Mui Ne

In the hope of a beautiful beach and some relaxing beach days we head to Mui Ne. But it's not quite what we expected. One large street with traffic, stores, hotels and restaurants. The west of town (west of the road stripe) is dominated by surfer tourism (crazy prices!)...

All in all the beach is dirty and untended or part of an expensive beach resort.

Most interesting at the beach is the local fishing scene...

Just a few kilometers out of town there are the famous sand dunes: the red and the white ones. Another reason why we picked Mui Ne is for the Sahara feeling - we visit the red sand dunes. Really beautiful and impressive.

Buon Ma Thuot

We decide to dig in a little more into the coffee Mecca of Vietnam. Almost all the coffee production of Vietman comes from here. The town is not really of interest for tourists, but it has a good vibe, is absolutely non touristy and people are really nice and pristine. 

Here the quiet street of our hotel. So you have an impression of the rooms we stay in.

Of course, the heart of every city: this market is really neat and good organised. And imagine, no rip-off!!!

The vendor takes a nice nap after lunch. Hats can be really cozy as it looks ;)

A highlight is the really interesting and great structurised Ethnographic Museum. All exhibits are labeled in three languages!

The province is home to 44 ethnic groups.

 A great Vietnamese speciality: Nem, fresh spring roll or just summer rolls. This restaurant only serves Nem.

Well, pretty tense... affraid of the demonstration effect...? ;)

All over this geographical area you will find great coffe shops!! It's so awesome! 

French influence...

Dalat

Dalat, known for its farms: flowers, vegetables and coffee...

The city itself is not too special...

But the food is great, so is its famous bakery!!!

 And of course, the obligatory night market...

A dearly beloved tourist attraction is the Crazy House. Its real name is Hằng Nga guesthouse. It's an unconventional building/guesthouse designed and constructed by Vietnamese architect Đặng Việt Ng. The house is open to the public since 1990. Described as a “fairy tale house”, the building’s overall design resembles a giant tree, incorporating sculptured design elements representing natural forms such as animals, mushrooms, spider webs and caves. Find out for yourself!

The entrance, unfortunately with scaffolding...

The inside, with its 10 guest rooms, patio and secret paths...

 

You get a really nice view from the rooftop...

But clearly our main focus is coffee, again! Through "La Viet Coffee" we organise a private tour to learn more about the whole coffee-process: from farm to the cup.

The farm we visit:

 

We want to know all the details...

And get great informations from the farmer and the two lovely translators aka baristas.

The whole morning we spend at the farm and learn a lot about the coffee plant, its cultivation and the harvest. For lunch we go to the "La Viet Coffee". Naturally, we have a lot of coffee. The afternoon we learn more about processing the coffee beans. Here you see the in-house store of the coffee house. It has three parts: the coffee shop, the in-house shop and the factory.

After the fermentation and drying process, the beans are being peeled and sorted (size and colour). First by machine, then by women. 

Then the centrepiece starts, the roasting. First we get instructions...

... and then we roast our own coffee.

After roasting, the beans are being manually checked again (colour and damage).

And then, of course, the tasting. We taste Robusta and Arabica beans, blends and single origin and some damaged ones (the ones who didn't outlast the last manual check after being roasted). It's a great experience! 

Also you can choose the brewing-style out of at least five methods...

A great day, for the brain, the body and gustative nerves. 

Many thanks to the brilliant team of "La Viet Coffee"!!!

Hoi An

Hoi An is what one could call a pitoresque town. It's a Unesco world heritage site since 1999 and its old town consists of lovely old houses - luckely Hoi An has not been victim of war damages. Of course, Hoi An attracts a lot of tourists... Nevertheless it's really nice to spend some days here...

At night, thousands of lantern illuminate the old town and offer a symphony of light...

The famous Japanese bridge...

Here some old houses from the 18th century...

And some more lanterns...
 

Near Hoi An there is an old Hindu temple site called My Son. We undertake a day-tour and are semi-impressed. While the site is nice, it can't compete with other temple-sites we've seen so far. On the other hand, it has suffered from US bombing-attacks in 1969...

Our guide is not really making the trip better... Information-value=0... Somehow funny, but annoying with the time...Try to understand...

Still, it's impressive to see a Hindu temple in Vietnam... It reminds us a lot of the temples we've seen back in 2012 in India...

While walking through the old streets of Hoi An, we discover this café with a roaster... We are impressed and get to talk to the roaster himself... He invites us to come back the next day and to watch him roast... Perfect! After visiting a coffee-farm in El Salvador, we now witness the final process of coffee - full circle!

First, the roaster has to be heated up, this takes around 40 minutes. It is heated with gas.
 

This machine can roast up to 5kg at once - but usually our roaster-friend roasts 4 kg at once...
 

After 40 minutes the green coffee-beans are being put into the roaster - temperature is around 170 degrees celcius. At first, the temperature drops to 120 degrees. It raises again and the beans are being roasted for about 11 minutes. The roaster makes detailed notes about the evolving process of time and temperature...

The colour of the beans continuously changes and then suddenly: they start to crack! Some last colour-checks and: flush, out they come :-)
 

Here we are with our new roaster-friend Phap. He's so friendly and not only invites us to drink coffee with him, but also hands us over a free bag of the just roasted coffee!! Thank you so much!!