Arrival in Da Lat - Blogabond

Dried cherry tomatoes, persimmon, hibiscus, mixed vegetables crisps, and artichoke tea

Da Lat was a French colonial summer highland retreat, much like Shimla in India was to the English. The road was quite like the one to Shimla, but the driver thankfully was not as murderous/suicidal as the one on my trip to Shimla. The guide book talks of the obvious French influence in the architecture, but we saw nothing that didn't look like modern Vietnamese concrete. The one exception was the radio tower at the Post Office, which is a copy of the Eiffel Tower; unfortunately I neglected to take a photo.

Dried hibiscus

Da Lat is famed for its vegetable and fruit produce, because the French planted all sort of things from home that wouldn't grow in the lowlands of Vietnam, so its specialities are things like artichoke tea, dried fruit, and avocado ice cream (apparently, although I saw none of the avocado ice cream). We dived in, and bought artichoke tea (very nice) and loads of dried stuff at the market: mixed vegetable crisps, dried cherry tomatoes, dried persimmon ("old" and "new"), and dried hibiscus, which is delicious.

Another speciality it hot soya milk, which is sold from lots of stalls on the street. When we went up to buy some we discovered that they also sell hot "mung bean milk" and hot "peanut milk", so we had to try them too. All very nice!

written by

The Happy Couple on February 11, 2009 from Da Lat, Vietnam

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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