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Published: August 2nd 2009
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Dalat
Flower nursery Tuesday, April 7th 2009
This morning I woke up feeling still natious, but eager to see something from this area. The day before I had met a motorbike driver to had offered a day tour to a decent price, so I called him and he was happy to take me on the what he called “Dalat countryside tour”. We met at 9 am and Mr. Bin (that was his name) was so nice to help me with my camera, since it didn’t work right since my goodbye party. We went to every camera shop in town (there were surprisingly many for such a small place) and eventually we found a shop that could fix it. What a relief! I had bought some disposable cameras, since I couldn’t go on a tour without taking any pictures. When I got them developed they all looked like they were taken in the 70s, but at least I have some pictures to show 😊
The first place Mr. Bin took me to was a flower nursery. Dalat is famous for its beautiful flowers and I loved walking throught the greenhouse and seeing so many of my favorite flowers: gerbera.
After only a ten
Dalat
My tourguide.. minute ride I could already feel a change of temperature! It clearly got warmer the further we went down into the valley and the wind got less. It was a perfect day.
Then we visited a family owned coffee plantation. During our visit we also had some vietnamese plums and freshly picked passionfruit. It was tasty 😊 We also saw silk worms in the stage where they just eat and sleep before building a cocoon of silk around themselves. (Later we also visited the silk factory.)
Our next destination was also a family owned place where we had some tea and saw how to make mushrooms and ricewine! The mushrooms looked so funny and the wine was very strong.
The ‘Elephant waterfall’ was the next place we went to. I’m not quite sure why it was called like that, but maybe it had attracted elephants several hundreds of years before and that’s where it got its name. We hiked down to the waterfall- what a pretty scenery- and then walked behind it to stand in a cave. I thought it would be more spectacular, but perhaps I’m not very impressed by mountains and waterfalls 😊
Afterwards I walked to the
Dalat
Crazy house. nearby “Linh An Pagoda” that had a lot of statues which looked more hindu than buddhist. Behind that building though there was something that definitely made you happy and laugh: a approx. 15 m tall, toally white laughing buddha!
After this we went to the silk factory, which I thought was very interesting. It was fun to look around and see how they make the scarfs you see in stores and the way they process the silk. But the working conditions were pretty bad and would never be allowed to be like that in our countries.
The second last place I visited was a minority village called "K’ho". My guide told me that the government had offered these people a deal to stop the tension and fighting. They would not have to pay for electricity, housing and instead urged the parents to send their kids to school.
There was a group of kids palying around when I came and they posed for a picture with me, which I thought was cute. But I don’t think that I ever met such shy kids during my time in Vietnam! They would hardly look at me and especially the boys wouldn’t smile. Bin,
Dalat
I love flowers =) my guide, talked about that there was still a lot of discrimination against the K’ho minority.
We drove back to the Dalat and visited “Hang Nga’s Crazy House”. It reminded me a lot of the buildings and parks of Gaudi I had seen in Barcelona, Spain. I loved it, especially because you didn’t expect it here in Vietnam. The best way to describe it would probably be the word ‘funky’. You could even rent rooms for a night, but I doubt that that would have been much fun, with all the visitors that come every day...
There have been other architects who designed and built houses that were different to the ordinary but a lot of them were removed, because the communist committee didn’t approve of such “anti-socialist” looking buildings. The woman who designed the crazy house certainly didn’t have those problems: Her father was the president after Ho Chi Minh!
Sadly, when we went to pick up my camera, they said that they needed a special part, which they would order from HCMC, but needed another day or two. Since I was leaving for Nha Trang the next day, that wasn’t an option and hoped that I would be
Dalat
View into the valley. able to get it fixed in the next city.
Although I didn’t plan my trip to Dalat like this (getting sick and my camera being broken), I think that I still did the best out of the situation and was happy that I got to see at least the countryside of Dalat.
DALAT:
Dalat is a town about 300 km north from HCMC, and up in the mountains. Of course, nothing in Vietnam is very high up, but the town reminds visitors of being in the french alps. The weather is quite different to HCMC and I had to wear a sweater and long pants!
Around Dalat there are several lakes, waterfalls, always green forests and beautiful flower gardens (something this town is famous for!). Local products are silk, garden fruits and flowers. But the biggest income by far is tourism. A lot of honeymooners come to Dalat and it is still the capital of romance.
The area used to be home to many exotic animals such as panthers, tigers and elephants, but extensive hunting has eliminated all of these animals.
Around Dalat live a few mountain-minorities (33 different groups) that sometimes sell things at the local
Dalat
Motorcycle chick =) markets.
Because I hadn’t seen forests and so much green nature for some time Dalat was nice, but since I’m not a fan of hikking, I don’t necessarily have to go back there. 😉
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