'Haunted' Da Lat house gets facelift for curious visitors

One of the most well-known "haunted" houses in Da Lat has had a makeover to cash in on its "notorious" history among tourists and visitors.

 

The 'haunted' house at Prenn Pass

Da Lat is said to have a number of "haunted" houses, but few as "infamous" as one house at the foot of Prenn Pass, Mimosa Valley built in 1930, which has undergone numerous repairs until, in 1986, it was sold to a French-Vietnamese man who died in a plane crash soon after buying it.

 

The house under repair

The house was abandoned, but it has attracted "stories" of murder and ghosts. A security guard committed suicide there in 1997, and taxi drivers in the city tell of one driver, who took a woman there on a short drive and died a few days later.

As rumours about the house grew, it attracted more and more curious visitors. But years of neglect left it in a shambles.

In early 2015, the house was sold to a businessman in HCM City. He cleaned up the garden, gave the house a facelift, and has reopened it for visitors.

Jetstar Pacific to open new Hue-Dalat routes in October

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

Jetstar Pacific Airlines will launch a Hue-Dalat route on October 25, 2015, as heard at a press conference on the service in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on October 6.

It is the first civil flight offered from Hue to Dalat and vice versa , meeting travel, economic, and tourism demands between the two localities.

Accordingly, the low-cost carrier will operate three return flights a week on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday , using Airbus A320-180 aircraft on the new flights.

Nguyen Dinh Tinh, Jetstar Pacific’s Head of the southern and central regions, said price will start from 550,000 VND (25 USD) for a one-way ticket, excluding taxes and fees and the price is not eligible to be combined with other promotion programmes.

Addressing the event, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Dung highlighted the significance of the new flight service as stimulating tourism development between the two hubs in the central and Central Highlands regions.

The province also pledged its utmost support to the new service including communications, transport, administration and relic site admission discounts for the company as well as its passengers on the new flights.-VNA

Book presents detailed description of Da Lat under French rule

Translator Pham Viem Phuong introduces the book (Photo: VNA)

The English language book “Imperial Heights” on Da Lat city by Canadian author Eric T. Jennings has been translated into Vietnamese, providing the most detailed and comprehensive ever insight into the resort city in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong.

The book, entitled in Vietnamese as “Dinh cao de quoc – Da Lat va su hung vong cua Dong Duong thuoc Phap” (Imperial Heights – Da Lat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina), was the focus of a talk held in Da Lat city on October 3. The original book was published by the University of California Press in 2011.

Eric T. Jennings, born in 1970, is currently a professor of history at Canada’s University of Toronto and also an expert on the French colonial history.

At first, he did not intend to write about Da Lat, but during 10 years of searching libraries in Vietnam, France, the UK, the US and Switzerland to learn about the French colonialism, he discovered that the French colonialists placed an extremely great ambition on the city located in the hills of central Vietnam.

Tran Duc Tai, the Vietnamese version’s editor and also a Da Lat resident, said he came across “Imperial Heights” on the internet and was surprised that it covers everything about Da Lat and was written by a foreign historian, which is unprecedented.

Deemed as an encyclopedia on Da Lat, it offers exhaustive details on the formation of the city under the French rule from political, economic, military, planning, educational, religious and tourism dimensions, he said, adding that Jennings provided a myriad of new information that cannot be found in documents kept in Vietnam.

Through this book, readers will not only find arguments on why French colonialists put their global ambition on Da Lat but also learn about the mistaken views about Da Lat of the city’s discoverer Alexandre Yersin and historical events that happened in the city.-VNA