Education, flowers, waterfalls, trains and temples
Our first destination of the following day was the railway station in Đà Lạt. I have been a little bit surprised to find out many Vietnamese people don't know about the railway station or the 7km section of track that has been returned to use - along with some lovely old carriages and less lovely diesel locomotive - as a tourist attraction. While writing this entry I also discovered that the French name for the whole works (railway station, track et al) refers to a specific type of track used in three sections of the original route from Đà Lạt to Tháp Chàm on the coast.
We spent a little time exploring the railway station - and returned in the afternoon to take the train out to the village of Trại Mát. In an area like Đà Lạt which is so hilly my sense of direction gets totally screwed, so that while I felt like we were travelling west, we actually went south-east because ... well, that's where the coast is! The route took us past people's homes built almost up to the track as is quite common in Vietnam, as well as down cuttings bordered by greenhouses and fields growing strawberries, cauliflowers and flowers.
At our destination of Trại Mát we were told we had approximately 70 minutes to explore before we were scheduled to take the return journey. In the end, however, we decided to risk it and wait for the subsequent train back. This allowed us enough time to hoof it up the road to Linh Phước pagoda which is famous for its "living" statue of Quan Âm made of everlasting daisies, as well as having some other stupendous installations such as the largest bell in Vietnam, and a very large mosaic dragon, colloquially known as the beer bottle dragon.
One of the other interesting cultural practices I noticed during our visit was a small high table in a room adjoining one of the main prayer halls. A group of people were standing around it with their finger-tips resting on the table and their eyes closed. At the time I thought this was some special prayer ritual and didn't want to take photos. But Bảo since told me that actually people believe that the table is magic in some way and that it can move under your command (not touch!). Whether each person notices it happen or not seems to depend on their individual situation. Bảo says that people with a "light" soul will feel the table move; people with a "heavy" soul will not notice anything.
This was the afternoon on which the weather really turned against us, delivering grey skies and rain. The night before, similarly, we had "got trapped" by rain in a coffee shop. When eventually it stopped we also had to compete for the taxis to get the boys back to the hotel and bed.
In between our visits to the railway station, we made our way firstly to the teachers college which has the architectural distinction of a grand, curved building. Being a holiday no-one was in class but in fact this is a working institution notwithstanding it felt a little run-down.
From here we headed out of town again, stopping firstly at a flower farm, before descending far far down into a valley to visit the Elephant Falls - Thác Voi. I have seen pictures of these falls showing the water as pristine, but during our visit - maybe due to heavy rainfall - they were brown and the route down to the base, while worth doing, was muddy and slippery.
I have belatedly found the Lâm Đồng province government website with a lot of tourist information in Vietnamese and English versions. Interestingly, the two language versions are not the same. The Vietnamese one has many more entries, including one about Elephant Falls that is absent in the English language version. However, I included that link above because it gives the origin of the waterfall's name as well as a legend attached to it. You can always use Google Translate!
Also here is a short newspaper item on the restoration of the railway station and the teacher training college.
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| Future railway men? |
We spent a little time exploring the railway station - and returned in the afternoon to take the train out to the village of Trại Mát. In an area like Đà Lạt which is so hilly my sense of direction gets totally screwed, so that while I felt like we were travelling west, we actually went south-east because ... well, that's where the coast is! The route took us past people's homes built almost up to the track as is quite common in Vietnam, as well as down cuttings bordered by greenhouses and fields growing strawberries, cauliflowers and flowers.
At our destination of Trại Mát we were told we had approximately 70 minutes to explore before we were scheduled to take the return journey. In the end, however, we decided to risk it and wait for the subsequent train back. This allowed us enough time to hoof it up the road to Linh Phước pagoda which is famous for its "living" statue of Quan Âm made of everlasting daisies, as well as having some other stupendous installations such as the largest bell in Vietnam, and a very large mosaic dragon, colloquially known as the beer bottle dragon.
One of the other interesting cultural practices I noticed during our visit was a small high table in a room adjoining one of the main prayer halls. A group of people were standing around it with their finger-tips resting on the table and their eyes closed. At the time I thought this was some special prayer ritual and didn't want to take photos. But Bảo since told me that actually people believe that the table is magic in some way and that it can move under your command (not touch!). Whether each person notices it happen or not seems to depend on their individual situation. Bảo says that people with a "light" soul will feel the table move; people with a "heavy" soul will not notice anything.
This was the afternoon on which the weather really turned against us, delivering grey skies and rain. The night before, similarly, we had "got trapped" by rain in a coffee shop. When eventually it stopped we also had to compete for the taxis to get the boys back to the hotel and bed.
In between our visits to the railway station, we made our way firstly to the teachers college which has the architectural distinction of a grand, curved building. Being a holiday no-one was in class but in fact this is a working institution notwithstanding it felt a little run-down.
From here we headed out of town again, stopping firstly at a flower farm, before descending far far down into a valley to visit the Elephant Falls - Thác Voi. I have seen pictures of these falls showing the water as pristine, but during our visit - maybe due to heavy rainfall - they were brown and the route down to the base, while worth doing, was muddy and slippery.
I have belatedly found the Lâm Đồng province government website with a lot of tourist information in Vietnamese and English versions. Interestingly, the two language versions are not the same. The Vietnamese one has many more entries, including one about Elephant Falls that is absent in the English language version. However, I included that link above because it gives the origin of the waterfall's name as well as a legend attached to it. You can always use Google Translate!Also here is a short newspaper item on the restoration of the railway station and the teacher training college.
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