Nice Ride!

I spent the day on the back of a motorcycle. Not a likely place to be, but as I have mentioned, and as will be clear when I finally post pictures, there's no way to travel in Vietnam without it. In Dalat, the Easy Riders are a group of motorcycle guides who do countryside tours. So Lisa and I arrived in Dalat yesterday and Truong and "Ted' (easier to say than "Thiet") found us at the hotel. We got on the road this morning at 8:30am.

First stop was Tuyen Lam Lake, a madmade lake outside of Dalat surrounded by pine forests. It's a beautiful setting for what else than elephant riding!

???

Okay, yes, I admit, I had some mixed feelings about this activity. All sorts of "don't elephants belong in the wild with the other elephants, and are we participating in an exploitative activity, and I wonder if they at least treat the elephant well, and how does the elephant feel having two western women (one of whom - moi - could stand to lose a few pounds) and a smallish Vietnamese man riding around on it's back?" But ultimately, I had to push those thoughts out of my mind and enjoy the experience of seeing the lake and forest the way emperors did and admiring the sheer strength of this amazing animal. I've always thought that elephants are wise looking old souls. This guy was no different. And he liked sugar cane. A lot.

So we rode the elephant, which wasn't nearly as cool as just being up close to the elephant, I will admit, because we couldn't exactly SEE the elephant when we were sitting on top of him. But it was still pretty cool.

After elephant riding, we had a variety of stops with the Easy Riders, but only a few really worth mentioning. First there was the Truc Lam Meditation center, which is a Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Dalat. It's a beautiful place and most buildings are open to the public except where the real meditation work happens. The campus (my term) is filled with gardens and pagoda buildings and just a general peacefulness that came from hearing a monk bang a gong while devotees presented incense and said their prayers.

The next stop was to the Linh Phuoc Pagoda, also known as the Dragon Pagoda for obvious reasons. And thank god for Flickr, because my memory stick seems to be acting up, but I have to be clear that I cannot take credit for the photo I lifted from there and have posted here. Another beautiful, spiritual place. This one had added spiritual significance because on the ground on a particular side of the tallest tower was a constant crowd of people looking upward and pointing their cellphones in the same place.

So apparently there is something about the way the sun is these days that, when it hits a certain spot over the temple and when you take a picture with just the right exposure, it looks like a halo is circling the top of the temple. Yes, I got caught up in trying this, and no I did not succeed. And I admit, I was annoyed that my nice camera was not able to capture what - apparently - many other Vietnamese people were able to capture on their stupid cell phones.

We saw a good deal of the Dalat countryside. It's beautiful and the weather is perfect. Cool and dry, since we are in the mountains. We will have most of the day tomorrow to explore some more, and for me to figure out what the heck to do about my memorystick issue. Then we will board a ridiculously long bus to Hoi An, almost exclusively for silk shopping. :-) Nah, we'll probably find more to do than just that.