Waterfalls, Cable Cars and Chilli and Lemongrass Tofu
Holy mother of Christ. Let’s start with the tofu. Nay, Tofu now needs to be a proper noun and capitalised to suit.
Ate at the Art Cafe for breakfast and ate maybe the best damn meal I’ve eaten in Vietnam, maybe the best restaurant meal I’ve ever tasted. It was chili and lemongrass tofu with steamed rice. The chili and lemongrass sauce over this tofu was like, this coagulated oil thing which was salty and more delicious than I can explain. Few beans chucked in and you’ve got a damn DAMN fine meal. Having it for dinner tonight as well.
After this sumptuous repast, we pointed our Yamaha Sirius towards the mountains and belted down one of, if not the most beautiful motorcycle road I’ve ever seen. The traffic was fairly light and the views were beyond amazing. To the right you had steep pine forest stretching high above, then to the left you had pine-forest and jungle vistas as far as the eye could see with mist at the bottom of the valley and clouds catching their skirt tails on the mountain tops. Winding down this mountain road, we headed to the Datanla waterfall.
At the Datanla waterfall, we avoided the roller-coaster sit-down thing that flew down the mountain at about 30kp/h and took the stairs. There was about 400 stairs at the end of a long path down the mountain which were scaled without breaking a sweat (NOT). Once there, the waterfall was pretty cool. Can’t be explained really so check out the photos that we upload sometime in the next day or two.
From there, we jumped back onto the bike, and headed off to the Dalat cable car which dangles over an epic natural pine forest and jungle towards a reservoir. I’m not sure if I mentioned in the last post about cable cars, but they scare the shit out of me. If the last one soiled my knickers, this one blew the back end out of them. It was DAMN HIGH over the jungle. Felt much better on the return journey, but the first time when the car starts, and the Earth disappears from you below, it’s a pucker moment to be sure.
Sitting in the hotel room now, warming up and waiting for Rose to get out of the shower. She spends most of her time in the shower here as it’s actually got a very good water heater and extremely high powered stream which is Rose’s favourite. If it turns you pink from heat, and nearly removes skin from the water pressure, then it’s pleasant. … Fail.
We’re off to Nha Trang on the 7am bus tomorrow so it’s down the mountain again. Not looking forward to that but meh. It’ll be warm again so we’ll have to drop about 3 layers on the way down.
Take it easy and thanks for reading!
Slammer: You are not going to progress on the jourey towards The Plague by eating at nancy-boy places called The Art Cafe. You need to be talking to the old lady frying chicken guts outside the public dunny around the corner, near the hole in the road where those trucks tip liquid waste in the early hours. Vietnam will not be recalled kindly by you in 10 years time on the basis of a nice lemongrass tofu. Get down and dirty, or get home!
All said from a gas reclining chair from a house in Cottesloe. I have a lot of Greens activists reading this page who, in the blink of an eye will turn rabid on you Moon. Tread lightly.
And if it’s any consolation, I have diarrhea at the moment. Keep postin’!