The next trail, the rhododendron trail, began 12km uphill from the visitors centre. This would talk me a while to walk to, then hike the trail there and then hike down. Fortunately Joe had a motorbike and was allowed to officially ferry his parents there one by one. He was not supposed to give anyone else a ride. It took Joe 30 minutes each way to drive to the trail. He took his mother first while his dad and I starting walking to lessen the distance between pickups. His dad was next and I just kept walking. I had passed the entrance to the pheasant trail from yesterday and kept going. As I walked I glanced to the side of the road along a concrete barrier. I thought I was looking at a stick but as I followed the black stick, I came to it’s head! It was a 1.5m snake! Often when I’m hiking in the forest, sticks can appear to be snakes at a quick glance, so I was really surprised when this stick turned out be to a huge snake! I was nearly beside the snake when I finally saw it. I think it was staying still and hoping I would just walk by. When I stopped to get out my camera the snake knew that he had been seen. He paused for a second and then made a fast retreat over the concrete and into the forest. I never did get a photo but I was happy to see a large snake. After walking over 8km all uphill, it was finally my turn for Joe to pick me up. The road was pretty hairy and bumpy in spots. The weather at the base of the mountain was gloomy and overcast but as we got higher we climbed above the clouds. At the start of the trial, the sun was shining, it was warm and breezy. There were great views too above the clouds.
The trail needed some maintaince. There was a lot of pieces of dead bamboo and branches. The trail led to the top of the rhododendron falls. We stopped here. Joe’s mom stayed at the top while Joe, his dad and I descended the 689 steps to the base of the 300m high waterfall. I must admit it only took me about 5 minutes to go down quickly. It felt like much less than 689 steps but I wasn’t counting. Now when I hear about a 300m high waterfall, I picture a 300m uninterrupted drop of water. This falls wasn’t that at all. It was more like just steep rocks with the water hardly plunging away from them at all. There was single 300m drop. It was still impressive though and we hung out at the bottom for a while. Going up was a bit tougher. The steps are very high and space far apart, not good for climbing up. I was feeling it in my upper thighs, especially since I had walked almost 9km before even attempting them.
Joe had to ferry us all back down to the visitors centre and I knew I would be last. It was the middle of the afternoon and it would take hours for us all to get down. I started walking ahead of everyone. As I got closer to the road, an orange,black and white animal fleed from my presence in the trees. I didn’t see it really clearly but I saw the colors. It was a buff cheeked gibbon, a rare primate living in the park. Minutes later I saw another smaller snake. This snake stayed still for a while and I was able to get some decent photos of it. It had been a great day, 2 snakes and a gibbon. I walked a few km down the hill and moved aside for a huge dumptruck to pass me. He stopped and gave me a free ride down to the base. This was great, this would save Joe a lot of time having to come back up to get me. I arrived at the canteen the same time Joe arrived with his dad.

Comments (0) Feb 26 2010

Bach Ma was a French era hill station built to escape the heat of the lowlands in comfort. The peak of Bach Ma reaches a height of 1450m, just 18km from the coast. The French started building villas here in 1930. The area saw heavy fighting though in the 1950′s and later in the Vietnam war. It’s important to stick to the trails here as there could still be some UXO (unexploded ordinance) lying about. The forest here is very important as it protects a large area of the Annamite mountains stretching from the coast all the way to Laos. This forest was the home of newly discovered large mammals in the 1990′s. The Annamite mountains were the place I wanted to visit the most in Vietnam, unfortunately access and the terrain are very difficult. If I had a lot more money, I would love to launch an expedition deep into the forest here.
A typhoon hit the park hard last november, destroying the road to the summit. They are rebuilding it but won’t (officially) let anyone up to the summit. Really, the summit is the park. From the entrance, it was 16km to the summit where most of the trails are. The first trail starts 5km from the entrance. I visited this, the pheasant trail, my second day in the park. The day was very cloudly and overcast but very warm and very humid. As I walked to the trail I was drenched in sweat. I think humidity hovered around 90%. At night in my tent, condensation gathered under the fly. It was 22C with 96% humidity! It was much warmer than I thought it was going to be. I slept well here.
I took a few photos on the way to the trail and it took me an hour to reach it. The forest is very dense here. There are plenty of spiders and webs and it seemed like every minute I was brushing a web away from my face. I’m not sure where the spiders went when I crashed through one of their webs. The trail led to a rocky river. I hung out here for a while before going back down. As I walked back down, thick fog was covering the mountain. It had a very strange and eerie feel. It felt like it was hard to focus my eyes. Everything seemed blurry. I really liked the atmosphere it created though. I ended up being on the mountain for almost 6 hours before I got back to the visitors centre. Joe and his family had just got back visiting a lake. I joined them for a late lunch. After Joe’s parents went to bed we would watch movies on his laptop. It was great, hiking in the forest in the day and watching movies at night.

Comments (0) Feb 26 2010

I left Hoi An for Bach Ma national park. It took almost 4 hours to get there, which was a bit longer than I expected. We passed through a 6km long tunnel, opened in 2005. This shaved an hour off driving time between Danang and Hue. It bypassed the Hai Van pass, which I wanted to see because it was supposed to have great views but it would have been much more difficult to get transport to use the pass instead of the tunnel.
I arrived at the junction to the park at 5pm. It was a 3km walk from here to the park entrance. I would have taken a moto but no one was giving me a fair price, so I just walked it. At the park entrance I was expecting to find a campsite but the places I was shown to pitch my tent sucked. They were both along the road and beside a parking lot. No privacy or quiet at either one. I wanted to find a better site. I finally found a guy who spoke some english and he pointed me towards the guesthouse, back from the road. I set up my tent here. It was a much better spot, awaying from staring eyes. Staying at the guesthouse was Joe, a 19 year old volunteer from England. He said there was no real campsite here, my guidebook was wrong again. He helped me set up my tent and let me use his hot shower my entire stay here. He also let me use his washing machine. My clothes haven’t seen a machine since I left Canada over 3 months ago. I’m a die hard hand washer and don’t like to pay to have my clothes washed unless they’re super filthy. I gave Joe all my clothes to wash.
Joe had been at Bach Ma for 3 months. His parents arrived to visit him just an hour after I did. They were really nice and all of us ended up spending a lot of time together. They bought my dinner the first night and beers every night. They also brought Joe a lot of high quality chocolate. It seemed like I arrived just in time!

Comments (0) Feb 26 2010

An interesting day trip fromHoi An is to the ruins of My Son (me son). I did this on my third day in Hoi An. I originally signed up for the sunrise tour, leaving at 5am because I wanted to avoid the crowds, unfortunately though, that tour was cancelled due to lack of people. I was told this might happen, so they put me in the regular tour that left at 8. We finally got to the ruins at 9.30 and it was packed with people, Vietnamese and foreigners. It was hard to get photos without anyone in them, this is just what I wanted to avoid.
My Son are the most significant and oldest of Vietnam’s ruins. I figured I had seen Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Bagan in Myanmar and Wat Phu in Laos, so I should finish all the significant ruins in SE Asia and go to My Son. I guess the only one I’m missing is Ayuthaya in Thailand, but I will get there too one day. My Son was the religious centre of the Cham people. It was occupied from the 4th century to the 13th century. The Cham borrowed heavily from Indian influences and I could see the resemblanes in the temples. Unfortunately for My Son, the Viet Cong used it as a military base during the Vietnam war and as a result it was bombed heavily. This destroyed many of the buildings until a plea was made to stop the bombing and they did. It is being restored now as it is a Unesco World Heritage site but there is still a long way to go. I still enjoyed the place despite the crowds. Since I was on a tour I occasionally followed with our group and listened to our guide. I learned a lot about the history of My Son. On the way back we transfered from our bus to a boat back to Hoi An. We had lunch on the boat. The tour was worth the $7.
I spend one more day in Hoi An after My Son. It’s been a mission of mine to have a good pair of silk boxer shorts. I sleep in a silk sleeping bag liner when I’m camping and I’m partially obsessed with having silk surrounding my body! I could live in a silk suit. I had a pair of silk boxers but they fell apart easily. I wasn’t rough with them at all. I don’t know what happened to them. I figured since I was in Hoi An where getting tailored made clothes is the thing to do, this would be a good place to try and satisfy some of my silk dreams. I brought a pair of my own cotton boxers to a place, found the softest silk they had and ordered an exact replica of my own for $8. They said more would be cheaper but I wasn’t about to order 10 pairs of boxers! I went back later in the day and the boxers seemed perfect. I really like them. I won’t wear them until I get home so time will tell if they hold up to daily life. I hope they do.

Comments (0) Feb 26 2010

Fortunately I was only 2 hours away from my next destination, Hoi An. Hoi An is a smaller place with lots of character and old buildings. History goes back over 400 years here with many of the buildings hundreds of years old. The town was spared bombing during the Vietnam war, which is known here as the American War. It’s a quaint little town with many tailor shops, restaurants, travel agents and souvenir shops. I do a bit of shopping. I call my friends Dave and Adita. I met them in Cat Tien and again near Dalat. It’s been 6 days since I’ve talked to them but I thought I’d call him to see where he’s at. Oh yeah, I bought a cellphone here, it’s useful to keep in touch with people here and much cheaper than at home. I got a hold of Dave and he was actually in a taxi going to Hoi An! What a coincidence. He stayed at another city for 5 days and then came to Hoi An. We met up for dinner.

I spent the next day walking around Hoi An. I will often buy 2 dragonfruits and 2 mangoes at the same time. I have a really good idea of what the price is for this, usually around $2. If it’s a lot more than that, I know somethings up. So I go to buy fruit here and the women wants a lot more than it should be. I tell her the price and she says no, so I just bought the dragonfruit. As I walk away she’s bargaining with me for the price and finally comes down to the normal price. I can’t believe I even have to bargain hard for fruit here! This is the problem with Vietnam and why most of the people who I met who had come here didn’t like it. I can totally understand. You shouldn’t have to bargain hard for everything, but that’s how it is ans as a foreigner, it’s really frustrating and pisses you off. I have to bargain for fruit, hotel rooms, buses, motorcycles, even a newspaper! There are many disabled people selling newspapers here. They hassle you while you’re eating breakfast. I overheard a transaction this morning. The seller wanted $4 for a tiny newspaper, that is more like a flyer! I never heard of anywhere, even in Canada, charging $4 for a newspaper. The Australian said it was too much and then the guy drops the price to $1, so he buys it. Then the seller says ‘ Ok, friend, thank you!’ These people blatantly try to rip you off and then want to be your buddy!
I had the conductor on a bus overcharge me hugely ( but I bargained for a good price) and then he wanted to trade me sunglasses. Another guy offers me a cigarette after like we’re buddies. You really have to see it as a game and have fun with it or else it will just get you upset and it’s not worth it. I just stand my ground and end up usually walking away if I don’t get the real price. They always chase me down and after time I get the real price, but it shouldn’t be like this! It’s tiring because you’re always wondering where the next ripoff is going to be. Other than the people who are trying to get money from you, the regular folk of Vietnam are super friendly and they make up for the assholes!
Vietnam is a nation of smokers, well, at least the men are. Most of them smoke and will smoke anywhere, in restaurants, internet cafes, buses,etc. It’s really annoying and can ruin a good place. One thing I do really like about Vietnam is that all businesses, hotels and restaurants are signposted with their address so you always know where you are and what street you’re on. It makes navigating with a map easy. I haven’t seen this yet but I have heard of copycat places here. A place that’s not as good will take the exact name of another more popular place and try to pass itself off as this! So having the exact address of a place can be really important sometimes.

Comments (0) Feb 20 2010

I spent the next 4 days slowly making my way up the coast. I stopped at a few obscure towns to sleep and visit people I had met earlier. Tet, the Vietnamese New Year was Feb.14 this year but the whole holiday lasts almost 10 days. The people I had met were home with their families for Tet and happened to be on the route I was taking north. I spent most of my time relaxing on the beach and visiting my friends, their friends and family. This trip has been probably the most social trip I’ve been on. But after a few days of visiting people and being in obscure towns, I was ready for a bit of tourist action. I left my really nice beach resort to go to Hoi An.

Comments (0) Feb 20 2010

I had a lazy day my second day in Tuy Hoa but it ended very unpredictably. I ate some fruit for breakfast and went online at the post office. Internet in Vietnam is very cheap, less than 50 cents for an hour or cheaper. I was near the beach so I thought I should spend some time on the beach. Locals are very friendly here and Tuy Hoa is not touristy at all. A lot of people say hi to me. I don’t see any foreigners around. This is just what I wanted for a few days, to get off the beaten track but still be somewhere nice. I went to the beach to read for a while. It was warm but I didn’t feel like swimming. I’m the type of guy who can live near a beach for days and not swim in the ocean. As I’m sitting there reading my book a few teenagers come by and plop themselves down beside me. They don’t speak much english but that doesn’t seem to matter. They get a table brought over and order a few beers. As with a lot of places in Vietnam, the beer is warm but they bring a big bucket of ice. The ice is safe here. I generally don’t like to drink beer with ice, I’m not a big drinker and if the beer is not cold, I just won’t drink it. Vietnam is the first country where I find myself drinking ice beer. It’s ok, just watered down. After the beers I showered and we went to one of their houses. Then we took a few motos down to a carnival like thing. We went on a mini roller coaster, played foosball, paddled on giant swans and ate a huge feast. It was really fun, but a bit frustrating because we couldn’t talk to each other much. They seemed really happy just to hang out with me though.

Comments (0) Feb 20 2010

I left Dalat the next morning at 7.30am on a bus to Nha Trang. This city is the premier party/resort/beach destination. Although I wouldn’t be staying. I had to come here to get another bus connection and continued north. The road was in mostly good shape except for a dusty 10km stretch. I must say our driver was the best I’ve seen. He drove slowly and cautiously and I never feared for my life. I did see 3 accidents along the way though. There was dried pools of blood on the road at the scene of a grisly crash involving 2 motorbikes. Next was a van that had turned over on its side and the other accident was a motorbike that hit a truck. I’ve more vehicle accidents here in Vietnam than any other country (I saw a few more days later).
From Nha Trang I got on another bus right away. I got off 2 hours later in Tuy Hoa. My guidebook described it as a friendly little place with a good beach and no tourists. This is what I wanted. The beach isn’t really my thing but I thought I would take a few days exploring it and hanging out in a quiet place.
I stayed at Dong Coan hotel which was right across the street from the beach. I got a very nice room on the fourth floor with 2 balconies and a sea view. The hotel boasted 2 stars. I think its the first hotel I’ve ever stayed in that had stars! For $8, it was one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever had. I met some locals and they took me around that night. We went to the flower market. Chinese/Vietnamese New Year (known as Tet) is on Feb. 14 and everyone was out looking for flowers. Most of the flowers were tall chrysanthemums but there were a few lilies. For me the most impressive area was a small art gallery with a large bonsai display in the front. This collection of bonsai was the most impressive I’ve ever seen. Unlike most of the other bonsais I’ve seen which were very large, these bonsais were a more manageable size and could easily be brought into a house for display.

Comments (0) Feb 17 2010

I rented a mountain bike to ride to Lang Bian mountain. It was a very old volcano and had great views from the top. I rode 13km to the base of the mountain. The road was in good shape and slightly hilly for the first bit. Then it went downhill for a while. I picked up a lot of speed and it was really fun though I knew it would hell coming back up! I reached the mountain and parked my bike.
Although they allowed locals to ride their motorbikes or drive to the top, foreigners could only walk or hire a vehicle to travel the 5km to the top. I ran into a couple I met in Cat Tien here. They were waiting for more people to split the cost of the jeep to the top. I had always planned on walking to the top and stuck to my plan. The road was pretty steep at times and the whole mountain was covered in pine trees. It reminded my a lot of Algonquin provincial park back home. My guidebook said it took 3-4 hours to reach the top. I made it in one hour! At the top there was a restaurant and some stalls selling stuff. It was wasn’t busy and there was no hassle. The views were great though it was a little hazy. Lower down on one side of the mountain, the forest was burning. The smoke reached to the top and was annoying when I had to walk through it on the way down. I spent an hour on the top before walking back down.
Going up the long uphill wasn’t as bad as I though going back. Once I got to more level ground, I was able to put the bike into the hardest gear. I was pedaling my heart out and going really fast. I was even passing motorcycles! Once I got closer to Dalat, the traffic got more hectic and I had to slow down.

Comments (0) Feb 17 2010

I ate breakfast at the canteen beside the campsite. I packed up my tent and hired a bicycle to ride further into the park and then hike to Crocodile lake. I would be camping out at the lake. It was a 10km ride along a terribly bumpy road to the start of the trail. I walked my bike 100m down the trail and parked it with some other bikes. The trail was fairly flat and easy walking. It felt great to be back in the forest again. There was no one else around. The sounds of the forest were shattered temporarily when a motorbike passed me on the trail carrying supplies to the lake. I knew then, the trail couldn’t be that hard if a motorbike can do it. I saw mostly birds along the way but did spook a few animals that I couldn’t see deeper in the bush. This area was volcanic a long time ago and there are many rocks all over the forest.
About one km before the lake the trail branches to the left to a huge mega tree. This tree is easily the biggest I’ve seen the whole trip. It has massive buttress roots and is about 3m in diameter, 3m above the ground! It was awesome! I took many photos and walked slowly around the monster. As I did I noticed a lizard on a tree. I wasn’t sure but I thought it was a flying lizard. I took some photos and spooked it further up the tree and then it jumped! It glided gracefully to the base of another tree nearby. I was right, it was a flying lizard. Well, they don’t actually fly but they glide with flaps of skin, like elongated ribs. I have seen 2 of these before in Borneo but both of these times, the guide pointed it out to me. This is the first time I spotted one on my own.
Out at the lake was a lazy scene. There were 2 shirtless rangers reading, so I took off my shirt. There were only men around and I didn’t have to wear a shirt at all. The whole headquarters here is on stilts, though the water in the lake was very low. I walked down a raised walkway to the 2 nice bungalows. It was $40 to stay in one of these but they were both unoccupied so I set up my tent on the spacious veranda. I hoped no one would show up and make me move. I relaxed around camp for most of the afternoon. Later 2 young Germans arrived. We toured around the lake in a canoe at sunset. Even though the lake is called crocodile lake, I didn’t see any crocodiles! Unlike most places, the crocodiles were always in the water here. They didn’t come ashore to sun themselves as the do everywhere else. Was there even crocodiles here, I wondered? I saw a lot of ripples on the water, but that could have been fish making them.

After dinner I wanted to go for a night walk. The forest trail leading out to the lake I thought would be a good place to look for animals. I left at 7.30. Within 5 minutes I was seeing eyeshine in the forest. It was a small animal and I crept closer as quietly as I could to get a better look. I was able to see it and get a few photos. It was a mouse deer, one of the smallest deer in the world. Further down the trail I saw more eyeshine but very far from the trail. I tried walking deeper into the forest but it was too thick and I didn’t want to scare whatever away. I think buy the way the animal reacted to me and when I heard it run away, it was a large deer. The eyes were spread very far apart, so I knew it was something big. There are supposed to be leopards and tigers here but they are rarely seen.
Just before I camp back to the lake after an hour walking, I scared a civet right behind the guards quarters. It ran up the tree and stayed there looking at me. I took some photos, it was a common palm civet. I wasn’t surprised to see it near human habitation. Civets are a bit of a scavenger and it was probably attracted to the smell of cooking food. I’ve civets around other camps in the rainforest.

The sounds of the lake were really loud that night. Birds and other animals were calling loudly to each other. I heard something large walk right under me. I took out my camera and my light but by the time I looked it was already gone. I think it was a sambar deer.

The next morning I walked and and then cycled back to the main camp. I could have stayed longer but wanted to get moving north. I took a bus back to Dalat. I got my same room at Phoung Hanh.

Comments (0) Feb 15 2010