The first meal of the day was a repeat of yesterday's omelette, although with less of the delicious strawberry jam, as we had greedily polished off most of it the day before.
We needed nourishment for the epic journey that lay ahead. Our hosts took us out on their motorbikes for a tour of the countryside surrounding Dalat. The day was 130km of sights, smells and tastes of life in Lâm Đồng province.
The two 'hogs' had "Schmerz macht schön" (pain makes beautiful) plastered on their petrol tanks. I hoped this wasn't an indication of the ride ahead. On the back of the bikes with the 'easy riders', we set off and wound our way leisurely through the hills with views of Lang Biang mountain.
With our guides, we surged along the roads roughly hewn in the side of the mountain's red rock. The trees either side stood tall and proud like the bristles of a brush. There were many opportunities to stop at beauty spots looking out over the valleys below.
Our first stop was at a flower farm. The one we visited grows gerbera, which are bought domestically and are often used in decoration of Buddhist shrines. They fetch a high price in places such as Saigon but the capital investment in such a farm is high, especially in the greenhouses required to shelter the nascent blooms. Many farmers are turning to growing flowers over vegetables as they are a more lucrative crop per hectare. K asked whether a cooperative model had been considered, in which the local community shared the cost and profits. The response was that since the government allowed people to own land, it is kept within the family and improvements made gradually over generations.
The biking duo took us further out into the countryside, past workers stooped in the fields tilling the brick-red soil. We were joined on the roads by agricultural traffic, including a vehicle comprising an engine on two wheels coupled via a flexible link to a cart. The driver, sat in the cart, held a tiller with which he steered the motor, as though it were a horse pulling him along.
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| Weasel-poo coffee |
Suddenly, it became apparent that the hills were covered in coffee plants as far as the eye could see. We stopped at Mê Linh, where they produce the (in)famous 'weasel coffee', which is made from beans that have been processed by enzymes in the animal's gut. I was initially skeptical about this point on our itinerary, as I was unsure of a weasel's natural predilection for coffee beans. The weasels, or civet cats, being nocturnal creatures, were asleep as we arrived. They were caged, but their living area seemed clean and large and their diet included fruit alongside the beans.
Out of curiosity, we sampled the weasel coffee. We looked out over the plantation where they grow different kinds of beans: mocha, arabica, robusta and cherry. K took a coffee made from cherry beans, which tasted rich and slightly sour, but we had no baseline against which to gauge the weasel's influence on the flavour. I opted for mocha, which tasted smooth, but I couldn't reliably discern the contribution of the extra step in the process. I don't think any improvement in flavour is worth the premium price or the need to keep the animals in captivity.
Having tried some Vang Dalat wine last week, I was under the impression that the temperate climate on the hillsides of Dalat is the perfect environment for growing grapevines. It made perfect sense, especially knowing that the French were especially fond of the area. Sadly, I was mistaken, as the eponymous wine is only processed and bottled here, while the grapes are grown elsewhere.
Wine doesn't seem to have great popularity in Vietnam, so when not drinking coffee, the tipple of choice in Dalat (besides beer) is rượu đế (rice wine). We paused briefly at a small producer of the 'Vietnamese vodka' and saw barrels of fermenting rice. (Bear in mind that, like the weasel coffee, alcohol is also excreted by an organism - in this case yeast). Our guide fished out small shots of the 70-75% ABV booze fresh from the still. It burned (quite literally - he set it alight) but had a distinctly rice-like flavour. This is diluted to a saleable level for the market. As in the Mekong Delta, a portion is steeped with serpents and geckos to produce 'medicine'. Our guide seemed convinced of the efficacy of this. Me, I thought it was snake oil.
Next up on the trail of small industries dotting the hills and vales was a small noodle factory. Specialising in rice noodles, the factory had some light automation in comparison to the manually intensive production we had seen so far. Two machines were fed with a dough of pounded rice, producing bún (thin soup noodles) and incredibly thin continuous sheets of rice paper, respectively. Even here, though, a jerry-rigged pendulum made from pieces of pipe and an up-turned bottle of oil swinging back and forth ensured that the folded noodle sheets wouldn't stick together.
Outside the noodle factory, one of the drivers broke open a passion fruit he had plucked from a tree. Tasting the tart seeds inside, it was a reminder of the fertility of this land in contrast to the wasted soil of regions further north that still suffer the toxic effects of the American war.
Revealing just how naive I am as a consumer, I made some discoveries about the production of silk at our next stop. While there are no illusions in my mind about the leather tanning process, I had a vague idea that silk is harvested from the silkworms as one might collect a spider's web. Our guide showed us how the larvae are raised into silkworms on a diet of mulberry leaves, producing silk with which to cocoon themselves. However, the process of metamorphosis into a moth is arrested after 4 or 5 days and the cocoon is soaked in warm water and unspun by machine. Needless to say, the silkwo.rm does not survive this process and is instead fried and eaten as a snack. I admire the spirit of 'let nothing go to waste', but I will look differently at silk goods from now on.
Fortunately, our next stop was Thúc Voi (Elephant waterfall) - a large, naturally occurring phenomenon among many such features in the area. This was a tall and powerful waterfall, the rocks at the bottom of which are said to resemble an elephant's head. We clambered down the slippery stones and underneath the cascade. The terrific force of the water pushed us back and soaked us from head to foot before we knew it. We soon dried off on the bikes, though.
After a brief pause at the serene hill-top An Linh pagoda, we broke for lunch. We refuelled on noodle broth (pho) for the relatively long trip to Pongour Falls.
Taking off on the bikes, we sped farther out into the countryside, where the traffic thinned further still, until it was just us and the odd herd of water buffalo being driven down the road. The road surface was surprisingly good, except in patches where nature refused to be contained and grass erupted through the tarmac.
Pongour Falls is also called the Seven Step Falls, as the rock face forms a staircase over which the water flows. It is a beautiful setting and we climbed up onto the rocks to let the foamy water cascade over our feet.
On the return leg, we made a couple of stops. One was for 'mushroom village', so called because many of the residents have tents set up in the gardens under which Chinese ear fungus grows in the dark from hanging stalactites of substrate. The other stop was called 'chicken village', not because chickens are kept there, but in honour of the giant concrete statue of a chicken that looms over the houses. The locals are Koho people. With darker complexions and wavy black hair, they are one of the ethnic groups in Vietnam.
From Paradise lake - built by the French to supply water to the area - we took a cable car over the valley for a splendid view over all Dalat.
We raced the sun home - the air at this altitude cooling rapidly - via the French quarter's typical cottages (now operating as hotels), and arrived to the smell of strawberry jam cooking. To complement this, we were served a strawberry smoothie from today's haul.
Dinner was a big communal affair beloved of the Vietnamese: lau (hot-pot). We were joined by two more guests from England and tucked into the boiling pot. The stock was flavoured with tomatoes, pineapple and lemongrass, in which mushrooms, tofu and daikon radish, as well as Chinese cabbage and other greens, were cooked. Strawberries, of course, were served for dessert.
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