Central Highlands ..

Hi,

Nice topic.

I want to share about chau doc trip.wonderful Vietnamese sour soup. The taste I couldnt find in another places: fresh, a bit sour, a bit sweet...The food is cheap. about 10 000-15 000d while hotel is expensive twice around the tourism area. cos I made a motorbike trip so it is easy for me to stay in the center which takes 5minutes to this place only. That's Lovely hotel with a lovely old boss.

But people arent really honest . taxi motorbike asked 20 000đ for taking me around pagodas on the mountain but they asked me to pay 20 000đ more for visiting a chinese pagoda and said that it was because it located another way but the fact that pagoda is on the way back.

If you go to the market to buy http://seablogs.zenfs.com/u/J6d1L7eaHxb … 100821.jpg
be careful because it is mixed with chemical to keep the white color. I went to the border of Viet-cambodia. They also sell this fruit: Bigger, fresh,taster.. amazing!

There are 2  second-hand markets in chau doc. You can buy big beautiful carpet at 50 000đ only.

Regards

Dejavu.dot wrote:

:I want to share about chau doc trip.wonderful Vietnamese sour soup. The taste I couldnt find in another places: fresh, a bit sour, a bit sweet..

The 'Central Highlands' comprises, traditionally, Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Kon Tum Provinces.

CHAU DOC is in the MEKONG DELTA, hundreds of kilometres away from the Central Highlands. Besides, we can get Venison (Deer) meat, freshly slaughtered locally.

Jaitch wrote:

Dejavu.dot wrote:

Hi,

Nice topic.

I want to share about chau doc trip.wonderful Vietnamese sour soup. The taste I couldnt find in another places: fresh, a bit sour, a bit sweet..

The 'Central Highlands' comprises, traditionally, Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Kon Tum Provinces.

CHAU DOC is in the MEKONG DELTA, hundreds of kilometres away from the Central Highlands. Besides, we can get Venison (Deer) meat, freshly slaughtered locally.

Thanks for your comment. So I just thought about it wrong. I just think simply that central highlands are somewhere has a lot of mountains!

Dejavu.dot wrote:

So I just thought about it wrong. I just think simply that central highlands are somewhere has a lot of mountains!

Actually the Central Highlands are extremely flat - think plateau, except for a ring of low hills that surround Kon Tum, making it look like a scene from Austria.

The only 'hills' of note are the escarpments where there is up to a 4,500 feet drop to the coast around Da Lat and running up to a point north of Nha Trang.

In the Mekong you could try the area favourite - Mekong Rat, best sampled after the rice crop when they are very fat.

Jaitch,  while the Central Highlands (Cao Nguyen) include the Darlac plateau, they are not 'flat' except in the most generally speaking manner. I always thought of them as gently rolling hills, interspersed with mountains. Notice the dip you take when you get into the Ia Drang. The hills definitely get higher towards Binh Dinh and around of Kontum. The surprise was that many of the hills around Ban Me Thuot and down around Dak Mil were composed of topsoil with little or no underlying rock. On a visit to the old Special Forces camp at Duc Lap (Dak Mil) in 2005, I found that the two reasonably prominent hills that composed the camp had been greatly reduced by nothing more than a bucket loader to make the land suitable for coffee. A small part of the higher hill containing the NVA monument to their dead remained, but the saddle between the two hills had disappeared and the smaller hill was a mere pimple.

Texas around Dallas is flat. Nebraska is flat. Driving across it you have the impression that a billiard ball dropped in the upper reaches of the Platte River in January would roll all the way down to Omaha.

The Seven Mountains are indeed mountains, but as you point out, they are not the Central Highlands.

Question: Is the tri-border area between Dak To, Ben Het, and the border open to traffic now?

Jaitch wrote:

Dejavu.dot wrote:

So I just thought about it wrong. I just think simply that central highlands are somewhere has a lot of mountains!

Actually the Central Highlands are extremely flat - think plateau, except for a ring of low hills that surround Kon Tum, making it look like a scene from Austria.

The only 'hills' of note are the escarpments where there is up to a 4,500 feet drop to the coast around Da Lat and running up to a point north of Nha Trang.

In the Mekong you could try the area favourite - Mekong Rat, best sampled after the rice crop when they are very fat.

I have the same thinking with lirelou. But I guess the OP means" Daklak, kontum" cos he lives there.

Mekong Rat? Seems you just had an interesting trip. I have heard it is very delicious but I am allergy with rat. Tried once and had to buy medicine

I guess one man's hill is another man's mountain.

Once you mount the escarpment that lies between the sea and Da Lat, the Central Highlands are pretty flat. The hills surrounding a favourite place of mine, KonTum, are hardly mountains - they have roads and trails all over!
Cell and two-way radio sites abound - all accessible by land.

There are Ngok Linh 2,598m and Ngoc Phan 2,251m in the extreme north but their base line makes the height above the Highlands less. They really mark the northern edge of the Central Highlands.

I read [http://www.summitpost(DOT)org/is-it-a-peak-mount-or-mountain/606421] as a reference source.

Mount Phan Xi Păng (Fansipan) is a stand alone mountain - not part of a range.  Chou Doc is near to Sam Mountain - again drivable to the top and having the remains of an American communications base.

When I said 'flat' I didn't exclude slight land mass rises and falls.

Question: Is the tri-border area between Dak To, Ben Het, and the border open to traffic now?

Residents of the area immediately close to the border have visiting rights (only ID cards). DAK TO can access Cambodia via PLEI CAN using road AH17. There is a similar access to Laos near the intersection of AH17 and a road whose number I forget. Basically, unless you have a registered address in the area you can't cross. Foreigners sure can't - Period.