We were told that Dalat was a major hightlight for several people: how wonderful the hill tribe people were, how amazing the Easy Rider tour guys were. In all honesty I found the place really boring apart from a couple of key experiences.
We ended up taking a Easy Rider tour with a couple of locals. Basically they just have big bikes and take you on the back of the bike and show you around, explain the history and local economies etc. We saw all the stages involved in making silk - that was incredible: they grow silk worms on mulberry leaves, then take the cocoons when they go into pupae stage. The cocoons are thrown into a hot tub of water where the silk unravels and is collected onto high speed spools. Then the take the spools and spin it into yarn. Later it is weaved into patterns using some type of old weaving machine. Finally the yarn is dyed using extracts from all sorts of sources such as coffee beans and other things. Absolutely beautiful fabrics. Check out the shots.
