Dalat is quite different from anywhere else you’ll visit in Vietnam. You would almost be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into the French Alps in springtime. This was certainly how the former colonists treated it – escaping to their chalets to enjoy the cooler climate.
The French feel is compounded by a radio mast shaped like the Eiffel Tower and the local bohemian artists’ predilection for swanning around in berets. Dalat is small enough to remain charming, and the surrounding countryside is blessed with lakes, waterfalls, evergreen forests and gardens.
Local products include silk, garden vegetables and flowers (especially beautiful hydrangeas), which are sold all over southern Vietnam. But the biggest contribution to the economy is tourism: more than 800, 000 domestic tourists and another 80, 000 foreigners visit here every year. It’s the country’s favourite honeymoon spot and still retains the final word in Vietnamese kitsch.
The Dalat area was once famous for hunting and a 1950s brochure boasted that ‘a two-hour drive from the town leads to several game-rich areas abounding in deer, roe, peacocks, pheasants, wild boar, black bear, wild caws, panthers, tigers, gaurs and elephants’. So successful were the hunters that all of the big game is now extinct. The closest you’ll get to the formerly diverse fauna are the taxidermied specimens about town.
The city’s population includes about 5000 members of hill tribes, which make up 33 distinct communities in Lam Dong province. Traditional dress can occasionally be spotted in the market places. Hill-tribe women of this area carry their infants on their backs in a long piece of cloth worn over one shoulder and tied in the front.
The City of Eternal Spring, Dalat’s temperature hovers between a pleasant 15°C (average daily minimum) to 24°C (average daily maximum). Effectively Dalat has two seasons – dry (December to March) and wet (April to November). Despite the mild temperatures, by the end of the dry season the lush green surrounds turn to brown. Even in the wet season, mornings normally remain dry – allowing time for sightseeing before the deluge begins.
History
This area has been home to various Montagnard (hill tribe) groups for centuries. In the local Lat language, ‘Da Lat’ means ‘River of the Lat Tribe’.
The first European to ‘discover’ Dalat was Dr Alexandre Yersin in 1893. The city was established in 1912 and quickly became fashionable with Europeans. At one point during the French colonial period, some 20% of Dalat’s population was foreign, as evidenced by the 2500-odd chateau-style villas scattered around the city.
During the American War, Dalat was spared by the tacit agreement of all parties concerned. Indeed, it seems that while South Vietnamese soldiers were being trained at the city’s military academy and affluent officials of the Saigon regime were relaxing in their villas, Viet Cong cadres were doing the same thing not far away in their villas. Dalat fell to North Vietnamese forces without a fight on 3 April 1975. There is no problem with leftover mines and ordnance in the area.
Getting there & away
Land
Bus
Many private services will (if asked) pick up and drop off at the hotel of your choice. Services are available to most of the country, including several to HCMC (six to seven hours), Nha Trang (04 hours) and Buon Ma Thuot (four hours).
Car & motorbike
From HCMC, taking the inland (Hwy 20) route to Dalat via Bao Loc and Di Linh is faster than taking the coastal route (Hwy 1A) via Ngoan Muc Pass.
The following are road distances from Dalat: Di Linh (82km), Nha Trang (205km), Phan Rang (108km), Phan Thiet (247km) and HCMC (308km). There are secondary roads connecting Dalat to Buon Ma Thuot and other parts of the central highlands.
Air
Vietnam Airlines has daily services that connect Dalat to HCMC and Hanoi, Danang, NhaTrang.... Dalat’s Lien Khuong Airport is located 30km south of the city.
