K’Ho Village

This morning’s activity was an “optional excursion” at a small extra price per person. However, all 15 members of our tour group opted in, so it seemed like a normal morning. The bus left the hotel at 8, and we were joined by a local guide named Liem.

First stop was a greenhouse just outside of Dalat. It was not quite as advanced as the one we had visited the night before, which had steel or aluminum framework, a lighting system, and complete irrigation. This one was part steel and part bamboo, some portions had irrigation, but there was no lighting.

We learned more about the Dutch flower company that gained a government contract for land here in the 1990s. They introduced the greenhouse system, and the local farmers quickly copied it. Prior to this, flower growers got only one crop a year, often had crop failures, and grew a limited range of flowers and vegetables.

There are now more than 6000 acres of land in the region around Dalat that are under greenhouse cover. The flowers and vegetables grown are more usually hybrids now, with many more varieties, and production is nearly continuous, year round.

In the greenhouses we visited were Gerber daisies, Easter lilies (important flowers for the upcoming new year celebration), bell peppers, and red roses. Roses are picked every other day, and we arrived just in time to see a picking in progress. Red roses are frequently used for weddings in this part of the world. Most flowers grown here are exported to Japan.

As we moved lower in altitude, greenhouses gave way to large groves of coffee trees. Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee producing nation after Brazil. The time for picking beans is nearing completion, so there were beans spread out to dry in the front yards of almost every home we passed.

Beans are picked and brought from the fields to the homes of the growers in the villages. They are spread out to dry each day, and turned frequently, either by raking or simply by walking over them with bare feet. Because humidity rises in the cool of the evening, the beans are scooped up and taken into the houses each evening, then spread out again the next day. The entire process is very labor intensive.

Once dry, the beans are run through a machine to remove the husk. We saw many of these machines, but not nearly enough for every family. Most pay someone else to husk their dried beans.

We stopped at a rather large and well-developed roadside shop to enjoy the view and to taste some of the coffee. Each cup is brewed in its own little coffeemaker and filter that fits neatly over the cup. The coffee is quite strong, but many Vietnamese mix in sweetened condensed milk (not mere cream) to smooth the taste.

We continued lower in altitude, then drove off the main road onto back roads that were barely wide enough for a single vehicle. At first these were paved, but as we wound farther into the back country, the pavement gave way to gravel. Fortunately, the only traffic sharing the road with us were motorbikes and bicycles.

At one point we did encounter a large truck coming the opposite direction, and both the truck driver and our bus driver earned their pay for the day in an elaborate ballet of getting around each other without exchanging paint.

At last we arrived at a farm that specializes in making “Weasel Coffee.” This delicacy is created by hand picking only the best and most ripe coffee beans, then feeding them to a particular species of weasel that lives in this part of the world. The weasels are difficult to breed, and cost the farmers about US$700 each.

The weasels are only able to digest the outer husk of the bean, and the rest passes through them. So the farmers have to get under the weasel cages and collect weasel dung. The dung is washed, first with water then with Dalat wine. (We’ve tasted the local wine and declare it better fit for washing dung than for drinking).

The resulting beans are then sent for processing, where they are removed from the inner husk and roasted. This coffee sells for roughly US$80 per pound locally, and when exported to coffee snobs around the world, goes for even higher prices.

We were invited to taste a tiny little shot of Weasel Coffee. The process was wasted on us, since it simply tasted to us about the same as that we had enjoyed up the road, which had been processed in a traditional method not involving the digestive track of an animal. But a number of people in our group took advantage of the opportunity to buy a four ounce pack for $20.

After the coffee tasting, we left the bus behind and got on board a farm wagon pulled by a tractor that suffered from serious rust problems. The road from this point on was dirt, and full of ruts and wash outs from the rains. We probably went a little over a mile, down one very steep hill and up another, until we arrived at a small village of K’Ho people.

The K’Ho are dark-skinned hill people of a tribe that lived in this area long before the Viets expanded their empire this far south. They are farmers with a distinct language and culture. Most of them are Roman Catholic, which means there were lots of children around — our guide called them “free range children.”

Indeed, as our tractor approached, several came and jumped onto the moving trailer. We saw others as young as 10 years old driving motorbikes (the legal driving age in Vietnam is 18). School vacation for the Tet holiday has already begun, so these children were, indeed, ranging freely!

We were able to see the school, even though it was closed for the holiday. OAT’s foundation has helped fund facilities here. We also saw the Roman Catholic church, which the villagers have recently completed.

Then we walked a short distance to the home of the village chief and his wife. This very elderly couple live in simple, two room home where she sat weaving as he served us green tea. He proudly showed off a photo of himself as a young man, together with a French missionary. There were many other religious pictures and objects decorating the room.

Catholics tended to sympathize with the South during the partition of Vietnam, so they tend not to be trusted by the Communist government. It is unclear how they were relocated to this rich farming area after the war, but it is clear that they are not benefiting from the agricultural wealth of the region in the same way as their Viet neighbors.

After a brief Q&A with our guide interpreting, we got back on the tractor for our bumpy trip back to the bus. We drove back to Dalat for a fairly good lunch in town.

Some down time in the afternoon was intended for rest and relaxation, but Mary and I have been feeling sedentary on this trip, and we used the time to get in a good walk. We walked a few blocks from the hotel to the Roman Catholic "cathedral" of Dalat. When we found it closed, we kept walking down toward the artificial lake and surrounding park that dominates the city center.

We walked in a park area below the dam, first of all, because there were almost no people there. But that path was finished quickly, so we walked part way around the lake, looking across to the shopping center on the opposite side. At that point, time demanded that we turn and retrace our steps back to the hotel.

The group met in the hotel lobby and boarded the bus for a short trip to Dalat railway station. There is an antique, narrow-guage train that runs just a few miles across town. We had one car all to ourselves, while the car ahead of us was filled with young Japanese tourists -- all cameras, all the time.

The train ride didn't really offer any new insights, but it was a slightly different perspective on the local scenery. It was a one way trip for most passengers. We got off and walked to a rather odd pagoda, which may have been inspired by the same spirit as the "Crazy House" we saw yesterday.

Most of the pagoda is constructed from broken glass and bottles. It began as an effort to collect garbage and provide a safer environment for children who often go barefoot in this area. One fascinating element is a dragon created from nearly 50,000 beer bottles. The dragon's mouth is open to reveal a near life-sized Buddha inside.

Our guide invited us to taste another street food experience in the pagoda. A woman was making "Vietnamese Pizza," made of egg, chopped peppers, and other vegetables on a rice paper "crust" sort of like a taco. After it is cooked, it is rolled up like a giant spring roll and cut into bite-sized chunks.

 

Another unusual feature is a basement area in which visitors are invited to visit "hell." We first entered a souvenir shop on the way down, so I thought that was the joke. I wasn't aware of any Buddhist concept of hell. But apparently there is a place where souls are tortured by demons for their misdeeds, and some of the torture scenes were pretty graphic. It would be a great Halloween attraction. It also was quite large -- we joked that hell seemed to last an eternity.

After going to hell and back, we returned to the bus and were taken a short distance to a large Cao Dai temple complex. We encountered Cao Dai, a uniquely Vietnamese syncretistic religion, on our last trip to Vietnam three years ago. This temple was larger than the one we saw then.

Cao Dai blends Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and a few other philosophies into a single quest for God and peace. There are about three million adherents, all here in Vietnam.

Following the afternoon's railroad theme, we had dinner in a retired rail car, not unlike the one in which we had ridden earlier. This one, however, was stationary. The meal was better than we were expecting, but was nothing great. After eating, we returned to the hotel to pack for a very early flight to Ho Chi Minh City in the morning.