Hello again, Hive!
How was your weekend? I hope you had a good time with your family, friends or just with yourself. Last time, I already took you guys to my hometown and my current living place - a city next to the beach in the center of Vietnam, and now I will take you to another city which is located on a higher level, on the hill and in the south of Vietnam - Da Lat city.
(photo edited by canva.com)
(This is me when I conquered the hiking road to the Langbiang hill)
Da Lat or Dalat city is the Capital of Lam Dong province and the largest city of Central highland of Vietnam. It is located 1,500m (4,900ft) above the sea level. I think because of its geographical location, the signature of this city is cool weather, pine woods and cherry blossoms bloom in the spring. Its weather is considered as temperate climate, which contrasts the other part of Vietnam which is known for its tropical climate. Even just in a day, you can feel the spring in the morning, summer at noon, autumn in the late afternoon and winter at night.
You can travel by plane or bus or your own motorbike to Dalat. I usually choose the bus for it’s cheap ticket fee as well as I just need to sleep one night on the bus, then the next morning I will be in Dalat and it took me around 7 hours to travel to Dalat by bus.
I have been to Dalat several times before. The first time was camping with my best friends, just the two of us. I’m so lucky that my friend is a travelholic, and he is like the local people - he knows everything about this city like it’s in his hand, and he also prepared the tent which had enough facilities for us to stay in the woods. We camped near a lake, in the middle of the pine woods. I can smell the fresh air on the grass and pine in the early morning. We made a small fire for grilling sweet potatoes and corn for dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of these moments. So please use your imagination hah :)
(This was the sun via the net of the tent)
Dalat city is well-known as the city of flowers and vegetables. It is considered as the biggest supplying flower and vegetable market in my country. I also have a chance to visit some flowers and vegetable farms there. This was the time 1 month before Tet holiday (Lunar New Year Eve) - the biggest traditional family-gathering event in Vietnam. There will be some special flowers for the holiday such as yellow chrysanthemum, gladiolus, carnation, auspicious flowers, lily…just a few names. As far as you can see, we - like other Asian people, considered red and yellow colors can bring luck for the new year, so we also prefer the red or yellow flowers for decoration for this event. These flowers grown in Da Lat had a bigger size and more beautiful colors than other cool areas of the country. They were harvested around 10-3 days before Tet came.
One of the big farm area in Dalat
Carnation
yellow chrysanthemum
gladiolus
Auspicious flowers
green chrysanthemum
Lily
What I liked the most was the real experience of visiting a strawberry farm in the middle of the pine forest, picking one up and tasting it there. How fresh and delicious the strawberry was!
I was at the strawberry garden
Quava fruit - still on the tree
1 minute later
These photos I posted here were taken by my old phone. The quality might not be so good but I hope that it can convey some of my feelings to you all. Hope you like them!
Actually, there are a lot of things I want to tell you about Dalat. But maybe I will save it for my next post. Thank you for your reading up to here.