Da Lat

A stream was dammed to make it, and the path round it is 5km. The market and the town centre sit on the north shore, so the walk doubles as a commute, and swan pedal boats are hired out at the water. Morning fog can hide the far bank altogether.

No train from this station goes anywhere. The rack railway down to Phan Rang was abandoned after the war, and what runs now is a 7km shuttle to Trai Mat a few times a day. The 1938 building carries three peaked roofs said to echo the summits of Langbiang.

Columns, walls and ceilings are covered in shards of broken bottle and porcelain. The courtyard dragon is made of beer bottles, and in the bell tower people stick written wishes to the bell. It is a short walk from Trai Mat, the end of the tourist line.

Take a jeep unless you want two hours of tarmac on foot. The jeeps stop not at the top but at the 1,929m saddle, which is where the viewpoint is. The highest peak stands at 2,167m, and the mountain carries the names of two lovers from a local story.

You walk narrow concrete stairways with no rail in places. Mind your footing and any children. The architect Dang Viet Nga has built it since 1990, pouring concrete into trunks and caves. It still works as a guesthouse, so occupied rooms are shut.

Stalls take over the steps below the market hall as soon as the sun goes down. It was nicknamed the hell market because it once ran on lamps alone, and grilled rice paper and soy milk are sold the whole way up the steps. Weekends make the stairs hard to climb.

You get down the gorge to the falls either on the alpine coaster or on the steps. The coaster is braked by hand with a lever, so a car close behind makes people hurry, and the name comes, they say, from a K'Ho phrase meaning water under leaves.

From Robin Hill the line crosses 2.3km of pine forest to a Zen monastery above Tuyen Lam lake. Monks train here and notices ask for quiet inside the grounds, and instead of riding back you can walk down to the lake and take a boat.

Bushes the French planted in 1927 still stand in rows on the slope at 1,650m, and the leaf is still picked. British rolling machines remain in the old factory and still turn. It is 25km southeast of town, and in the morning the cloud lies below the fields.

The valley is white with plastic greenhouses. Roses are cut at night and go on a truck to Saigon before dawn, so by daylight many rows are bare stems, though ask the owner and you may be allowed to walk down the beds.

The summer residence the last emperor, Bao Dai, built on a pine hill in the 1930s, plain Art Deco outside. His office, bedrooms and the children's rooms keep their period furniture. To spare the floors, everyone pulls on shoe covers at the entrance.

A convent church on a hilltop with pink walls and a red roof. The nuns' fruit preserves and handicrafts are sold in a shop next to it. The garden overlooks the town's rooftops, and plenty of people climb up for the evening light.

A church on Tran Phu street with an iron rooster on top of its spire, which is why locals call it the chicken church. The stained glass inside was made in France and shipped over. Sunday Mass fills it out into the yard.

A wide, rough waterfall about an hour southwest of town. Reaching its foot means scrambling over wet boulders and narrow iron steps, so trainers are a must. Just above, Linh An pagoda has a giant pot-bellied Maitreya.