Dalat the city of eternal spring

Dalat is one of the few cities left in Vietnam where you can feel transported back to the days of the French colonial past.  The city was designed by famed architect Ernest Hébrard who is also famous for planning other cities in Indochina and the city of Thessaloniki in Greece after its Great Fire of 1917.  The city maintains many of it’s European charms unlike other cities in Vietnam that are tearing down the old and constructing the new.  Dalat was founded in the early 1900s and quickly became a place for the elite to escape the heat and send their children to boarding schools.  At certain times 20% of the population was foreign.  All of this adds up to a city that is stuck in time and wonderfully so. 

I arrived after a five and half hour bus ride up jagged hills and terraces, passing people coming from the fields.  This is another immensely productive area that is able to grow fruits and vegetables that you will not find in any other part of Southeast Asia.   

The sight of artichokes, peaches, blackberries and strawberries was a real sensation when I visited the market.  The French introduced these fruits, but in the hands of the Vietnamese they have been used for different purposes.  Artichokes are boiled into a soup and consumed to lower blood pressure.  Strawberries are consumed when they are still unripe and sour.  I think that the next time you are making a salad you should throw in some unripe strawberries cut real thin.  They have a really nice bitter taste the can complement many foods.  Peaches and blackberries are consumed in the normal manner but none of these fruits were dripping with saccharin, which is such a nice surprise to what I am usually offered in the States where we have engineered our fruit to give us type two diabetes.  

I dumped my bags at my guesthouse which is owned by a man who had worked for the Americans. Dalat was a city where many of the South Vietnamese officers were trained during the war and some never left.  Also, the airfield near to the city was used as a staging ground for bombing runs into Laos and the Ho Chi Minh trail.  Although the hotel was cheap it had a great view out of its windows of pine trees and the old golf course which was constructed by the French, a nice sight to wake up to.  I immediately walked to the market to see what was good.  

As I was walking around the large covered market I walked into the rice sellers area where as I was taking some pictures until a nice woman started talking to me.  The best food recommendations always come from the locals.  After a little small talk I explained that I was quite hungry after my bus ride and wanted something to eat. 

Consuming hot soup in Saigon when it is sometimes 95 degrees is hard to stomach, but in Dalat soup seems like the perfect food.  I was taken to a small stall with microscopic chairs, so small that I was eating with my knees resting on my chin.  It didn’t matter because the soup was superb.  This soup consists of a stock of pork and some vegetables and then dried shrimp balls similar to meatballs are added.  With the addition of some quickly cooked tomatoes that are mostly added to give color you have your soup.  Dead simple, the way greatest foods are prepared.  Like most Vietnamese soups you are given a plate full of roughage to add substance to your bowl.   

I added mung beans, some mint and shredded lettuce and a dollop of chili.  The soup was warm and complex and with all of that crunch was very healthy.  I thanked Mahogany (yes that is the name she has chosen for herself) and went to find some fruit.  

            Dalat is home to one of the great concrete wonders of the world.  Like the Watts towers in Los Angeles or the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas, Dalat has a structure that is the personal vision of another eccentric individual.  Constructed by the daughter of the second president after Ho Chi Minh died.  This Russian educated architect has tried to create a house or some say “crazy house” to remind people of the connection between humans and nature and hopefully draw them closer to our natural world.   

This house is another example of what you can do with a lot of concrete and a creative vision.  I spent the better part of two hours walking around the house.  It took so long to explore the house because it is vast and has many hidden rooms and different perspectives.  If you are afraid of heights you may want to stay on the ground because some parts of the house lead you to some pretty precarious walkways. 

Please read the statement that the woman who owns the house has written explaining her personal vision, it is more informative than I could be to explain the genesis of this house.  If you like Gaudi’s work in Spain you will certainly enjoy this structure.   

I left and just started walking.  The rest of the day I spent walking around the city and exploring the hills just outside of the city center where many of the supposedly 2,500 French style houses exist.  I think that this number is wrong because I subsequently rented a motorbike and didn’t find more than 50.  Maybe I just was in the wrong areas.   

Dalat was spared a lot from the bombing by both the Viet Minh and the Americans; this is why many of villas are still standing but no place is safe in Vietnam from development and progress and this may be why some of the old villas are gone.       

Renting a motorbike is almost a necessity to see city and its outskirts.  This is not a flat city like Saigon or communities in the Mekong Delta.  Instead there are real hills where you really want a motor vehicle.  I rented a motorbike and rode out into the countryside.  At times the landscape really reminded me of some place in the Northwest of the United States.  The soil here is so rich in iron that it gives everything a reddish hue and can create some stunning views when you can see the parcels all carved up.  When I rode out of the city I either encountered new large-scale luxury homes and hotels being constructed or cabbage and flowers being sown. 

Dalat is visited by far more Vietnamese than other groups; they also enjoy escaping the furnace like temperatures of the main cities.  This is leading to a lot of development as the Vietnamese middle class expands. 

Dalat was also home to one of the many palaces of Bao Dai the last emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, which is the last dynasty of Vietnam from 1926 to 1945.  Most people consider this man more a puppet of the French than a leader of his people.  I wanted to visit his palace to see what was opulent in 1933 when it was constructed.  To be honest this house looked out of place and would have been more at home in South Beach Miami.  The government has certainly taken most of the interesting stuff out of the place and it is mostly an empty shell.  The saving grace were the nice placards describing the rooms and anti-room containing pictures of Bao Dai traveling around Vietnam on stately business.  Although the pictures are all staged it gave me a bit of an insight into what the last days of the French colonial regime must have looked like. 

Dalat is a city that at times can make you forget you are in Vietnam.  The weather and over abundance of exotic fruits and vegetables transport you back to a time with this was Indochina, not an independent Vietnam.  This city should be on all travelers’ lists of places to go when visiting Vietnam.  Instead of sitting on another nondescript beach, go to the Central Highlands and see a very different part of Vietnam.  But bring a coat.  It can get chilly.