Day 12 - June 15 - Dalat

We toured all around Dalat today. We started with "Love Valley", a popular site for weddings, honeymooners, and lovers in general. You can see the valley and lake behind the family above. I can't express how nice the temperate weather of Dalat is after traveling the steamy coast for a week and a half. It's about a mile high with temps in the 70s with a nice mountain breeze. Of course, that means that the locals are bundled up in their hats and jackets:

We then visited the Bao Dai's summer palace. He was the last king of Vietnam before ceding control over to Ho Chi Minh, and spent much of his time in Paris and Dalat (which is modeled after Paris). While it was a nice house, it was built recently compared to the palace in Hoi An so it looks a lot like a modern Western house (a big one). Below is a picture of his garden, complete with a couple taking engagement photos.

Theresa's parents honeymooned in Dalat 38 years ago and stayed at the Dalat Palace, which remains the only 5 star hotel in the city. Our tour guide (and the hotel staff) were nice enough to allow an unscheduled stop for us to tour the grounds of the hotel.

Theresa's parents said that it was very similar to how it looked 38 years ago when they had one of the front rooms facing the lake below. It is often difficult for me to grasp the magnitude of what they gave up when they left Vietnam, but things like this really put it in perspective. Her mom was especially excited to see it.

Next stop: Datala waterfall. To get to it, you take a self-braking rollercoaster (another attraction that would not fly in the US) and then get pulled up in the same car.

Finally, we visited the Truc Lam Zen institute, where Zen Buddhist monks practice their methods. The scenery was truly relaxing aside from the hordes of tourists. We took a cable car from the temple back to the city where we got some great bird's eye views before heading out for dinner and a stroll around the central lake.