We set out early for a long drive between the sea and the central highlands of Vietnam via Highway 26.
The first part of the road to Buon Ma Thuot goes from the plains into the mountains, via the 12km long Phoenix pass (Deo Phượng Hoàng Pass), that winds between green mountains between Suong Bung and MDrak. Phuong Hoang Pass is a place that was once considered a death pass, but since the pass has been widened, you can now safely enjoy the mountainous scenery that resemble the wings of a phoenix. Many of the slopes are deforested and replanted with coffee plants or trees for the paper industry.
The mountains then make way for the central plains with rice fields, papaya plantations, avocado plantations and some coffee plantations… and we were often accompanied by the smell of durian, since they were in season now.
After about 6,5 hours we arrived at our stay, The Lake Farm, a bit outside Buon Ma Thuot, nicely designed bungalows on the edge of a lake with a small swimming pool and a restaurant. We ate dinner in the garden. For the first time in three weeks we got bitten by mosquitos. Annoying but it was also the first place on our trip where we had insects, birds and the sound of crickets in the evening. Unfortunately that also meant we had mosquitos in the room.
On our day in Buon Ma Thuot we drove to the twin waterfalls Dray Nur and Dray Sap, You can walk from Dray Nur to Dray Sap via a hike over two hanging bridges and a short walk through a forest. The waterfalls are quite impressive and even though this is the rainy season, they are still quite small and can still become a lot wider. But it hasn’t rained that much yet I guess.
We then drove to Buon Ma Thuot, the largest city of this province. We visited the Dak Lak museum, telling the history of Dak Lak while the two other sections are about the biodiversity of Dak Lak and the indigenous groups of the region. The largest groups are the Ede and the Jarai indigenous groups. Unfortunately the museum has no air conditioning and the humidity was really high today. We continued to the World of coffee museum, founded by the Trung Nguyen group, the largest coffee producer and exporter of coffee in Vietnam and based in Buon Ma Thuot. They are the ones that developed the 3 in 1 instant coffee that is enormously popular in Vietnam. Vietnam is the largest producer and exporter of Robusta coffee in the world. At the end of your visit you get a cup of the Legend Trung Nguyen coffee. I don’t drink coffee anymore but took a few sips just to remember the typical taste of Ca Phe sua ( coffee with condensed milk) I used to drink daily when we lived here.
We couldn’t use the restaurant of the hotel in the evening and had to sit on the upstairs covered porch, because it was reserved for a group that at the end of our dinner started their karaoke session. This hotel/resort is a nicely designed place, in a beautiful natural environment with nice views of the bordering lake, with a really nice swimming pool, but the Vietnamese habit of needing to spoil these kind of pristine places with terribly loud parties almost always with a blaring karaoke system is really annoying… but then again also soooo Vietnamese, you could say we are submerged into Vietnamese culture again tonight. Only not the kind of culture we enjoy…
chefmaison 