Word: dalat
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Fortunately, the charms of Saigon are not the country's only attractions. The one-week tour features a day-trip to Cu Chi, site of a war museum, two - days at the beach resort of Nha Trang and an excursion to the former French hill station of Dalat. All this for $2,000, including round-trip airfare from San Francisco. The two-week tour ($3,000) adds stops at Danang, Hue, Hanoi, Haiphong and Ha Long Bay. Guides and transportation in a cramped van are part of the package, along with overnight accommodations in Manila...
...most of the group, the subsequent three-day excursion to Nha Trang and Dalat provides a calming change of pace. Route 1, the two-lane highway linking Saigon with Hanoi, dips toward and away from the South China Sea on its way 250 miles up the coast. The van passes through places remembered dimly as wartime datelines. Phan Thiet, Phan Rang and Cam Ranh Bay, now a Soviet naval base, appear then recede outside the van's windows. Frequent ambushes and well-placed mines rendered many sections of Route 1 impassable to U.S. forces and the French military before them...
...coast through Ngoan Muc Pass brings travelers to a plateau strewn magnificently with poinsettia trees the size of small maples, all in bloom. A thousand varieties of orchid are said to grow in the province, and mimosa vines with delicate, mauve flowers climb innumerable trellises. At the 52-room Dalat Palace Hotel, completed in 1923, Headwaiter Hoang Van Tu serves meals, as he has since 1942 to the likes of Charles de Gaulle, Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu and even the Emperor, Bao Dai himself. There is nothing imperial about the hostelry today, but the mosquito netting hanging from the massive...