Today I drove to Ho Chi Minh City which took almost the whole day. It costed me 240k but I’m sure you can find it somewhere a little bit cheaper if you search for it. I slept almost the whole time so I can’t tell you that much about the scenery^^ the parts where I was awake were pretty nice though, much more green and jungle-y than in the earlier rides. On the ride I met a Japanese man, he told me that he always works in Japan for a while and when he has some money together he travels. Sounds like a pretty nice idea. After checking in to the hotel I finally went to get something to eat and damn did it feel good to finally eat something 🙈 I then met the Japanese guy again and we went to a bar. It was the first time to see a hooker there^^ Actually I didn’t realize that she was one, because she started to just talk normally to us and asked where we from, but the Japanese guy ment no and then she walked away 😅🙈 Good thing to know that they also go inside the bars^^ After a few hours I went back to the hotel and on the way I grabbed myself a little Banh Mi
Today we did not really anything except drinking coffee, eating and sitting somewhere and talking, somehow we were all pretty tired^^ I bought some local ground coffee, in my guidebook stood, that Buon Ma Thuot has not just one of the best coffees, but also one of the cheapest. And it’s true, I got 250g for 50k which are a little more than 2$. And yeah I know, this getting mad right now, the fourth time in row we ate the same dinner xD still good though^^
Today we decided that we wanted to do a short tour to the Thác Dray Nur waterfall very near of Buon Ma Thuot. After a breakfast noodlesoup and a coffee we went back to the hotel to grab our stuff and go to the waterfall.
Sadly after a few minutes into the trip, the back wheel of one of the motorbikes felt strange and we had to get repaired. We waited on the side of the road, while two of us took the motorbike and searched for a mechanic. Luckily they found only like half an hour or 45 mins but not longer. Good thing, that the waterfall was so near, so it was no problem timewise.
To get to the waterfall you have to buy a ticket for 30k which is alright, considering there’s also a free coffee combined with the tickets^^The view there was amazing! Such a beautiful scenery and you can go everywhere, exploring all the small paths that are around and chill at the water on some stones and just enjoy the nature. The picturesdefinitely speak for themselves but you should really just go there by yourself and enjoy the view with your own eyes. Can really recommend to go there! Also because it’s really not far away from Buon Ma Thuot and you could actually combine it with another activity on that day.
Im the evening when we were back we went to search something to eat and for real accidentally ate the same dinner a third time in a row xD but again at another place. And damn it really tastes good! 😅😋
Today we rented our motorbikes, we took two for us three, because it was cheaper and in the end it was pretty good that I could sometimes just sit on ones back without worrying about my driving skills and also to take some pictures. Although riding a scooter is pretty damn easy, after like 5 mins I could perfectly control the gas and could drive without any problems. It was a really awesome experience, you can get pretty fast with them, at least it felt like was pretty fast^^ And driving over the county roads where is almost nobody and you can really drive as fast as you want is awesome as hell!
The place we actually wanted to visit was impossible to reach with our motorbikes because we had to cross a small river but there were no boats strong enough to get them to the other side, there were tours you could book to see the stuff on the other side but we didn’t wanted to spend so much money for that^^ There would have been a bridge somewhere else but that would have took two additional hours and that would have been problematic with the ride back home because we wanted to reach our hotel before it gets dark. The place we actually wanted to go was called Buon Don. But well we decided then to go to a lake which was nearer. It was just next to a city called Ea Sup. When we arrived at the lake we ate something and then decided to take a small road from there and drive back to Buon Ma Thuot.
It was a good and very bad decision at the same time^^ it was pretty awesome because we could see many small villages and had a great overview of the forests and plantations around! …But the so called “street” was horrible xD there were even big rocks coming out of the ground, I really wonder how a street can get so bad 🙈 it was pretty difficult to drive through and I’m very happy that I could sit at the back of one the whole time 😅
It started also to rain really hard and at one time we stopped to stand under and to refuel one of the motorbikes. The people who were also there were very friendly! The gave us some water and one even invited us to come to his house to eat with them, it was really nice of them and we would have really liked to do that, but unfortunately we really had to go on so we would have to drive in the dark, which could be very dangerous for foreigners who don’t really know how the street here work like us^^ It was really sad but we were really flattered. One of us gave them a keyring with a small Eifel tower to thank them and they we’re really excited about it 🙂
Cat and dog seeking shelter from the rain :3
The rain fortunately stopped 5 mins later and we went on. Also the street was getting better and better which we really appreciated. It started to rain a second time and this time even more than at first! 🙈 We got all wet even though we had some rain ponchos^^ After some more time we finally made it home. It was the best feeling ever to finally change clothes 😍😅 We met our other guys and went to eat something, accidentally we had the same dinner as yesterday but at a different street restaurant, in this one the soup you get with the rice and everything tasted way better than on the other place, it also had some more vegetables in it, which probably gave the soup more taste 😋
After that we searched for a bar but the nightlife in Buon Ma Thuot is pretty much non-existend 🙈 After a break so I could get a Banh Mi we returned home and chilled a but before going to bed, we were all pretty exhausted from our trip.
For breakfast we ate spring rolls which we had to roll by ourselves. It was pretty fun and tasted really good.
After that we went to the coffee village here in Buon Ma Thuot, it was like 20 min. away from our hotel. I can really recommend to go there, it’s not like you see a whole lot of awesome stuff, but there are some nice cafés were you can drink a iced coffee like we did and walk around just looking at the old houses that are just made of wood which looks very cool.
We talked with a villager who could speak pretty good French. She told us that sadly this old tradition of building houses of wood is getting forgotten because all the rich and young people come to this area and build new houses or of bricks instead. It’s kinda reasonable I think, because the wood houses have to get renewed every 50 years and the stone houses if they’re build good never. But it’s still sad that a old tradition like this dies. We didn’t made very much after spending some hours around the coffee village. There isn’t really much to do in Buon Ma Thuot itself. We ate at a streetrestaurant some real nice beef with rice and salad, it tasted really great. After that we went pretty early to bed to get up early tomorrow.
Today we ate at the hotel our free breakfast which was included in the price. It was okay but it really was a package of instant noodles with an egg and some pieces of broccoli inside^^
After that we went to clean out room and pack everything for the tour. But as it turned out there were some issues with renting the motorbikes. Because of our big tour through other provinces, the renting fee would have gone way up, from 2$ a day to about 15$ 🙈. That would be too much so we decided that we would drive the long part with a bus and rent the motorbikes then at our next destination because it would be cheaper again. Two of us decided to buy a motorbike, which is pretty common to do in Vietnam, you buy a motorbike at the beginning of your journey and going to sell it at the end of it. Me and two others went then with the bus to Buon Ma Thuot which took about 6h. The bus ride was pretty good, it was a normal sitting bus, the view a really awesome because you could really see that you were driving into the jungle, but sadly I couldn’t make so good pictures 🙈 When we arrived here we went to the hotel to leave our bags there and then straight out again because we were starving like hell. We ate two different Banh Mi and I ate additionally a Bun Bo (I think it’s called), which is a big piece of steamed dough filled with ground meat and quail eggs. The dough tastes a little bit sweet but all together it tastes really good, just watch out for a piece of paper which sticks on the bottom of it^^ it’s also pretty filling, you should definitely try it out if you’re in Vietnam because it’s also a local food.
Today we just relaxed, we slept in, two of the French guys went with me in the city while the others were still sleeping. First we went to a small café to drink an iced coffee with milk which is like the typical Vietnamese coffee and it’s really sweet and very strong.We walked then around and searched very long for a cheap restaurant, because we somehow got to a place were all the high-class hotels were and therefore the prices of the restaurants were all a bit higher. But we finally found one and had a pretty good lunch there. I just forgot to take a picture of it, it was like the bad food from yesterday in waay better, rice with a bbq chicken and it was warm and very tasty 😍 After that we walked some more around the lake we went back to our hotel to meet the other two. We bought a bubble tea on the way home which was really yummy.
We met the others and decided to eat dinner at the hotel because they had a special offer with a great variety of food and free beer for 70k. The food was very delicious and we got some fresh Mango too. The thing with the eggs you can see on the picture is a omelette rolled with seaweed, it sounds strange but was really tasty! And the curry with the eggs had some great beef in it, you can see see the transparent fat pieces on the meat, they were really delicious and the meat was really tender and the sauce was kinda sweet, it tasted great!
After the meal we just went to our room, chilled and talked. I can really recommend the hotel we’re staying in, it’s called the “Vietnam Home Hostel”. It’s a bit hidden but the guys at the reception are really nice and help you with everything and the rooms are clean and nice too.
After a Short stay in another City, where I had enough time to visit the beach real fast and take one/two pics, a bus change and a wheel change I finally arrived in Da Lat at about 11/12 am. I met there then with the French guys who took a different bus to Da Lat. We ate some rice with chicken which was okay but not that great, the chicken was even cold and it costed 50k…
We then went to our hotel, checked in and chilled a little bit because we were all tired of the bus ride. We the got a little snack in form of a Banh Mi, which is like a sandwich with different fillings depending on the the cooks of each stand. It was very tasty and just costed 15k. We then restet some more, went later to eat something for dinner near the restaurant. We ate those rice papers with egg and stuff on it, which were also very good 😋
We walked a bit around and visited the city a bit and then went back to the hotel to chill and just talk a bit and then went then to sleep pretty fast. It’s great to finally have some company for some days 🙂
Today Bon picked me up and invited me to a great feast with a part of his family, not his wife and kids, but his brother and his brothers and sisters in law and more. It was very nice to see how they all eat together and the food was really really great. Before the big meal they burned some papersuits as well as paper money, Thao, the girl I rented the room from tolde that they burn all this stuff as symbolism to gift it to the dead ones so they have new suits and money and stuff in the Heaven. They also print iPhone and really everything on paper so you can burn it 😀 As far as I noticed eat the woman and kids separate from the men, but they still came over some times and talked with them. They also all drank beer, so there’s no separation there^^ After the great meal we sat there some while and then went to Bons home. I talked with one of his daughters, her english name is Alice, and she could talk very good English, especially for a 13 year old! She had to translate everything for the others and had to ask me everything the others wanted to know 😅🙈 But is was very nice to talk with her/them and to spend just some time with a normal Vietnamese family 🙂 After that Bon drove me back to my hotel where I booked a ticket for the night bus to Da Lat and went to a nearby shop to get a new belt because mine broke apart.I had an hour until the belt should be ready and before I had to be back at my hotel, so I went to the city to buy some last souvenirs. After that I got my belt and went to the Hotel where a small bus picked me up and brought me to the place where the sleeping bus would pick me up.
