trang, they told our hotel to have a taxi drop us off at some bus stop in town where they'd pick us up. We didn't know which bus stop, but those that were speaking Vietnamese seemed to be on the same page. The taxi, after taking us the long way, dropped us at this bus stop outside of town on the highway. We were told earlier that the bus would show up around 10am, so we thought we'd grab a seat at the cafe to get out of the sun. Again, we were reminded how far off the tourist trail we were...while we sat and drank some water, the locals all sauntered over to check out the aliens...at least that what we felt like! We had about 30 Vietnamese folks about 5 feet away from our table just staring. Staring like we were naked, or had just parked our spaceship across the street, or I don't what, but it was pretty uncomfortable. We waved and tried to act normal, hopefully our water drinking skills were up to par! I had to get this on film, so I calmly (so as not to disturb the locals) got up and walked towards the back of the cafe with the Nikon. When I turned around and raised the camera, the locs all started giggling and scattered. It was a classic scene, but I think you just had to be there. After all the commotion, we realized that it had been awhile, and no Sinh Cafe bus had shown up. So we walked out to the edge of the highway to wait there and avoid the prying eyes. A minibus drove up with a Dalat sign in the window, so we decided to jump on and get on the road. However, a few hundred meters down the road, after some back and forth broken english/vietnamese we realized that this wasn't our bus and we should probably get off before it's too late. They coasted to a rolling stop, we hopped out and looked ahead at the hot, dusty walk back to the bus station. Just ahead was a houseish looking building, so I popped in and hand signalled to ask if I could use their phone. I did, and got ahold of the bus driver who said he'd be there in 10. Cool. I thanked them for the phone, gave them 4000 dong for the call ($.20), and we walked back. Bus came, we got on, cranked the A/C and headed towards the highlands. About 200 bumps and 400 curves in the road later, we arrived in Dalat. Gorgeous, reminded us both of Tahoe in the summer. Crisp air, waterfalls, lakes, windy single-lane roads, clear-cutting, and....wait, did I say clear-cutting?!? Oh yeah, they are tearing up the mountian sides in Dalat faster than those in the Amazon. When we moto'd that evening to check out the aforementioned, we had to stop and gaze at the post clear-cut, terraced hill side farms. I mean, the produce is fresh and excellent in the restaurants of Dalat, but it comes at a price! Hopefully the government will step in soon and start teaching sustainable agriculture. This was justifiably Briana's favorite place in Nam, as the food was great(sorry trees), waterfalls amazing, and country road motoing outstanding.

shakeNbake