Dalat day 1 (Dec 4): Exploring the hills on the motorbike (and eating worms!)

Today we got up, had breakfast across the street at a small cafe then rented a motorbike from our hotel and proceeded to head about 30km south to Elephant Falls.  There are several waterfalls in the area and we picked one that was close enough to get to on a motorbike but not so close that it was crazy touristy.  The drive down along the back roads was absolutely gorgeous and one of our favorite parts of the day.  There are farms all over the rolling hills in the area growing flowers, veggies and herbs.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  We also saw lots of people growing coffee and drying the berries in their front lawns which was fascinating.

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We got to the Elephant Falls entrance, parked our bike and walked towards the bottom along a very precarious and slippery path with a few hand rails but not many.  There was a lot of trash in the area and the water was obviously very dirty but the falls themselves were beautiful and impressive.  We walked back up and got back on the bike to head to a silk factory in the same small town.

Elephant falls

Us with the Eephant falls

More Elephant Falls

The silk factory was an interesting place and a bit more off the beaten path.  You pay about $0.50 to be able to just walk around and watch the women stir around the cocoons, pull out the silk threads into the machines and separate the pupa from the cocoons.  Then the thread is spun onto large spools.  The thread is sometimes dyed (sometimes left white) and then put into a machine that weaves it into fabric.  The process is partly by hand and partly by (very old looking) machines.  It was fun to see!  There are also silk worm pupas available to eat so Michael and I each tried one…see videos below for our reactions! – ok so my video won’t load here (but I did try one so check out the video on my instagram @merabear85)

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After the silk factory we got back on the bike with the plan to head to another waterfall further away but weather was moving in so we decided to head towards the main road so we could find a place to hunker down if it started to pour rain.  We were able to see one other waterfall along the main road and then made it all the way back to Dalat along the main highway before the rain hit.  It was a lot of miles on the bike but what a great way to see the countryside!  We got back to our hotel around 2:30, grabbed lunch and had some downtime before heading out for dinner.  Days exploring on the motorbike have definitely been some of our favorite thus far and this was no exception!

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