Da Lat: Vietnam's High Plateau City

Cooler temperatures, more abundant rainfall means more agriculture and flowers

Da Lat looks more French than Hanoi. There are old hotels with the mansard roofs and with some of the elegant architecture of France, albeit worn considerably. There are many manicured gardens here and flower production seems to be a thing. We’re at about 5000 feet elevation on an elevated plateau which means 65 or 68 F mornings even in the summer and upper 80s in the day. I’ve been here for 4 days and we’ve had passing thundershowers on 3 of the 4 days—cooling things down considerably. I imagine it’s quite cool here in winter months.

There are plenty of pine trees and Norfolk pines here which gives the hint of cooler climate.

To get around Da Lat, I used the Grab App and got motorcycle taxis. Most trips were around $1 US dollar and I’d tip 50% to help the drivers out. One day, I took a Grabbike to Da Lat Rail station, another Grabbike to the Linh Phuoc Pagoda some 5 or 6 miles further out of the city. It was enjoyable to ride in the fresh air. Of course, all of this is made possible by having a Vietnam simcard with internet data which I got upon arrival. I think I paid $10 for one month of up to 5 Gibabytes per day of data.

Da Lat Railway Station

The French built a 52 mile long railway system in these hills, using cog wheel design so that trains could climb and descend steep hills. They started it in 1903 and finished it in 1932. It was destroyed and dismantled in the Vietnam war. There is a short run of the railroad operating for tourism and the train station is an half-assed tourist attraction. I stopped to have a look but didn’t ride it. (No, the old steam locomotive pictured is not in service.) The current “ride” uses a diesel locomotive):

Da Lat Railway Tourist Attraction

Linh Phuoc Pagoda

On the east side of Da Lat is one of the many Buddhist temples/monasteries in Vietnam, some dating back to 540 AD. Linh Phuoc is a relatively new temple.

Some snapshots of Linh Phuoc Pagoda

Comments on the History of SE Asia

SE Asia is interesting in that most of the region was swept by various religions, empires and colonizations.

In ancient times much of SE Asia was part of a Hindu empire extending all the way into Indonesia’s Java and Bali. Buddhist and Hindu temples were built in Indonesia and in other SE Asia countries from the 5th to 11th centuries and even in recent times. The Chinese culture remained the boundaries of Indian influence all along.

From Wikipedia: Hinduism expansion in Asia, from its heartland in Indian Subcontinent, to the rest of Asia, especially Southeast Asia, started circa 1st century marked with the establishment of early Hindu settlements and polities in Southeast Asia.

Even Angkor Wat was Hindu at it’s inception in the 10th and 11th centuries but then became Buddhist for most of it’s history until the site was abandoned to the present day. See my post Trip to Cambodia.

Note that both Hinduism and Buddhism were “Indian,” so there was an ebb and flow of Hindu and Buddhist influence across the region. I happened to have seen this with my own eyes during my first Round-the-world trip in 1997. In central Java stands a Hindu temple complex called Prambanan and some 20 miles away from Prambanan stands the magnificent Buddhist temple of Boroburdur.

Then Islam started spreading into Indonesia and Malaysia and Southern Philippines, along trade routes, in the 11th century and it remains highly influential to this day. Bali is in Indonesia still has a majority Hindu population while Java and Sumatra are very conservative Islamic. Sulawesi is an Indonesian island that is predominantly Christian.

Then much later came the European and even US colonizations as shown on the following map. Note that only Thailand was never colonized.

Virtually all of the European colonization ended after WWII.

More pictures in and around Da Lat:

In and around Da Lat

More pics from my neighborhood in Da Lat

Can you believe that these pictures are from Vietnam?? Vietnam is a surprisingly large country with a lot of history and even varied topography.