Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [135]
The central highlands | Into the highlands | Da Lat and around | The City |
Lam Ty Ni Pagoda
Dropping in at Lam Ty Ni Pagoda, north of Le Hong Phong on Thien My, represents one of the oddest attractions of a stay in Da Lat. The focus of interest here is not the pagoda itself but its sole occupant. It is home to Vien Thuc, the so-called “mad monk” of Da Lat, who lives there with his dogs and paintings. You may find the gate locked on arrival, but if he is not away travelling he will sense your presence and admit you, though his moods vary from friendly to indifferent to aggressive, so be prepared for any kind of reception. Poet, gardener, builder and artist, Vien Thuc is a monk of all trades, but his proudest achievements are his paintings and poetry.
His normal outfit, a dark-brown monk’s habit with a pointed woolly hat, is often spattered with paint. His studio, a warren of lean-tos behind the pagoda, is stacked to the rafters with over 100,000 paintings, some in watercolour and others in oil; the paint of the latter is spread so thick on the canvas they look almost three-dimensional. The paintings have names like “Golden Dragon Swimming in the River Milky Way” and “Blue Music in the Bosom of a Human World”, though most are self-portraits, and all are for sale.
The central highlands | Into the highlands | Da Lat and around | The City |
Tran Hung Dao and beyond
The movers and shakers who once maintained villas in Da Lat preferred to site their homes on a hill to the southeast of the city centre, rather than in the maw of its central area. The villas that they built along Tran Hung Dao survive today, some renovated and others in a sad state of disrepair, but they evoke the feel of the colonial era more than anywhere else in Da Lat.
Set on a hill beyond the eastern end of Tran Hung Dao near the beginning of Hung Vuong, the Lam Dong Museum, 4 Hung Vuong (Mon–Sat 7.30–11.30am & 1.30–4.30pm; small admission fee), is the best museum in the central highlands and well worth visiting. Located in a new building, the displays are thoughtfully laid out and give a tantalizing taste of the region’s rich history. Exhibits include Cham artefacts from recent archeological digs as well as a collection of rice jars, ceramics and jewellery found in tombs, and some vicious-looking spears. The museum also gives a thorough introduction to the lifestyles of the local minority groups such as the Ma, Koho and Churu, along with a map showing their distribution in the province and many of their handicrafts and household implements. There’s also a display covering the French and American Wars, though it is little different to similar displays around the rest of the country.
Continuing east along Hung Vuong, a small lane to the right leads to Dinh I, 1 Tran Quang Dieu (daily 7.30–11.30am & 1.30–4.30pm; small admission fee) one of Bao Dai’s many palaces in the region. If you visit Bao Dai’s Summer Palace, which features strongly on many tours of the city, you might want to give this a miss, as the layout and furnishings are rather similar. However, Dinh I enjoys better views over the city, is in a more peaceful setting and receives fewer visitors, so you can wander round without hordes of other tourists to disturb you. This building was used as Bao Dai’s workplace, and the conference room upstairs, with its large map of the country, has a business-like air to it. There are several interesting photos on the walls of the other rooms, including one of Bao Dai in a racing car, and another of his concubines. As at Dinh III, the furnishings are classic 1930s; other points of interest are a doorway to a secret tunnel and an archaic phone switchboard at the entrance to the building.
The central