For my final day in Da Lat, I decided to book an Easy Rider motorbike tour around the region. For the extremely reasonable price of $35, I had my guide, Linh, and his bike from 8.30am until 5pm.
Our first stop was a hill that I had to hike up to see the view from the top. Now, while it was certainly a very impressive view, the walk killed me, and when I met Linh at his bike, he couldn’t stop laughing at me, saying “That’s why I said it was a hike, not a walk!”
Next stop was a flower farm, followed by a coffee plantation to see how coffee is made and taste the famous weasel “poop” coffee. Next was a silk factory, where we got to see exactly how silk is made and every stage that the silk worms go through to produce silk. It was all fascinating, and Linh explained everything so clearly!
We then drove to a Hindu temple, complete with huge laughing Buddha, which confused me somewhat, and then onto Elephant waterfall. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it all the way down to the waterfall as the descent was very slippery and steep, and my trainers were in the wash! However, I did still get to see it from the top which was pretty cool.
After all of this, we were starving and so we stopped at a little cafe for lunch. I opted for pork belly, rice and tofu, while Linh let me try some of his pig’s tongue!
With our bellies stuffed, we drove the 30km to Pongour Waterfall, and if I’d been slightly disappointed about not seeing Elephant Falls, I wasn’t any longer: Pongour Falls are seriously impressive, and even though I had to opt for the more expensive tour in order to see them, I was extremely glad that I did.
We then made a brief stop at a mushroom farm, took a trip to Chicken Village to learn the old Viet legend behind the giant chicken statue, and ended the day at the Crazy House.
I thoroughly enjoyed my Easy Rider tour, and I know that people often turn their noses up at things like this because they want to do it themselves in an “authentic” way, but if being authentic means trying to find all of these places myself, navigate the potholed roads on the way to Pongour and be my own tour guide, then I’ll take an Easy Rider tour any day!
I went on trips with 2 of the ‘easy riders’ when I was in Vietnam.
They are so worthwhile!
Though, while I am talking about this I will give a few warnings for anyone going to Vietnam and thinking about hiring ‘easy riders’.
1. Ask your guesthouse to get you an ‘easy rider’. Anyway can say they are an ‘easy rider’, so you need to be careful.
2. Book 1 day at a time. This is to make sure the guy is taking you to places you want to go even if booking one day at time costs a little more. It also is a way to limit time with an ‘easy rider’ you don’t like.
The first one I got took me to cool places but he had such an unpleasant personality and he seemed to not like the job at all.
The second one was an amazing person. He was an interpreter during the war for the US and showed me the places he was during the war.
I had told the first ‘easy rider’ that I would like to meet some war veterans if they are giving tours to tourists. One of the very few considerate things he did was send this guy.
3. Bring your own helmet to Vietnam. The ones they loan you fit so badly I sometimes had to hold them on. Same with the ones the bike taxis loaned me. At least bring a bicycle helmet that fits properly if you don’t have a motorbike helmet.
Really good advice, thanks!