Once in a lifetime experience

When I was planning the trip I wanted to go from A to B as many different modes we could. I already booked our first mode of transfer from airport to Mui Ne as a private tour and then I had a VIP sleeper bus from Dalat to Saigon already booked. I couldn’t get us a train ride as it didn’t work into our itinerary. Why not do something amazing and ride for the next few hours on a motorbike?

The four of us, each with our own motorbike driver, drove from very hot beachy Nha Trang to 1500 meters high into the town of Dalat in the Alpine highlands.

I had the main driver Viet, who runs the Dalat office of Easyrider. Josh was driven around by Chien who had lots of information about the locals and the Buddhist temples. Inara was very well taken care of by Hieu and Brandon and Lam were a great team. It was a an amazing experience and we all felt safe throughout the approx 150km ride.

Our first stop was a fishing village at the edge of Nha Trang before where we saw the fish and seafood coming in and being cleaned, dried, packed to be sold.

We stopped at a house that makes rice paper rolls, stopped in a minority village which was visited by catholic missionaries. We got to see a look into how they lived. We stopped and had a rest while we took in the beauty of rice fields. We stopped and saw how a waterfall gave a small village electricity. The bike drove us through unpaved and narrow roads a normal transport couldn’t take us. As we moved higher into altitude you could feel the air getting cooler. Inara very much enjoyed getting out of the heat.

Our final destination was Dalat, a town which was set up by the French to escape Saigon due to the heat. Dalat, just like Melbourne, can experience 4 seasons in a day. It’s a approx 620,000 people and is the most visited destination for locals. It is becoming more popular among international tourists. The hills are lined with housing that reflects the European history.

On top of our once in a lifetime experience , we then were welcomed to our cute little homestay, which did not have any of the glamour of the last two hotels but an experience on its own, staying in a Vietnamese house.Okumaya devam et