Whilst in Hoi An, I decided to do a tour of the Central Highlands with the Vietnam Easy Riders Group. It meant that I got to see the Central Highlands, avoiding the east coast and without having to buy a bike!
Day 1: Hoi An > Kon Tum
The journey began in Hoi An, where I met Jack and we set off on our 4-day voyage. In order to get the tour down to 4 days, we had to drive a long way on days one and two, as usually the trip would be 5 days. This meant not making a lot of stops on the first two days, or at least only making stops to stretch legs. What we did do is as follows:
- stopping on a bridge, with some impressive surrounding countryside
- stopping at waterfalls
- seeing a short section of the original Ho Chi Minh trail
- seeing the new Monkey Bridge. The old Monkey Bridge was only wide enough for one person to cross, but this one seemed just as dangerous!
- stopping for sugar-cane juice in Indochina Corner
- helping a man remove a wing-mirror from his van. It was his birthday, so after this he sat me down for beer and sweets
- having a long discussion with the waitress in a seafood restaurant as to whether I should have got noodles or not, based on the picture in the menu.
Day 2: Kon Tum > Buon Ma Thout
- seeing the Bana ethnic minority village. This was different to the other ethnic minority villages I had seen in the past, as it was on the outskirts of an already fairly-well established city
- seeing the wooden church
- stopping at a tea plantation and taking leaves for tasting later
- seeing a black-pepper plantation
- eating barbequed pork and beef (which you barbequed yourself).
Day 3: Buon Ma Thout > Dak Mil
This days was a lot shorter than the first few days and we didn’t really cover much distance at all. We did see a lot though:
- rice paper making
- rice noodles
- Tray Sap waterfall
- drinking coffee (Buon Ma Thout is meant to produce some of the best coffee in the region)
- seeing a coffee plantation
- stopping to buy mangos, directly from the farmer
- seeing a rubber tree plantation
- eating spring rolls (that you made yourself) and a kind of pancake (with beansprouts).
Day 4: Dak Mil > Bao Loc
- eating Bahn Mi (baguettes)
- drinking coffee (I had discovered that I quite liked coffee at this point)
- stopping at a passion-fruit plantation, quite easily the best plantation we went to
- seeing a hydro-electric dam. I walked over to the control office and the bloke showed me how all the equipment worked. I couldn’t touch any of it though!
- a drive through the jungle (which was more of a forest).
We got to Bao Loc, where Jack and I departed and I stayed the night, before heading to Saigon. I was a little frustrated that we didn’t get to do more on day 4, as we had agreed that I could go trekking in the jungle on that day, but Jack had interpreted me asking questions on a non-sensical topic in a coffee shop as a cue to miss that step. I told him that I wasn’t happy and I think I got the point accross, but it didn’t change the fact that we spent quite a lot of time sitting around on the last day.
As we didn’t get to do much on day 4, early on day 5 I got the bloke on reception to drive me to Dambri Falls, which was only about 18 Km away. This was worth it, as it helped fill the void from the day before and I got to walk through some impressive jungle.