Easy Riding from the highlands to the coast

The road leading up the coast of Vietnam is a heavily touristed route, so we decided to take a short detour via the Central Highlands. With beautiful scenery and cooler temperatures, we headed to Dalat in order to hook up with an Easy Rider – a informal group of local guides that offer motorcycle tours of the region. We met these kids back in Cambodia who raved about it and passed along their guide’s business card. “What the heck,” we thought and contacted him when we arrived. Quey showed up at our hotel 5 minutes later and was funny, personable and a little drunk. He seemed like the perfect tour guide so we planned a trip with him from Dalat to Nha Trang (not a cheap proposition at $55 per person/day).

Unfortunately, Quey pulled the old bait-and-switch on us the next morning when he suddenly couldn’t take us anymore due to an unspecified conflict. Seeing our obvious disappointment at the two replacement guides, he assured us that they were very experienced and good substitutes. The tour itself was pretty good – seeing inland Vietnam on the back of a motorcycle was fucking cool. Our guides stopped at some interesting locations (waterfalls, mushroom farm, silkworm hatchery) and provided local insight about Vietnamese culture and history. The biggest drawback was that they lacked Quey’s enthusiasm and personality, so we felt a bit let down – but hey, you can’t win them all. For those considering an Easy Rider trip, make sure the guy you talk to is actually the guy who you’ll be riding with!

Our next move was to the town of Hoi An, which boasts some fantastic French colonial architecture. I cannot imagine how many times the place has been called quaint, charming or lovely, but it really, really is an incredibly fucking charming place. Cobblestone streets, ancient houses with exposed wooden beams, a riverside location, softly lit lanterns in the shops at night – how much more picturesque can you get? In addition to the great food (and kick-ass cooking courses), you can get clothes custom made for you from one of the million tailors in town. People went absolutely nutso here – one girl we talked to got 10 dresses, 3 jackets, 2 skirts and 5 pairs of shoes made. I too gave in to the hysteria and purchased a coat, which will be of no use to me in most of Southeast Asia. Luckily, we’re headed north to Hanoi which is supposedly chilly in the evenings. Supposedly.