Easy Ride with Dalat’s Easy Rider

Alright here I go with my latest trip travelling like a local in Vietnam.

Pressure from work pushed me to get on Phuong Trang bus at 10:30 pm on Friday supposedly heading Nam Cat Tien for Safari watch at Cat Tien Park. However, I did not anticipate that we will be at Nam Cat Tien almost 2 in the morning where not a shadow of human being was visible.

For me, travelling within Vietnam is quite safe but for a solo female traveller who doesn’t speak fluent Vietnamese I was having cold feet thinking I’ll be alone walking on a dark street in the countryside of southern Vietnam with just the sound of crickets comforting me, so I decided to skip Nam Cat Tien and go with the bus all the way to its destination, Dalat.

For my $8usd bus fare supposedly for Nam Cat Tien, I landed in Dalat at 5am. I left Saigon with the temperature of around 34 degrees Celsius with unbearable humidity that I wore only tank top and skimpy shorts, which was quite comfortable for the weather. But that was a bad choice because when I get off the bus in Dalat early in the morning I was slapped with a windy 19 degrees Celsius weather temperature.

For an Asian who is not used to live in cold weather, the temperature was enough to make my bones and hands shaking as I walked on the streets with my lonely planet guide book map. Dalat is not an active city like Saigon or Hanoi, so at 5am there were no guest houses that are opened, which left me without a choice but to keep on walking, stretch my body to gain more energy to fight the cold. Instinct told me that the more I move, the more warm I get.

Finally at 6:30 am, I was able to get a room at Nam Hoa Hotel along Hai Ba Trung Street. No one understands English but I managed to get a $10usd room for early morning check in. The room was clean but the windows and the door gave me an impression that it’s not safe to get out of the shower naked. But I was desperate to change into warm clothes, so I ignored everything. Besides I won’t be staying in my room.

True, I went around for breakfast and that’s when I saw the signboard Easy Rider Café. Easy Rider is a group of bikers which has been established by some random Americans after the war in Vietnam and nowadays it became famous in bringing tourists to the countryside, giving a different perspective of how to explore the country.

I was at the Peace Café at Peace Hotel along Truong Cong Dinh St., where most of the members of Dalat’s Easy Rider were hanging around, waiting for potential customers when I decided to get on one of the bikes. I was given the option to either take the city ride for $18usd or the countryside ride for $20usd. The countryside ride itinerary looks more exciting, riding on the bikes up and down the hills to visit some tourist spots, so I took it.

It was fun riding up and down the hills on a bike heading outside the city of Dalat but at noontime I started feeling the heat of the sun burning my skin and the humidity made me sleepy that my Easy Rider guide, Lam decided to stop in every coffee shop we passed by, so I can rest. I even took a nap at the hammock in one of the coffee shops. Well, if you are in Vietnam you will see that hammocks are normally hanged in the coffee shop of the villages for farmers taking their rest.

At 3pm, however, rain pour hard that Lam stopped again in one for the local stores, so we can put on our raincoats.

By the way I will commend Easy Riders for their sensitivity on the needs of their guests from raincoats to stopover. Lam never utter a word of complain even we stopped by several coffee shops just so I can rest. Waiting was safer though than him rescuing me falling off his bike.

Amidst the heavy rain, we arrived Dalat City at 4pm and I paid Lam his $20usd with additional small amount for a good service. Tips, however, are not necessary but Lam was too cautious for my safety that the tips and food I offered were not enough.

Now, if you are in Dalat and is planning to take Easy Rider trip, take the countryside option and you will be able to visit the flower garden, silk worm factory, mushroom production, rice wine making shop, climb up pine tree hills, visit at least two temples, old train station, crazy house, and the elephant waterfall.
Here's the thing, there’s nothing to see in Dalat City unless you go for a countryside ride which can be fully experienced by riding motorcycle.

Siem Reap’s famous tuk-tuk phrase “lady, leedih, leedih”

I’ve never known hearing the word “lady” could be very annoying but trust me it was, in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

On April 24, 2010, I got the chance to pack my bag and crossed Moc Bai – the border between South Vietnam and Cambodia.

Among the borders I’ve crossed overland while living in Vietnam, Moc Bai was the easiest. If you want to get the cheapest bus, get on bus 703 from Benh Thanh bus station or say Cho Benh Thanh Xe Buyt, so the Vietnamese can understand. With bus 703 your $2usd will bring you to the immigration control at the frontier.

However, I did not take bus 703 with my recent trip to Cambodia, I took Sorya bus all the way to Siem Reap that cost me $15usd for a 13-hour marathon trip. I only have the weekend, so I have to go straight and avoid too much experiment in traveling like a local or else I can’t beat my schedule.

There are several buses that cross the border like Mailinh, Sapaco, and Mekong Express, among others. But I took Sorya based on its popularity in the lonely planet forum. Although most of the reports about Sorya in the forum were not good but I was too curious to try it for myself, so I took Sorya. Besides Sorya was the cheapest with $10usd difference from Sapaco’s $25.

We left Saigon at 7:15am against the supposed to be schedule of 6:45am. The road, however, was pretty smooth, so at 9am we were already at the border taking off our back packs from the bus for x-ray inspection and waited for our name to be called for the exit stamp on our passport.

Contrary to our expectation stamping our passports took so long as it was submitted late by the bus attendant. The bus attendant took all our passports and fill in the entry form on our behalf that took us so long with one person writing all the entry forms in Cambodia, taking all our supposed to be responsibility to fill in the entry forms.

In short, we were at the border for two hours as against the possibility of being there for only an hour. The Cambodian side, however, was pretty smooth. There were only few people on the Visa Upon Arrival (VOA) window, so it was quite easy for our western companions on the bus to process their visa for a fee of around $35usd. Being Asian myself though, I was given 21 days free visa entry.

We stopped for lunch at the border and has arrived Phonm Pehn at 2:10 pm. I thought the bus will go all the way to Siem Reap but no, I was told we all have to transfer buses, the same as other bus company. Unfortunately, since we arrived late the Sorya bus going to Siem Reap at 2pm schedule was already full, so we were told to wait at the next bus that leaves at 3:30pm. For me, 3:30pm with another 6 hours journey was too late already, I don’t want to arrive late in Siem Reap as I intend to walk around and look for the hotel that Mia, the Filipino friend I was with on that trip, has arranged. Mia went ahead of me as I won’t be able to get off work until Friday. She left Saigon Tuesday and I followed her on Friday.

On the 2pm bus schedule there were still few seats available, so I get in. But the bus attendant told me that everyone should stick with the group which doesn’t make sense to me since they will leave us all by ourselves anyway.

I have been traveling by bus and I know that the bus attendant just want us to stick with the group, so others won’t blame him for being late otherwise he’ll get in trouble with his company, Sorya.

There were 15 of us foreigners and the remaining sits were only 8, so seven were expected to bark at him if he let us go. I was angry that we were thrown off the bus to stick with the group, so I started bitching at the bus attendant, telling him we are not in an organized tour, so there was no reason for us all to stick together. True enough, I saw the counter stamp on the card he was holding then he was gone and never even said bye to us.

We took the 3:30pm bus and arrived at Sorya bus terminal in Siem Reap at 9pm where we were bombarded with “tuk-tuk” drivers literally offering their service on our face for $1usd.

There was a “tuk-tuk” association for Sorya inside the terminal but for the sake of experiment I decided to get out of the terminal and look around.

Luckily, the Irish girl I was sitting next to the bus wanted to walk, so I decided to stick with her. Walking in Siem Reap was not as pleasant as walking in Saigon at night time, the roads were dark and alleys were small that you get scared. Given the fact too that I was with a Caucasian girl, “tuk-tuk” driver won’t leave us alone. We found it creepy that “tuk-tuk” driver no matter how we say no and ignore them they followed us all the way with their common statement “lady where you go, lady only one dollar, lady very cheap”.

Emer, the Irish girl and I decided to cross the streets, so the “tuk-tuk” driver can’t follow us as it was a wrong side of the road for him already but we were surprised that he went all the way using the wrong side of the road just to follow us.

Emer said we had a “professional stalker” and I was already ready to run if worse comes to worse. Luckily, just as I felt like suggesting to run we saw a hotel, so we get inside and asked which direction was the nearest to go to Pub Street, the street where everyone goes for dinner and drinks. Pub Street was the most active street for tourist in Siem Reap, so we felt safe to go there.

We heaved a sigh of relief though to find the tuk-tuk driver gone after few minutes. But then again it’s Siem Reap “tuk tuk” drivers are everywhere and when you are with a white skin people it is an attraction for them to offer their service literally on your face, thinking white people is money. And this means that the “tuk tuk lady one dollar” offer didn’t stop after we successfully get rid of one “tuk tuk” driver. More offers came as we walked.

It is quite annoying as I could pass for a Khmer look and escaped all those as long as I don’t open my mouth and they won’t know I don’t speak their language. But I have no choice since it is fun meeting people too.

Mia and I joined Emer for dinner and that was the start of the

expansion of our social network in Siem Reap. We stayed at Pub Street going from one place to another and for that night, Mia and I made more 10 friends including the two Filipino bar tenders working at Angkor What bar, Clem and Shednie, and a cool chick, Tamelyn who was enjoying her last night in Siem Reap.

We went back to our hotel at 4am and woke up at 5am to chase the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, the weather was not smiling. Worse, at 8am rain started to pour that we got stuck up inside the Wat for like an hour. There are more than 10 ruined temples to visit but since Mia and I were pretty much knackered from the night of adventure at Pub Street, during the visit to the last few ruins we didn’t go down but take pictures outside and stayed at the “tuk-tuk”, take a nap while it’s moving and avoid the scourging heat of the sun.

Because we were too lazy to go down and explore the remaining few ruins we finished earlier than expected. At 4pm we decided to go straight to Bac Hai Mountain and wait for the sunset.

The sunset, however, was scheduled at 5:45pm yet we arrived on top at 4:30pm. We were the first tourists to arrive on top considering how early we finished exploring the Wat. We had more than an hour to wait, so we slept on top of the stones. We were just awaken by the voices of people started coming. Mia kept asking me to go and skip the sunset wait. On my part, the stones look like bed already, so we went down as everyone was going up.

The regular tour for “tuk tuk” within the ruins for one day was $15USD but we gave $20USD to our “tuk tuk” driver as he was so nice bringing cold water in the bucket for us, acted as tour guide, and keeping the vendors away from us as we took a nap at his “tuk tuk” while one of us take turns in going down to take pictures. I would recommend our “tuk tuk” driver, he is “tuk tuk” number 93 at Mekong Express terminal. The planned rest was gone as soon as we took our shower, so we went out for Apsara performance at the Temple along Pub Street and have our dinner too. Since it was our last night Mia and I decided to stay around and do some people watching where we enjoyed observing how prostitutes work, how tuk-tuk driver run to offer their service when they saw white people went out of the bar, how the kids as young as 5 years old made money from foreigners, tourists getting drunk throwing out on the streets, and white girls going out with Asian guys, among others.

It was fun and after three hours of people watching, we went to our favorite bar, Angkor What and met our new friends. Our eyes, however, would already give up on us, so at midnight we went back to our hotel.

We walked on the streets and as usual because they know we are foreigners we were followed by “tuk tuk” drivers with that annoying offer of “tuk tuk lady one dollar”, ‘lady tuk tuk”, “tuk tuk lady”. We heard those words in every corner that as I went to bed the “lady tuk tuk” phrase kept playing on my head.

The following day Mia and I found a phrase to tease each other and that’s “lady tuk-tuk, one dollar lady” which we pronounced as “leedih tuk-tuk, one dollar leedih” ” leedih tuk tuk”.

In Phonm Pehn on our way back to Saigon, every time a “tuk tuk” driver started approaching us we said our famous phrase of “leedih tuk tuk leedih” just to irritate the driver and leave us alone. I know it was mean but go to Siem Reap and you will know what I mean. “ Tuk Tuk” driver and vendors literally selling their stuff on our face with that title “lady” “leedih”, and “leedih”.

Mia and I wondered how they addressed the men, hoping they’ll do the same as we get tired of hearing the word “lady” ‘leedih”. Trust me you’ll feel how we felt once you get to Siem Reap. We arrived Saigon at 9pm and without caring our filthy look from a marathon trip of 12 hours, we sit down at Linh’s bar along De Tham Street in Pham Ngu Lao just to neutralize our system from the “leedih, leedih, leedih, lady” trauma we encountered at Siem Reap. Let me tell you then, ‘leedih” Siem Reap is worth a visit, so don’t skip it “leedih” if you are traveling Southeast Asia “leedih”.:-)