Vietnam Vietnam

Part 4: Dalat

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1st November 2006

I arrived at Dalat by flight around mid day today.

Dalat is the most popular hill station located at the central Highlands of Vietnam, located a few hundred kilometres north of HCMC. While most of coastal Vietnam and Mekong delta is hot and humid round the year, Dalat's temperature remains within 15-24 degrees throughout the year. Therefore it remains the most popular holiday retreat for the Vietnamese.

I took the airport bus to Dalat, which is a good 30km away from the airport. I booked in a small hotel called Dreams hotel - highly recommended by Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet did not exaggerate -the hotel is very neat and very homely. The hotel is run by a very elegant elderly Vietnamese lady who speaks fluent English and personally takes care of his boarders' needs and queries.

One thing I noticed in Vietnam - in most places bosses are almost invisible - staff conscientiously do their work very efficiently - there is no shouting, no bossing around - every one respect other's dignity as a fellow human being - when a westerner/visitor display some rudeness, Vietnamese firmly let the person know their disapproval, without saying a word - and generally that is sufficient.

Dalat is a small town with lot of hotels for holiday makers - today I just strolled around this lovely hill station and booked a day tour around the city for the next day.

2nd November 2006

I was surprised that there were not any westerners in the tour group,  may be they all went for mountaineering or other action tours around Dalat - there are many such spots around Dalat - normally people go out for few days.

Anyway, other than me there were two Vietnamese families in the group - a middle aged couple and a big three generation family. I must admit I was initially little disappointed that as I do not speak Vietnamese at all and those families probably do not speak English, I will have none to talk to other than the tour guide. We started the tour from a cable car station, from there down to a Buddhist temple by cable car - then onto various lakes, nature reserves, waterfalls and the summer Palace of the last Vietnamese King. Those sites were beautiful and enchanting but nothing spectacular.

Slopes of the hills all around Dalat are covered with covered greenhouses producing garden vegetables. Dalat's eternal spring allows round the year vegetable production and Dalat and the surrounding region produces half of Vietnam's garden vegetables.

The surprise of the tour was - the middle aged Vietnamese couple - they speak English and they have returned to Vietnam from the USA after 31 years. Both of them, then in their early twenties,  separately fled Vietnam their home town Danag in  1975. The gentleman, who now calls himself Tony, left just one day before the fall of Saigon. He was in the South Vietnamese air force - he left Vietnam with his life, leaving behind his then fiancée, family and friends. His wife, then an young elementary school teacher in Danag and whom he is yet to meet,  also left Danag separately around the same time. They met in the USA three years later and got married. Both worked hard, doing various odd jobs before saving enough money to start their own convenience store in New Orleans. They raised four children two of them doctors and other two working in finance industry. A typical Vietnamese tragedy to success story all over the world (In Australia children of Vietnamese refugees top the SSC, HSC and Universities) - This couple was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina - Although they evacuated before the hurricane, their house was destroyed. luckily they were insured and has repaired their home with the insurance pay out. The couple quite often got very emotional while talking with me about their return to Vietnam after 31 years.

Towards the end of the tour, to my surprise I found that the young man who was leading the other Vietnamese family, also speaks English. They are from HCMC and staunchly nationalist - his family was on the winning side of the Vietnamese war. Anytime during our conversation, whenever  I referred to HCMC as Saigon he politely but firmly reminded me that there is no Saigon anymore it is HCMC. True to stoic Vietnamese nature, they showed no antagonism towards the other Vietnamese couple, but they were decidedly cool towards them.

As I returned to the hotel, my ever caring Land lady at hotel asked me whether tomorrow morning I would like to share a taxi to Airport with an Australian mother and daughter couple, who are staying in the same hotel and would catch the same flight to Hanoi with me. I said no problem and she said she will arrange the taxi in the next morning.

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