Da Lat

Dalat, located in the South Central Highlands of Vietnam, was originally the playground of the French who built villas in the clear mountain air to escape the heat and humidity of the coast and of Saigon, officially known as Ho Chi Minh City. Dalat looks like a cross between Vietnam and the French Alps. Many of its hotels and houses are built in a European/ French style. The city spreads across a series of pine-covered hills, with a small lake in the center and surrounded by a man-made lake and higher peaks, making for some lovely scenery quite different from the rest of Vietnam. Temperatures are pleasantly warm by day and quite cool at night, down to perhaps 10 degrees Celsius.