Dalat, Vietnam (March 2018)

After the Vietnam tour with Gate 1, we extended the travel to Dalat, an eternal spring town favored by people since the French colonial time. Its weather is spring-like because of its altitude of approximately 1,500 meter or 5,000 feet.

For our three night stay, we took one private tour to Pongour Waterfalls and one small group tour to visit the countryside of Dalat. They turned out to be interesting trips.

Dalat means River of Lat people, but the river has been stopped by a dam built by the French. So now it is better known as City of Eternal Spring.

Before we head out of the town, we went up to the Robin Hill, one of the high points in the city. From there, you can have a bird's eye look at the city. You can also take a cable car to see the city more widely.

We stopped over at Truc Lam Zen Monastery where we saw several interesting fruits and flowers. One of them was a lemon fruit that looked like a hand. They called it Buddha's Hand Fruit, wittingly.

Also, we saw flowers that look just like butterfly when two flowers are attached.

One thing I found quite curious and interesting was Buddha's real portrait. I am not sure if it is real or not, but it was there with curly hair.

We visited a mushroom farm where Cat Ear Mushrooms are cultivated. They used saw dusts to ferment and grow the mushrooms, after steaming them to kill the germs. The saw dusts are put into small bags and hung together vertically to maximize the use of the space. Through the holes made on the bags, the fungi sprout and grow into mushrooms. They grow for 3 months before being harvested. They harvest three times out of one bag of saw dusts.They looked really like cat ears. 

The highlight was Pongour Waterfalls. The photo of this waterfall appears quite often on travel magazines. The water level was not as high as appears on the magazines. But the scenery was beautiful. 

At the entrance, we saw a statue of a lady riding a rhyno. Apparently, she was a warrior who saved her tribes, Kho people, from the invaders. Her name was K'Nai, meaning Horn of the Rhino. Also, we saw a three-wheel truck used as a promotional advertisement for Pongour Waterfalls with the happy Bhudda statue as the backdrop. 

We visited a village where a giant rooster statue stands tall. Apparently, there was a tale related to a rooster with nine spurts and the statue was erected around the story, which I do not recall. But, that was it. Nothing much. Except that most of the village people are Christians because of the early influence of American missionaries. 

Every tour in Vietnam took us to at least one or two temples or pagodas. Here and there. Not that I like to show the Buddha photos, but they are important in understanding their culture.

In Vietnam, the number one transportation is motorbike. It is a flood of motorbikes everywhere, particularly during the rush hours. It is quite handy actually. So I rented a motorbike and explored the city. The following are some photos that I took during my exploration. They include Xuan Huong Lake, Dalat Market, Big C Market, Dalat Palace Hotel, the first and only 5-star hotel in Dalat, a church with a pagoda shape building.

  

Xuan Huong Lake

The city center of Dalat has a roundabout that is well decorated with motor vehicles covered with flowers. People gather to take photos.

 The following day, we joined a small group to tour the country side tour. The first stop was a flower farm. There were not many flowers, but it was good to know that flower farm is a viable business.

The next stop was a coffee farm, particularly weasel coffee. They feed the weasels with coffee cherry and wait until the coffee beans come out well fermented in the inside of the weasels. Then they clean and roast them. They say these coffees are delicious. They must be similar to Luak Coffee in Indonesia. Oh well... But the panoramic view from the open-air deck was breath-taking.

We stopped over at an ordinary shop in appearance, but its backyard was totally beyond our expectation. There was a wild animal farm. We saw a few crocodiles, deer, a couple of porcupines, edible crickets, snakes. .They were selling liquors with snakes in the bottles as well as roasted crickets. No thank you!

We visited a traditional silk center and observed the entire process of raising the silk worm to fabricating the final silk products. The boiled cocoons are edible. They enjoy eating them. Back in Korea, they ate them also. I am not sure if they still do. But I cannot eat them. Yikes!

 Outside the center, I saw a box collecting donation to support the victim of Agent Orange. As a U.S. citizen, I felt guilty and compelled to make a donation. 

Elephant Waterfalls was the next stop. You could see the waterfalls from above, but you have to make a little challenging hike down on uneven pathways. The view was worth the hike. Again, why called Elephant Waterfalls? I overheard a story told by a tour guide for another group, but it is a fairy tale. 

The driver took us to another pagoda, Linh An Pagoda. We usually overlook them, but we found a lot of trees and decorations in the front and back yards. So we walked around to explore a bit. 

The last stop was the Ancient Train Station. It used to be an important transportation hub connecting Dalat to other cities of Vietnam. But now it is used as a museum and a tourist attraction. 

 We stayed at a modest hotel that has only four rooms. But we enjoyed our stay.  A female staff at the hotel was so friendly and courteous that we were impressed by her service. I suspect that she wanted to practice her English also, but her service deserves special mention.

 

We both liked Dalat a lot, probably most among all cities we visited. Maybe Da Nang also had we known more about it. We hoped to be able to come back to this City of Eternal Spring, Lord willing. - Jeffrey