Take a boat out on the lake and you can fantasize a thousand things - that Harry Potter is watching you with bespectacled gaze, ready at any moment to sail across the lake on his Quidditch broomstick, that Marie Antoinette is somewhere between the trees playing games with lovelorn shepherdesses, or that a distant relative of the Loch Ness monster lies slumbering under the pellucid green wavelets. That it's an enchanted place was somehow recognized by the creators of pixies on toadstools and the like, and if they didn't quite catch its real magic, they nonetheless knew it was there. So they called it the Valley of Love, knowing that love itself has, after all, an incomparable magic of its own.
Dalat's Crazy House is Gaudi on a small scale, architecture that might have originated as candle drippings into which have been inserted various Hobbit-like structures. It's dusty and rather dated now, but is currently being given a major face-lift so, who knows, it may soon turn out to be quite fun again, especially for children. The small Lam Ty Ni Pagoda close by was locked when I tried to visit, with no indication as to when it might open.
Waterfalls are considered romantic places by the Vietnamese and attract large crowds. At the Datania Waterfall, 20 minutes out along the road back to Ho Chi Minh City, I met the Vietnam Everest 2008 team, due to attempt the peak in May and perfecting their climbing technique on the slabs overlooking the falls. This was surprising enough, but even more astonishing was to stumble on an idyllic Buddhist temple, Truc Lam, completed in 1994, overlooking the adjacent valley. Hollyhocks bloomed crimson against the evening sky, a bell was slowly pounded, and all in all it seemed the most peaceful place in all Vietnam.
Dalat is where Vietnam's extensive wine industry operates, but I decided not to visit the vineyards this time. Sometimes it's a good idea to leave something undone simply to entice you back again. And Dalat, where man-made splendors combine with a fine natural setting, is certainly a place that's well worth re-visiting.
RSS