Dalat, (pop. 1,264,000 as of 2014) is the capital of Lam Dong Province in Vietnam. The city is located 1,500 m (4,900 ft) above sea level on the Langbian Plateau in the southern parts of the Central Highlands region. In Vietnam, Dalat is a popular tourist destination.
Dalat is the City of Flowers and honeymooners with lovely French villas, the fresh air, the beautiful waterfalls and gorgeous lakes sits in a lush and green valley of postcard beauty. Dalat’s specific sights are pine forest (forming the name: “City of thousands of pine trees”) with twisting roads and tree marigold, cherry blossom in the winter. The city’s temperate weather stands in contrast to Vietnam’s otherwise tropical climate. Mist covering the valleys almost year-round leads to its name “City of eternal spring”, Spring is eternal and “unique season” in Dalat.
It’s also called “Little Paris” due to its French architecture villas and its replica of the Eiffel Tower built by the VNPT Lam Dong that looks like it fell into a pool of red and white colour.
And really, after driving through tea gardens, coffee and rubber plantations, one feels almost transplanted to Europe. Indeed, in the past when Dalat still had been under France, The French Officials want to set up this city as “Le Petit Paris” , the ideal resort city, the meaningful education center for their life in Indochina, the place was far from their native land – remote France. So, Dalat was the capital of the Federation of Indochina during World War II.
Beside above names, Vietnamese also called Dalat under many lovely names such as The City of Love, The City of Poetry, The Green City,…
Tuyen Lam Lake, 6 km to the South of Dalat, has the water surface of 350 ha. It was created by Tia stream – head water of Da Tam River. No one knows when and why it was called Tuyen Lam, but maybe because of the grandiose nature around it – stream and forest were close to each other. Tuyen stands for stream, Lam stands for forest. Tuyen Lam is a place for water and tree meeting each other.
The lake and its campus have fresh air, tranquil atmosphere and diversified natural landscape. The lake will become a big tourist attraction with the unique types of tourism such as sight-seeing, camping, health caring, trekking, mountain climbing, fishing, visiting revolutionary base and other activities for sport and recreation, especially eco-tourism.
If viewed from the cable car or seen from above, Tuyen Lam Lake is as a miniature ocean with each oasis on the lake is a continent, when choosing type of yacht to explore the lake, you will feel the immensity between sky and water surface, feeling completely immersed in nature, relax completely.
And from that perspective, you will discover a very different Dalat. Slope, hills look like higher, space is vast and spreads over.
Exploring the lake by boat, you will have the opportunity to enjoy the different beauty of Dalat, as well as getting more feeling about the cool air of the Highland at noon.
Coming to Tuyen Lam Lake, tourists can visit Truc Lam zen monastery; then buy ticket to go sightseeing around the lake; see some tourist sites such as Fairy Rock tourist site, Nam Qua tourist site, Dalat tourist, etc; taste some specialties of Dalat, drink Can wine, see Gong festivity, go camping, ride horse or elephant.
Tuyen Lam Lake was recognized as a Cultural historical heritage on August 30th, 1998.
