Hunting clouds in Dalat is among seven extraordinary ways to see the world come alive at sunrise (Image source: vietnamtourism.gov.vn)
National Geographic, one of the world’s leading travel publications, has featured Dalat City in Vietnam’s Central Highlands province of Lam Dong as the top destination in its article highlighting seven extraordinary ways to see the world come alive at sunrise.
In the piece, reporter Lauren Paige Richeson wrote that in the highlands of central Vietnam, mornings belong to the clouds. Before sunrise, trekkers climb ridges 4,921 feet above sea level in Dalat to watch valleys flood with mist, the peaks adrift like islands in a white sea. People who live here call it “cloud hunting,” a pastime that blends science with scenery.
“Dalat’s clouds are especially beautiful in the cold morning air,” says Ahn Dinh Van Don, owner of Happy Day Travel.
The spectacle is fleeting, formed when cool night air traps fog in the valleys, only to be burned away by mid-morning sun. For an hour, the Earth feels suspended between heaven and ground, a vision as ephemeral as the clouds themselves, according to National Geographic.
Once a local secret, cloud hunting has become a national pastime and a must-try experience for travelers. The advice is simple: go. “It’s stunning… majestic scenery and vast tea fields. It cannot be described in words,” said Van Don.
Following Dalat were six other sunrise experiences from around the world: walking into fire in the Danakil Depression (Ethiopia), learning the looms with Quechua weavers (Peru), witnessing the craft of making Parmigiano Reggiano (Italy), greeting the morning in the Guérande salt marshes (France), fishing at sunrise in the Azores (Portugal), and morning ragas on the Ganges in Varanasi (India).