Di Linh To Da Lat

Yesterday we visited a silk worm farmer and today a factory with some impressive machinery that removes the worm from its silk sleeping bag, unwinds the thread from the cocoon, spools it up and then stretches it out. The Chinese have come up with an excellent plastic imitation of silk. It is now our understanding that the only way to determine if a fabric is made of silk threading is to hold a flame to it and observe how it burns and what it smells like.

Our next stop was a bungee cord making shop that utilized strips of rubber from used up motorbike tubes. Bungees are used everywhere to strap everything to every part of a motorbike.

Over the course of the last three days we have seen the production of many different products, some in very primitive ways and others with elaborate machines. It is amazing how tools and machines exponentially increase productivity and the undirected coordination of markets helps to put it all together. There is a classic economics essay that discusses all of the market coordination required to produce even the simple pencil.

http://www.fee.org/library/detail/i-pencil-audio-pdf-and-html

I have noticed that having a house on the road gives you the immediate opportunity to be a small business, and right in your front yard. It could be as basic as something like a kids lemonade stand that had enough upside to feed the family. We stopped on the first day at one such place they had about a dozen hammocks hanging in the shade and served up a killer sugar cane juice. Talk about a rest stop.

We stop by for some slippery walking in Thac Pongour. This is a set of falls that you can climb all over. Really a beautiful spot but the green slime on the rocks is treacherous. We all slipped but there were a few Vietnamese kids that really took a bath.

Life is hard here in Vietnam. I suppose that is what one would expect coming from America. These folks work long days from the earliest years of their life until they last close their eyes. We are so unbelievably blessed that God set our lives in America. We know from the Bible that God has determined our times and places. That is, when and where each one of us should live. By His providence I now live in America and experience the greatest material blessing that a society ever has. This prosperity can be a curse when we place our love for anything created before the creator of all, God. Often I make my prosperity a curse to myself, God help me.

The same passage that reveals to us Gods determination for our time and place also gives us the reason for our particular when and where - that we should seek God, and perhaps feel our way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’. There is hope in Christ beyond the harsh reality of our short lives.

For the last three days we had a hired guide, Nam. He showed us many things that were off the beaten path. He would have the driver stop here and there and we would hop out to see little points of interest along the way. About half way through the trip Nam started using the girls names more often as he grew increasingly confident with their pronunciations. "Tara and Larry, come see this." "Tara and Larry come see that". He really struggled with pronouncing Riley so we smilingly went with Larry. Funny thing is, Larry did not even notice her name change.

We did have some fun with the communications. Nam told us we were to visit The Chicken Village next. Of course, My first thought is chicken borne influenza. So I ask "Nam, does Vietnam have problems with the chicken flu." Nam says "No, we have all sorts of chicken food." Attempting to clarify "Nam, have you heard of the chicken flu?" "Yes, that is what we had for lunch." Patti and I just looked at each other and laughed. We saw about 3 chickens in all of Chicken Village. Apparently, it's name comes from this.

When we hit Da Lat we finally came across a bank where we could at least get out 2,000,000 VND at a shot, so we hit it multiple times and racked up some nice transaction fees. We could have paid him in USD but we are trying to keep the dollar as it is the most value dense at roughly 2,000,000 VND per 100 USD.

We enjoyed exploring just little bit of Da Lat before we caught our flight South. Da Lat was the French Colonialist vacation getaway. In areas their influence leaves it looking a lot like more like a European city then a Vietnamese city. Kind of a blend between Vietnamese and European - Vietnapean. The kids spun us around the lake in a paddle boat where we took in the view, something we last did on the river in Prague.

The boat was a nice getaway where we even caught a bunch of bikers zipping around the lake. It looked like a club ride but they really did it up. There was a lead motorbike that was blaring a rather load horn that really cleared the traffic and they even had neutral support. I suppose the labor is relatively cheap, why not.

We also toured the Crazy House Inn. This would be a fun place to stay.

We found $0.15 soft serve ice cream. We ate 9 cones.

The Da Lat airport was the cutest little thing. Actually the architecture and style was like any large American airport, but with only 2 gates. There were a total of 7 flights out each day, we were number 7. It was a very quick process, we walked out to the plane, they pulled forward, did few checks(I hope) and we were off. 40 minute flight time to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. The kids had never been on a prop plane and it had been a while for Patti and I.

We landed safely, Tara said it was the smoothest landing ever. We met our hotel driver who was about mid-height between Tara and Larry. His cab was one of the oldest cars I had seen yet in Vietnam. I think it was built before Saigon fell. We sputtered along and made it safely to the hotel.

Today's images will be in the 2014 Di Linh To Da Lat album sometime during my tomorrow. That internet thing here is slooooow.