Buon Me Thuot --> Nha Trang - Day 8

Today we did the longest ride, about 200 km. Vietnam is the largest pepper producer in the world and half of all the pepper used in the world comes from here. So if you had pepper with your food today there is a 50% chance that it came from here. The pepper plants are easy to grow, you just take a branch from the tree, stick it in the ground and start watering it. Then after 1 year it will start giving pepper. And after a few years they become bigger and 1 harvest from 1 tree can give the farmer about 50 dollars.

Peppers are green before they are dried

The other plantation we stopped by was a Cacao farm. The fruits are green and look kinda strange. We tasted them as well, some were really sweet while others super bitter.

Cocoa fruit

The driving was really really cold and stormy and on top of that it started raining. We stopped by a shop and bought raincoats but James yellow pimped jacket started to go into pieces while driving. It was hilarious to see bits and pieces falling off from it until the whole back of if was gone!

...before

And after....

On the way we saw areas where the Americans had used "Agent Orange" which is a chemical that kills ALL nature life there is and give serious birth defects to infants. It's a horrible chemical and was used in the war here back in 1970. The chemical just makes the trees and plants melt, this was used to clean away the forest so that they could find enemies better and fight without so much jungle around.

There are STILL no trees in the area where they used it...See the green area?

After the almost 200 km drive we arrive in Nha Trang! Just before the city we got another flat tire but our great guide went to get a motorbiker fixer and 4 dollars later we were on the road again.
This place is one of the favourite beach-tourist places here. I haven't seen many foreigners here on the trip so far but this place is full of them!