Dalat was wonderful. After a day there, it's easy to understand why it is the honeymoon Capitol of Vietnam. The drive up from the coast was stunning.
We stoppped on the way at a restaurant that sold drinks from bottles of rice wine in which the proprieter had preserved cobras, scorpions and other interestin creatures.
The highway from Nha Trang is new and runs for much of its route through a new national park. The scenery changes quickly from tropical on the sea coast to temperate at 4500', where Da lat is situated. The temperature dropped, too, until at dinnertime we needed jackets when we dined outdoors by a lake.
Dalat was built by the French at the end of the 19th century as a mountain retreat from the tropical heat. The town is famous for its mild weather as well as the large number of quaint colonial buildings that remain. We walked around town after we arrived, poked our heads in at the posh Dalat Palace Hotel,
shopped in the huge local market,
and visited the main french church in town.
This morning our new guide, Dung, picked us up at 8:00 for a long day of sightseeing. We first took a cable car to a lovely park on the edge of town where a famous Buddhist monk has established a meditation center.
The facility is beautiful.
The monk's international acclaim generates a lot of financial support and the facility is constantly being expanded, with the monks themselves doing much of the construction work.
We stopped briefly at the French-built railroad station,
and a weird hotel designed by a Moscow-trained Vietnamese architect, called the Crazy House,
before continuing to Bao Dai's summer palace. Bao Dai was the last Vietnamese king. He abdicated when the French returned to Vietnam after WWII, but continued to serve as head of state under the French until 1954, when he went into exile in Paris. He had a home built for himself in Dalat in the '30s for use as a hunting lodge and summer getaway.
It's somewhat down-at-the-heels appearance somehow seems fitting. The living quarters, while not extraordinarily opulent, still are a sharp departure from Ho Chi Minh's almost monastic home in Hanoi.
before continuing to Bao Dai's summer palace. Bao Dai was the last Vietnamese king. He abdicated when the French returned to Vietnam after WWII, but continued to serve as head of state under the French until 1954, when he went into exile in Paris. He had a home built for himself in Dalat in the '30s for use as a hunting lodge and summer getaway.
It's somewhat down-at-the-heels appearance somehow seems fitting. The living quarters, while not extraordinarily opulent, still are a sharp departure from Ho Chi Minh's almost monastic home in Hanoi.
In the circular drive out front of the house, some enterprising soul was giving pony rides to children, decking them out with a cowboy hat and toy six-shooter.
Dung then took us on a walk through the campus of 15,000 student Dalat University.
After another great lunch (shrimp, grilled venison, a hot pot, beer and dessert for under $25), we headed to the countryside to visit a coffee plantation, where we sampled a cup of "weasel" coffee, with the beans "processed" by civets kept in cages,
a silkmaking facility,
a mushroom growing village
and a prodigious waterfall.
By the time the guide dropped us off at the airport we were exhausted, but still had to make the flight to Saigon. We're here now. We'll report more tomorrow, but let me just say that the hotel room we are in at the Continental Hotel (where Graham Greene wrote "The Quiet American" is unbelievable.
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