Gill Oriental: Dalat Day Trip

We did a tour today that was organized by our hotel - we went with a private tour guide and it was fabulous. The best tour I've been on since we've been here.

Part 1: Flowers and Insects...

Because Dalat is high up in the mountains, about 1500m above sea level, they can grow beautiful flowers. As in fields upon fields of roses and daisies...Its quite amazing.

The green houses are made from bamboo and plastic sheeting. They last about 10 years. It's pretty amazing how the roofing and structure is all made from bamboo.

Rows of daisies. These flowers are picked daily and sent to the bigger cities for retail.

They smell just as incredible as they look.

Bunches and bunches and bunches....

Superb colours. I got a flower which i proceeded to wear the whole day!

The pink one!

She picks hundreds of them and piles them and then they get transported.

Fields of daisies.

Bunches of roses...

Picture on the top of the mountain over looking the countryside and plantations.

The coffee plantations. I didn't know how coffee looked before it ended up in a packet! Well it is quite something to see. This is what a coffee tree looks like.

Vietnam is famous for its coffee. It is the 2nd largest importer of coffee in the world, after Brazil.

When they are red, they berries are ready and they start to harvest. They taste sweet when you eat them raw. Very different from the end of the result!

Large sprigs of coffee beans.

Cricket farm and eating...

This is how they farm crickets...there are millions of them in plastic sheeting. They feed them ground corn.

Once the crickets are 2-3 months old they are ready for eating.

Its quite something to see...they are just everywhere. Apparently the plastic container type things are too high for them to jump out of!

Lizards...yes they eat them! $50 per kilogram and apparently really good for you!

Close up of them...they are pretty big. They feed them silkworms and crickets. When you chuck them in the cage these things go crazy!

This is Thuy, our guide. He was phenomenal!

Those are cricket egg boxes...about 3000 eggs in there....

Male ad female crickets...the female is on the left - it has the spike coming out the bum - weird...

Breeding boxes. Cricket breeding has only taken off in the last 3 years, apparently harvesting and breeding crickets is a tricky business.

Tasting time....

Ya, they are not as bad as they look. They are really tasty. FYI crickets and insects have the highest form of protein weighing in at 70% so they are actually super good for you! These were deep fried and crunchy...tasty tasty tasty...