During the 1890s, when the area which is now Dalat was a part of the French colony of Cochinchina, explorers asked the French government to establish a resort in the Central Highlands. The spot chosen for this resort was Dankia. A member of the road-building team, however, saw a problem with that choice and recommended present-day Dalat instead. The first hotel was completed in 1907 and the urban planning was done by a Frenchman. Hence, Dalat’s older structures all reflect French architecture, and the city is laid out with wide boulevards. A lot of the colonials, though, ignored the plan and built cottages reminiscent of those found in the Alps.
Dalat was the home to a sanitorium for tuberculosis patients, the National Military Academy, which graduated its first class in 1950, the Vietnam Geographical Institute, an aviation school, and a highly prestigious boarding school attended by Vietnamese nationals, colonials and expatriates. The boarding school was relocated to Bangkok in 1969 and later to Penang, Malaysia. The University of Dalat is located here, with 30,000 students enrolled in 30 undergraduate and 6 post-graduate programs. It has a presence in the areas of biotechnology and nuclear physics research.
Dalat became a place to which Europeans would flee to escape the heat of other areas of what is now Vietnam. During the American War in Vietnam, Dalat was a rest area for senior officers of both North and South Vietnamese Armies. Thus, the war stayed away from Dalat for the most part. The one exception was the 1968 Tet Offensive, during which two members of the Snake Platoon were still in the city after having completed a mission on the previous day. Skip Galinski and Bill Spinner were directed into on-the-job-training as snipers. You can read more about this event on the Snake Platoon History page, Tet Offensive 1968. Another team who went to Dalat in 1970 or 71 stayed a few nights in a two-story cottage boarding house and dined on Chateaubriand on their first night in town. They say that with the cottages and pine trees, Dalat reminded them of small villages in the mountains of North Carolina.
Dalat gets its name, which in Vietnamese is Da Lat, from the language of the local ethnic group, Lat, and means the “Stream of the Lat.” Of course, the French and the Americans who followed just lumped the Lat people in with all of the other tribal groups in the Central Highlands and called them Montagnards. There are some Lat and K’Ho villages in the area, including one of the latter which is referred to as the Chicken Village because it contains a gigantic concrete statue of a chicken.
Because of its French architecture and feel, along with the fact that it has its own Eiffel Tower, Dalat has been called the “Le Petit Paris.” Due to its temperate climate, its warm days, cool nights and misty valleys, it is more often referred to as the “City of Eternal Spring.” The average daily temperatures run from a morning low of 58 degrees Fahrenheit to an evening high of 74. The record low and high are 31 and 89 degrees, respectively. Almost all of the annual 70 inches of rain falls between May and October.
The weather in Dalat makes the area a natural supplier of various fruits and vegetables, coffee, tea, and wine for all of Vietnam. The city is also well-known for its flower industry and, at least regionally, for avocado ice cream.
Dalat holds six different festivals annually, for flowers, tea, cherry blossoms and rain. The other two are the Gong Festival and the Doi co hong Festival. Festivals, of course, encourage tourism; and Dalat has its share. Parts of Dalat take on the appearance of the old roadside tourist places, with kitschy photo ops and cheap souvenirs. One of the oddest places in town is the Hang Nga Guesthouse, also known as the ‘Crazy House.’ The owner and designer received his doctorate in architecture in Moscow. The building itself looks like something dreamed up by a committee consisting of Salvador Dali, Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. Part of the building looks like a very angular house with odd features, and part of it is a concrete banyan tree. It contains multiple (unconventional) stairways, tunnels, and concrete animals. The early French architects are likely rolling in their graves.
There are several pagodas in Dalat. The Linh Phuong Pagoda would be a fairly good match for the crazy house with its wild colors, its inlaid pieces of broken glass, and a 150-foot dragon made of 12,000 beer bottles. The Truc Lam pagoda, which includes a working monastery, sits atop a substantial hill and is best reached by cable car.
Within easy reach from Dalat are several waterfalls. Datanla falls is easily accessible. One may walk up the path or climb up with the aid of a rope. It offers for the return trip a combination luge/roller coaster. Or, you can return by zip line if you prefer. Elephant falls, 19 miles from the city, is nearly 100 feet high. Next to these falls is a coffee shop and a handiworks shop operated by a family of the K’Ho people.
Since Dalat is a popular destination for Vietnamese honeymooners, there is the Valley of Love, with its swan-shaped paddle boats, topiaries in the shape of hearts, and other kitschy photo ops.
Dalat has three separate mansions which belonged to the last Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai. One was built in 1933 as the summer home for the French Governor of Indochina. One was built by a French millionaire in 1940 and bought by the emperor in 1949. This one was later used as a summer home by President Ngo Dinh Diem and his successors. The third, also built in the 1930s, was the residence of the emperor and his family. It is distinctly European in design, with flower gardens in front and back. Tourists can have their pictures made here wearing royal clothing.
After a trip to France in the 1930s where he became familiar with golf, Emperor Bao Dai had a six-hole golf course built so he could continue to play. The course was unused from 1945 until 1954, when a group of investors rebuilt it with eight holes. Today, it is an eighteen-hole championship course overlooking Xuan Huong Lake and includes a full practice facility.
In town, the more active sites are the Dalat Flower Gardens and the Central Market. The Flower Garden is alongside Xuan Huong Lake and has over 300 species of flowers on display, both native and exotic. The Market is the heart of the city and operates both indoors and outdoors. The indoor market is in a two-story building originally constructed in 1926 and is open from dawn to nightfall. Locals and tourists alike go there for produce, textiles, wine, and just about whatever they need. The outdoor portion keeps going as long as anyone is interested. When the indoor market closes, the food vendors will have set up outside. One of the favorite foods is a banh trang Dalat. This is a circle of rice paper, brushed with an egg and a mixture of dried prawn, cooked on a charcoal grill, folded and wrapped in a piece of newspaper. It’s sort of a Vietnamese pizza. Other choices include soups, rice porridge and barbecued chicken feet.
Nightlife in Dalat consists mostly of quiet cafes, but there are some newer venues with live music. They generally close early though (by midnight), leaving the hard chargers to the all-Vietnamese karaoke bars.
Dalat – Emperor’s Palace or the Crazy House? Chateaubriand or barbecued chicken feet? Quiet cafes or Vietnamese karaoke? Eiffel Tower or a dragon constructed of beer bottles? Flower gardens or the Chicken Village? Waterfalls or the Valley of Love? The Dalat of old attracted wealthy and highly-placed people looking for a respite from the heat. Today, it attracts tourists of all backgrounds and tastes.
