We’re at the beginning of a two-day cycle from the hill station of Da Lat in southern Vietnam’s highlands down to the coastal resort of Mui Ne, 170km away.

The majority of the route is downhill and on country roads, though we’ve been warned about a couple of steep uphills, and we’ve got a van trailing us in case of emergencies.

Overall it sounds straightforward enough, and I’m pretty convinced that nothing much can go wrong… until our guide’s chain snaps a whole ten minutes into the ride.

My boyfriend and I are riding brand new, shiny 27-gear Giants with excellent suspension, but our guide, Cuong, has been landed with a much older model.

Fortunately, as we were so near town, he was able to nip back quickly to the bike shop to exchange it while we stopped to enjoy our crunchy luncheon.

While we wait for Cuong’s return, our van driver and owner of the adventure tour operator, Duan, proudly explains how we’re missing out on exotic party snacks back home: “We normally eat crickets with beer. People brings them to parties, and sometimes butterflies or worms as well.”

I nod in approval, but have to admit I’m probably more of a peanuts-and-crisps kind of girl.

The region around Da Lat, at an elevation of 1,500–2000m, remains cooler than much of the rest of the country year-round, and as such almost every inch of land is used for various kinds of farming.

It also means the conditions aren’t too unpleasant for cycling, though I’m acutely aware that the further we descend, the hotter it will get.

We jump back on our bikes and make our way down a hillside on a well-tarmacked, surprisingly wide road with a steep drop-off.

Once we’re down and through to flatter countryside, countless fields of bright-red strawberries, a regional speciality, whizz by, as well as dozens of other farms, with Cuong yelling just-audibly, “Mango! Black pepper! Artichoke! Jack fruit!” at us as we pass the multi-coloured patches of land.

This is the home of the Koho people, one of 54 legally recognised ethnic-minority groups in Vietnam, each with their own language and cultural heritage. Unlike the nation’s Buddhist majority, the Koho are mostly Catholic, and the men stay at home while the women work.

But it’s not just that which sets them apart – the older generation don’t speak Vietnamese at all. Although these days children are taught it in school as a second language, which has opened things up a bit.

We stop at a rice wine factory, where we’re shown the remarkably simple process of making it. Cooked rice is fermented in barrels for about three days, after which it’s boiled in vast cylinders.

The steam is condensed, collected, and diluted – and there you have it. We try a tiny sip of the undiluted variety, which is about 60–65% alcohol, and it burns my mouth off.

Weasel Poo is a Delicacy?

We’re barely back on the bikes before we’re off again to explore a weasel-poo coffee farm. I’ve been looking forward to trying this bizarre Vietnamese speciality for some time, and intrigued to see whether the product matches up to the hype.

The berries are digested but the beans are excreted whole, with added richness and depth of flavour. At least that’s the idea…

Farmers then dry the beans out, clean them up (thankfully) and roast them. The final product is preposterously expensive, at around $90 per 100g, but Duan explains why: “It takes 22kg of normal coffee to make just 1kg of this, and of course it’s a lot more work.” I buy a cup of it for a very reasonable $2.75, and it doesn’t let me down.

It’s wonderfully rich, preposterously thick and rather chocolaty. It also feels like I’ve had 22 times as much caffeine as from a regular cup, leaving me merrily buzzing for hours.

Think I’ll Go And Eat Worms

It’s not even lunchtime yet on our first morning and we’ve still got plenty more to see before we eat. Silk is big business in Vietnam, where there are tailors on every street corner.

Yet again there’s a less-than-pretty process in order to create a fine product. Silkworms fed on mulberries produce the best silk.

The white slightly fluffy cocoons are immersed in boiling water, which kills the larvae. The white strands of silk that make up the cocoons are released and unravelled on spindles before being wound onto reels and woven into cloth.

Naturally, the dead larvae are then fried and eaten.

I admire this attitude to cutting down on waste, and force myself to try a grub. Its gooey texture is a tad unnerving, and the flavour is nutty and slightly bitter. It doesn’t taste as good as the crickets, but I’m pleasantly surprised.

The afternoon’s cycling is mostly flat or downhill, as we zip through lush greenery and sleepy villages of stilt-raised thatched huts where children yell greetings at the top of their voices or just stare in confusion.

There aren’t many other vehicles on the roads, which is a blessing in a country where traffic has its own rules. These seem totally insane to foreigners, but obey a perfect logic to locals.

Crossing the roads in Vietnamese cities is like walking a gauntlet in slow motion. The rule is: keep walking at a steady, slow pace, and whatever you do, don’t stop. It works, too.

As long as you stay calm, the traffic just moves around you. Still, I’d much rather avoid being part of a gauntlet altogether while on a bike, and the lack of traffic is undoubtedly a blessing.

At the end of the day we take the option of an extra 9km down a country lane, bringing our total distance to 74km, before we stop for the night. The path is blissfully quiet, and we persuade Cuong to try cycling with no hands, which incredibly, despite two years guiding, he’s never done.

Once he’s started he can’t stop, and for the rest of the trip, wherever there’s an opportunity, he’s whooping and hollering with his hands in the air.

Babes in Arms

When we stop for a final breather and some water, I suddenly find myself with a baby thrust into my arms. A family, whose wooden house is just next to the road, has come up to greet us, and I don’t need Cuong to translate that the father is demanding I hold his child.

Our last visit of the day is to the striking Pongour Falls, impressive even in the dry season. Local picnickers sit on flat rocks, staring and giggling at the damp foreign intruders before we chuck the bikes in the van and drive down the highway to our overnight stop.

Down a dirt track, Juliet’s Villa is a friendly little oasis set amongst rice paddies and coffee plantations.

We’re served an array of tender barbequed meat while Duan forces us to do shots of rice wine.

“In my family, my father only let us eat dinner if we drank rice wine with it.”

We move to sit round the bonfire, and, unperturbed by our concern over his alcoholic upbringing, Duan sees off the rest of the two-litre bottle before we call it a night.

Day two begins with the climb I’ve been dreading. After merciful cloud cover on the first day, this morning there’s not a cloud in the sky.

We climb the hairpin-bend mountain pass through thick forest, advancing 300 vertical metres over 5km for a gruelling 25 minutes.

I’m convinced each turn will be the last, and when the end is finally in sight, I’m so exhausted I can’t speak.

The views over the tops of the trees out onto the rolling hills are spectacular, and when we’ve recovered enough, we speed off for a solid 40 minutes of steep, electrifying downhill through the tree-lined hairpins, the sound of monkeys ringing in our ears and not a soul in sight.