Chicken Village

Chicken Village, also known as Lang Dinh An, can be found just outside of Da Lat in the Central Highlands.  When I travelled to Vietnam we visited the village as part of a day long motorbike tour.  The village is mostly know for its immense concrete sculpture of a chicken (hence the name although I think it might be rooster) but the local women also produce beautiful scarves and other woven products on hand looms.

We had a wander around the village and talked to a few of the locals.  The village is matriarchal which meant it was the women we chatted too and they explained that in their village it is the women who give dowries (generally buffaloes) to the men when they marry.  One of the guys in our group was informed that he’d be worth four buffaloes, much more than some of the locals apparently.

This isn’t a great picture but they had a decent sized school room and it seemed to only be the younger children who weren’t in attendance.

These little boys followed us for a while and posed, so we could show them their pictures on our cameras.

This lady acted as one of our guides in the village and demonstrated using the hand loom to weave.  The finished product can be seen in the background.

And now for something completely different (or not)

I’m still needing to stock up on photos of my current environs.  I’ve got more of Mt Tamborine but I’ll save that for another week.  So, in order to invoke a total “I wish I was somewhere else!” response, here are some pics from my trip to Cambodia a bit under 18 months ago.

This was a lovely temple outside Battambang, not in any guidebooks I’d read.  We travelled there on motorbikes with local drivers down dusty country roads.  By the end of the day everyone was covered in the fine red dirt which swirled up from the unsealed road surface which our Cambodian drivers referred to as Cambodian “snow”.  I don’t think this picture does justice to the beautiful colours of the plants and stones, but at least I’ve got my memories (for now at least).

On the same day when we were travelling back into Battambang we came across a wedding party. The lurid pink tents they’re held in are visible from quite a distance, so we hopped off the bikes to take some pictures.  The bridesmaids were all standing in row, done up to the nines, waiting on the bride to arrive.  They were very happy to pose for photos while in their finery.

Yes, I walked up a very large set of stairs to reach the temple on the top of that mountain.  It hurt, but it was worth it.  It was also very hot and after I descended the mountain looking lovely, dripping in sweat it caused my driver to ask if I’d found a swimming pool – tres hilarious…

From the misty mountains to the rainy coast

And we’re back online.  I had a great time in Da Lat, but was so busy enjoying my trip I didn’t make it to an internet cafe.  After our marathon bus trip up into the mountains (which took all day 8am til 5pm – breaks included) we finally arrived in Da Lat.  It is of course busier and bigger than the quiet little ethnic hamlet the guidebooks make it out to be.  We had a great time exploring though.  On our free day there our guide offered to organise us a motorbike tour of all the best sights around Da Lat. It was a great day – we visited a minority village where they speak very little Vietnamese, saw a very tacky waterfall (pictures to follow at some point), a summer residence of a former president, rode in cable cars to visit a pagoda and generally had a a lot of fun just motoring about.  Da Lat is a resort town in the mountains so comes equipped with a variety of kitsch and tacky outings, including paddle boats on the lake that are shaped like swans (there were some at the waterfall too – and a Vietnamese cowboy and a couple of elephants).  It has beautiful flower gardens but is much colder than Saigon, we all ended up wearing our hoodies and jumpers.

Today we hopped on a bus again, but this time it was a much shorter trip.  We arrived in Nha Trang which is a coastal resort early afternoon.  After so many bus trips with buses and drivers of varying quality (interpretive driving styles such as talking on mobile phones while manoeuvring down a thin, steep, windy mountain road with one hand) we decided to take the afternoon easy and six of us went a visited a local spa.  It was absolutely pouring with rain, so exploring our local surroundings wasn’t appealing.  The spa was fantastic, there were massages and mud wraps, which made for a very relaxing afternoon.

Tomorrow we will hopefully go on our planned boat trip but the weather will likely decide that for us.

Because someone else thinks it’s walking distance…

So my first proper sightseeing was today.  And I’ve got to say that because something is theoretically within walking distance (according to my Geckos travel itinerary) doesn’t mean you should walk there.  Ho Chi Minh City is not made for pedestrians.  It’s a city with about three million motorbikes, not mention numerous cars, trucks and buses all of which can run you over rather effectively.  So that lovely sight you may wish to see could be about the same distance away as your regular morning walk, but that doesn’t take into account the multitudinous number of times you have to dice with traffic to cross both small and scarily large roads (sorry mum I know you don’t really want to know).  So I learned a valuable lesson today about walking long distances in hot, sunny, traffic riddled conditions : )  Oh and I’ve got to mention that just because you’re on the footpath, doesn’t mean the motorbikes aren’t on the footpath with you.

Today I visited the War Remnants Museum.  They’ve put together a very good display about Vietnam and the war.  There are lots of excellent photos, some of which are quite confronting.  If you don’t know a lot about the war, then this is the place to see how damaging and traumatic an experience it was for all sides.  I also visited the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City.  It was quite good but nowhere near as interesting as the War Remnants Museum.  There were displays about HCMC through the years including the protests against American intervention in Vietnam.  Then I was a bit museumed (yes it is a word) out, so headed back to the area my hotel is in to recover from the heat and sensory overload.  I’m thinking of tackling the Reunification Palace tomorrow during my travels.

I’m really enjoying my time here so far (short though it has been) and I can’t wait to start seeing the rest of the country over the next few weeks. But it’s dinner time now and I’m starving, so I’m off to scope out what’s available round here.