Week one, Koh Chang

Our travels to Koh Chang were largely un-eventful, though we did score a win for our team. We had purchased transport only to the ferry terminal on the mainland. Once there, a woman tried to sell us tickets on a van to take us down island. When we demurred, she abruptly dismissed us, but handed me two tickets for the ferry without charge. Whoo! We get these wins so seldom it's a bit of a special occasion when it happens.

Kristel from BB Divers had arranged an apartment for us; spacious (very large living area with a kitchen attached, big bedroom and bath, with a deck across the front) relatively clean, and cheap, about $350 CAD per month. Here's the view from the front porch.....

.....and out the kitchen window.....

.....and some flowers in the front yard.....

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In this photo, looking off the side of the porch, the brightness in the centre is the sun reflecting off the ocean.....

We have rented a moto for the duration of our stay and have had a couple trips up the coast of the island for shopping in the larger towns. Kim is not completely comfortable on the bike yet, but is handling it great.

I've had a couple of days diving so far, five dives in total including a night dive, though the visibility was pretty crappy for all of them. These photos were taken on the boat just as the sun was setting.....

.....with instructors Thomas and Tea.

Earlier this week, Kristel suggested that it might be nice if I brought my guitar to the BB bar and play a couple songs. I agreed, thinking I would be like when we sit around the kitchen on Mayne and swap tunes. The next day there was this.....

.....a flyer, and heavy advertising on the BB website and on face book, so I spent some time this week working up an hour or two of music. The event was last night, big crowd, lots of noise, no sound system, but it was fine. I sat at the bar and played for a small group who seemed thankful for it.

I think today Kim and I are driving to the east side of the island. I've never been and it's supposed to be beautiful. Tomorrow we are hosting a "house warming" party here at the apartment. We'll keep you posted.

Pattaya

We arrived late in the day to Pattaya and by the time we had secured a room, it was dark. We had been up very early to accommodate our travel, so only took the time to find some Pad Thai and a beer and then retired. Sunday was equally busy, what with arranging our travel to Koh Chang - which include hiring a moto to run me up to the bus depot, at times hitting 70 km/h on choked streets, so I could check on public transport to Trat: can't get there from here - getting a haircut, finding both breakfast and lunch, and squeezing in a trip to the beach. I'm sorry to say I took no photos while in Pattaya, so you will have to do with a brief discription. 

Imagine the heavy smell wafting up from the sewer over dirty, broken streets, heavily populated with 250lb, elderly, drunk and belligerent European men, all sporting shaved heads and "wife-beaters", with young, scantily clad Thai women on their arms. Imagine dozens of bars on every block staffed by working girls. Imagine an over-crowded beach, so polluted that only a few Russian tourists will venture a swim. Imagine vast, beachfront, air conditioned shopping malls featuring outlets for all the major North American brand names selling products at prices far, far out of the reach of most Thais, as well as this traveler.

The saving grace came last night. Kim and I made our way to Jomtien Beach, just south of downtown Pattaya. There we enjoyed a meal from the street, and later, to our greater enjoyment, attended an evening of cabaret at The Venue. The performers were all gay men, transvestites or transgendered men, a couple of them easily the most beautiful women that I have seen in Thailand. The music was recorded performances by female artists, lip synced by the performers, and augmented by dancers, a light show and smoky special effects. It was great and the audience was very enthusiastic, though Kim was the only double x'er in the crowd.

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So you are up to date. Our next stop is Koh Chang and we will be there for the better part of a month. The last time I was in this situation, posts on this blog became somewhat spotty. I'll try and not let that happen to the degree it did last time, but if there is little to report......

More Da Lat

As I write, I'm playing catch up. Kim and I are on a minivan heading to Koh Chang, and though it has only been two nights since we left Da Lat, it seems a very long time past.

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While Da Lat does not boast the parks or white beaches that recommend other Vietnamese tourist towns, its citizens clearly hold great pride in their collective green thumb. The city maintains lovely street side gardens so that, as you stroll, you pass by beauties such as this datura.....

.....or oddities (for me) such as this wintering poinsettia which has grown to 3 metres across.

Each year, around Tet (February 7th this year), the city hosts the Da Lat Flower Festival and workers were in full prep mode during our visit......

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A specialty of the Da Lat area is a product called "weasel coffee". There is a local weasel - civet cat actually - that eats the coffee shrub fruit. The seed (what we call the coffee beans) passes through the gut of the cat and comes out whole in its scat. The scat is harvested and the beans removed, cleaned up a bit, roasted, and sold for four times the price of un-pooped beans. Here it is in its post pooped but pre-cleaned state.....

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Our last two full days in Da Lat were split between a short trip by train to a Da Lat suburb which boasts a large, Chinese influenced temple, and the Crazy House.

The small train which brought us to the temple dates from early in the century, it's coaches constructed of wood on metal running gear.....

The line it runs on once connected Da Lat to the major north/south line at Nha Trang (impressive given the 1500 metre elevation gain over the 180 km which separates the two towns) but was rendered unusable during the war as the tracks were regularly taken out by the VC. Ever since the war ended,  the government has promised a rebuild, but......

The temple boasts the glitz typical of the Chinese style - not really my cup of tea - but the shear size of the icons provide for an interesting visit. These three great visitors just inside the temple gates and are each about ten metres tall and carved from single pieces of wood. Larry....

.....Curly.....

.....and Moe.

The temple buildings are finished in mosaic of broken pottery set in mortar.....

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.....and house some impressive, twenty metre tall Buddhas, including this one in a more Khmer style.....

.....and this happy fella covered entirely in dried aster blossoms.....

.....and he looks out over the surrounding farms.....

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The next day we visited the Crazy House. Built by Dang Viet Nga, she claims that this bit of weirdness attempts to bring citizens closer to nature, though I kind of missed that. It is a collection of four or five buildings connected by dizzying, very narrow, aerial walkways featuring very low and completely inadequate railings, prompting this visitor to virtually crawl from one building to the next while twenty metres off the ground.

Early designs by Mrs. Nga were deemed too "western" by the state and either torn down or burned. Her father, however, eventually became the second head of the party after Ho Chi Mihn passed. Since then, her designs somehow seem less subversive.

A collection of photos from our visit.....

.....and that thing snaking across the roof is one of the walkways....

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.....and, what? A selfie? How innovating. 

.....and the views back over Da Lat.

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Our trip out of Vietnam featured a cab ride to the Da Lat airport, a flight to HCMC, and a flight to Bangkok. The only thing of note is that we shared the cab from our rooms with a couple from Salt Spring Island and, on our recommendation, they are going to come to Koh Chang mid February where we will reconnect with them.

In my last post is covered the trip from the airport to Pattaya, so next up, Pattaya.

If you can believe it.

Yes, yes. I know I owe you more of Da Lat and our travels back to Thailand. It's coming. This one is short and called,

Holy Mother of Jesus Lifting Christ.

Traveled Bangkok airport to Pattaya yesterday. The driver had his wife aboard. If anyone on the bus spoke, she jumped up, scooted over to them, and told them to stop talking!!!!!! A commercial bus! And the driver brings his wife to ensure he can drive without hearing another human voice. Unbelievable.

Oh, and a picture of this beauty.

Da Lat

We've now been in Da Lat two nights, and it is, in many respects, unlike anything we have seen in Vietnam this trip. Of course, it is a couple hundred kilometres off the ocean and 1500 meters higher in elevation, but also of a very different climate. This morning while walking, I was dressed in shoes, jeans and three layers on top, complete with a wind breaker,  and despite this, I was chilled.

Agriculture is big here, though where tropical fruits and rice dominate production in the coastal areas, this is a land of strawberries, potatoes, leafy greens and root vegetables, and flowers, flowers, flowers.

It is temperate enough here that the use of green houses is extensive and they don't dick around, as can be seen in the photo below, taken just on the edge of town.

The topography here, unlike the monotone flatness of the lowlands, is all up and down - steep hill sides and deep valley lands, everywhere greened in young pines. The pine forests were planted by man after the indigenous forests were obliterated - thanks to our pals in the US army and Dow Chemical - by the use of Agent Orange. There are hills close by that still show the original, mixed species jungle, but it was not long ago that the hills here were bare earth, punctuated by dead, denuded tree stalks. The monoculture that has been introduced could easily be confused with the mountainsides in BC, the pine forests up Princeton way. 

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Yesterday Kim and I joined one of our housemates, Manfred, on a hike. The guest house offers a map of Da Lat and a suggested walking tour.  The tour took us through town, high up a central hilltop where we engaged a cable car to carry us across a wide valley to the next peak where lies a Pagoda. Nearby is a lake, and further out a waterfall. From the Pagoda a road leads back to town. Here are some photos of our day.

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The Eiffel Tower.....

.....the view from atop the central hill top, out over the forest.....

.....and over the town.....

.....and farms.....

.....the Pagoda.....

.....some of the topiary in the gardens.....

.....the monk's residence.....

.....the Koi pond.....

.....and another temple on the site.

Once we were back in town (the hike was about 25 kilometres) we were starving. The first restaurant that we came across boasted these dishes. 

Surprisingly, we opted to eat elsewhere.

*****

More from Da Lat to come.

Nha Trang to Da Lat

While Nha Trang is a town on the ocean, Da Lat sits to the west, 1500 meters high in the mountains. About 180km apart, the first 100km of the bus journey takes only an hour and a half over strait line highways, past endless rice fields. The last 80km consumes the other two and a half hours, winding steeply through beautiful pine forest and past dozens of cascading mountain streams until one is deposited on the high plateau where Da Lat sprawls.

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At the mountain's base, the bus stops for a pee break, and to take whatever Dong tourists might be convinced to part with - an ice cream bar is 4 1/2 times the price here as in Nha Trang - at a road side canteen. On offer are small cups of the liquid which bathes these beauties, presumably to bolster ones courage for the upward trek.

The vistas open as the bus reaches high in the hills, the hairpin turns allowing a glimpse back over the land below....

More on beautiful Da Lat to come.