Gallery images can be found here

We arrived at our home stay in the late afternoon. The home was a 15 metre long traditional home, which stood on poles. Beneath the house, pigs, chickens, dogs, and water buffalo could roam around free. We shared the night with two Irish guys who doing a similar tour. That night we were reacquainted with rice whiskey. The local people would stare for a little bit, but it seemed that most tourists on the Easy Rider tour would come through to Lak Lake. The scenery was beautiful and relaxing.bove the lake dragonflies darted in the still air. The valley was quiet;you could only hear the slight ebbing sound of the lake.
The next day we were up and back on the road.

Gallery images can be found here

When we left Lak Lake at midday, it was a clear day and visibility was good. We headed further north and stopped with regularity as the bikes became uncomfortable. We passed by a boat builder yard and Sam asked to stop to take a few shots (there is one in the gallery). When we carried on we nearly ran over a cobra that was slithering onto the road.

Now I must make the point of how safe we felt with Peter and Sang. They would not go above 55 km/h, (I think the speed limit for bikes is 60) because they knew behind every blind corner, or dip in the road a water buffalo, or a wild dog could be standing there.

We rode for most of the afternoon and visited various military monuments. We came to a small township and the Easy Riders parked up at a Christian Church.We had actually arrived at an orphanage. The Bahnar Orphanage sits behind the Tan Huong Church. Nuns from the Bahnar minority tribe run the orphanage. Most of the kids here were either abandoned by their parents or their parents died. According to Sang the kids learn how to read and write, and learn how to make craft work. We stayed there for about half an hour. There would have been about one hundred kids of various ages that we saw.

Next the Easy Riders took us to see an old musician and his bamboo drum kit/xylophone. We even had a chance to play on it ourselves. With the light beginning to fade we found a hotel and parked up for the night. For tonight's meal Peter would take us to a Thit Cho (dog) restaurant. Now I will make a point on how the Vietnamese eat:

When entering a Vietnamese restaurant it is not uncommon to see bones, tea leaves, tissues, pawn shells, nut shells etc all over the ground. When they eat they just turf the rubbish under the table and carry on like normal. We got used to this on the final days, but still it was a little weird.The Vietnamese commonly accompany meals with tea. They would rinse their small cups with tea, swirl the tea around in the cup, then fling this waste tea under the table.

At this dog restaurant we were the only customers. Dog meat looks similar to pork. The rubbery skin and marbled fat was not at all appetising. To top if off we were asked to dip the dog meat in a seafood sauce that made Sam and I gag. An experience, but I won't be eating dog again.

Gallery images can be found here

The amazing scenery continued along the way to Kontum. We checked into our hotel at 10am, and our Easy Riders came and got us for the afternoon. We went and saw more waterfalls.

But that night was most memorable in terms of the way the Vietnamese drink."Mot, Hai, Ba—Yo!"I heard this a few times around the restaurant and it means to sink your drink—usually rice whiskey. We had small shots of the stuff, it's similar in composition and taste to lighter fluid. So with a few more "Mot, Hai, Ba—Yos(1,2,3 drink)" Sam and I were written off that night, and so were our guides. The next day was spent in the fetal position. Sam and I shared the same topic of conversation: "This has to be the worst hang over ever."

Gallery images can be found here

After a whole day of recovery, the tour continued through the Ho Chi Min Trail. A few hours of riding and we stopped at a rubber plantation. Peter explained how the workers extract the rubber from the tree. Then a few more hours later on the bikes we stopped at a pepper plantation and had lunch there. Again in typical Vietnamese style we graciously chucked out rubbish under the tables. Apart from more amazing vistas there was one situation which changed our day.

We were riding through a minority village and three teenagers sped past us at high speed and rounded a bend. We were less than ten seconds behind this group when we came around the corner. There on the side of the road the dust was lingering in the air. Two motorbikes lay inverted on the grass, and a few meters beyond lay two teenagers. Neither of them were moving. Because they weren't wearing helmets there faces worn torn open.

"He probably die" said Peter. We kept going. My first instinct was to help these people, but in Asia there is a rule that if you find a dead body, you are responsible for it. The Vietnamese just have a different attitude toward life than us westerners. About five minutes later the first rider sped past again with his friend holding one of the crash victims sandwiched between the driver and himself. They were racing to the hospital.We just carried on to our hotel.

Peter later explained that if you were involved in a car accident, and you're at fault, it's better that the victim dies rather than live with an permanent injury requiring continual care. You as the cause of the injury would pay for the victim's care for the rest of their life. He said it was not uncommon to see truck drivers who had caused accident swing around and take a second pass at an incapacitated victim still in their car, or on their bike. The truck driver would only make a one of payment off $10,000US to the victim's family, rather than be stuck with making payments for their crime.

This was a downer on an otherwise fabulous day.

On that morning when we awoke there was a commotion below our veranda (we were sleeping on the second floor) in the car park. There were a few raised voices from Sang and Peter talking tersely to the hotel owner. Throughout our Vietnam tour, foreigners are required to surrender their passports to the hotel. The reason is so that the police can check who's staying in the hotel—although I never witnessed this.
When I came down to find out what was going on Peter said, "She gave your passports to the wrong customers." There was a group of Cambodians staying here and they had left to go back home. The hotel owner gave them our blue passports instead of the Cambodian red ones. Both parties were at fault here. The owner didn't check. The Cambodians were obviously colour-blind.

So we waited for five hours for the owner to get our passports back. The owner had sent our a colleague to find the Cambodians and swap their passports over and return ours. What happened though is that the Cambodians drove back (when they had realised they had the wrong passports) from the border only to find that their passports were still waiting at the border! The were pretty annoyed—we were relieved—back to touring!

Coming down into Hoi An was another experience and we traversed the mountainside. Peter would glide along, so all you could hear is the wind whistling through the helmet. When we came into a valley there were pineapple and corn plantations as far as the eye could see.

After taking a few shots and with the light fading we headed for Hoi An to our hotel. The last day was a rush, but it was still an amazing experience. We shared a few parting drinks with Peter and Sang. They stayed in Hoi An for a few days looking to take tourists back to Dalat, but in the end they went home by themselves. We were traveling in the low season, so not many tourists would go through the highlands.
So that was our trip through the Highlands, and I would highly recommend it to anyone doing a tour of Vietnam. It certainly beats doing the standard tourist trail of Ho Chi Min City, Na Trang, Ho An.