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[TRAVELS] Lang Bian Mountain @ Dalat City, Vietnam

Posted by swisscheese on April 3, 2016 in dalat city, folk costume, mountain |

Lang Biang Mountain

I had no plans of going back to Vietnam this year, especially since I spent some time at Ho Chi Minh and Halong Bay last year. I was thinking of making a trip to Burma instead. However, Dat and Hoa’s pictures taken at Dalat in January caught my attention and it made me think twice about my decision. In addition, one of my closer colleague and her friends were also going to Saigon in late March so I decided to head to Dalat City from HCMC for three days first before heading back to HCMC for the next three days. I carried out this plan and on my second day at Dalat City, Ha brought me to Lang Biang Mountain right after breakfast.

Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Bian, tt. Lạc Dương, Lạc Dương District, Lâm Đồng, Vietnam

Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang MountainLang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain

Ha rented a bike from the hotel to bring me to many of the attractions that Dalat has to offer. As I am usually very excited for mountain and volcano trips, our first stop after breakfast was Lang Biang Mountain. While riding on the bike, Ha went to ask other locals the directions to Lang Biang Mountain and trust me, the ground is very bumping if you take the bike there. It reminded me of my ATV incident at Portland in September 2010. Thankfully, Vietnamese people are very good at biking since they have been biking faithfully from the age of 16 or earlier so Ha brought me there and back in one piece. The journey is only 15 minutes /12 kilometers from the city via bike. You have to pay VND 50,000 (CAD$2.92 / SGD$3 / USD$2.24) per person to enter the place, which will lead you to the adorable Hollywood sign of Lang Biang Mountain (1st picture). You can choose to either hike your way up to the radar top of the mountain within 1-2 hours or share a jeep with 5 other people in 15 minutes. The jeep for 6 pax is VND 300,000 (CAD$17.51 / SGD$18.18 / USD$13.46), resulting in VND 50,000 (CAD$2.92 / SGD$3 / USD$2.24) per pax. I wanted to hike but Ha suggested the jeep as she mentioned that it will take lots of time going up and coming down and deter us from seeing other attractions at Dalat City. Thus, we requested for a jeep ride and thankfully, 2 couples wanted to head up by jeep as well so our jeep is complete and ready to go! The journey up was very steep but the view was amazing. I believe that if we hiked up, we would be appreciating the greenery a lot better so if I were to ever head back to Dalat City again, I will try the hiking route.

When we were up, I was sad to see how foggy the view from the top was (2nd-4th pictures). “Perhaps, it was not the right time to visit Dalat?”, I thought. I decided to just make do with the situation and appreciate the other entertaining programs at the top. If you noticed, dogs in Cambodia and Vietnam are so thin (5th picture)! This is a rare sight in the countries I live in or used to reside in – Canada / USA / Singapore. There were quite a number of things you can do at the top of the mountain such as letting go of the bird and snapping photos with it on your hand (6th picture), taking a photo on a horse carriage (7th picture), sitting on a swing (8th picture) or just admiring the place (9th picture) or view (last picture). Of course, taking a shot with the bird or horse requires additional payment so I did not want to waste money on such. Instead, Ha treated me to the following….

Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain
Lang Biang Mountain

TA-DAAHHH!! I was allowed to wear the folk costume of the native Vietnamese people and go around taking pictures with any view or sculpture I like for a price of VND 30,000 (CAD$1.75 / SGD$1.82 / USD$1.35)! My favourite thing to do in a country is not only to view landscapes and consume their local food but also to wear their traditional clothing! This was one of the highlights of my trip to Lang Biang Mountain!

If you ever wondered why the mountain is named as such, there is a folktale behind it, which is shown in the first picture. The chief from the Lat tribe has a son called Lang, who fell deeply in love with Biang, the daughter of the chief from the Chil tribe. As there were feuds between the tribes for many years and strict customs against marrying someone from a different tribe, they were  unable to marry. One of the two endings to this story was both Lang and Biang decided to die together so as to proof their sign of love for each other. A more complicated version was the two eloping to the top of the mountains. However, the marriage was only good while it lasted. When Biang suddenly caught an illness, Lang was unable to find any treatment for her. Thus, the couple went to the Chil tribe to seek help from them desperately. Instead of responding to his cries to cure Biang, Biang’s tribesman shot Lang with a poisoned arrow. Never did Lang imagine that Biang will defend him despite her sickness and this caused her to die. As a result of Biang’s death, Lang cried a sea of tears, which is known as Đa Nhim / The Golden Stream. Lang eventually died as he was too heartbroken. After the deaths of the star crossed lovers in both versions, Biang’s father was remorseful and decided to unify the Lat, Sre and Chil tribes as the K’ho group. The mountain was also named as Lang Biang to commemorate the profound love of the Romeo & Juliet of Vietnam.

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If given a chance, I would definitely head back to Dalat and go  to Lang Biang again to either trek the three peaks of the mountain, climb the cliff, walk along the asphalt road or paraglide.

*swisscheese

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