Settled in the 1930s, Da Lat is one of those Asian hill stations, with misty vistas, roads meandering around pine-clad slopes, colonial villas, log fires and locals wrapped up in winter tweeds.

Domestic tourists flock to this 'City of Eternal Spring' to savour the novelty of temperatures in the low 20s, to pose with family and friends against scenic backdrops, and to stock up with tacky little dolls.

The fresh, damp air of Da Lat seems to nourish eccentrics, who flourish here like mutant fungi in a fetid hothouse. This is Vietnam's capital of kitsch, a brave show of nonconformity in a land where group-think rules with an iron fist.

A Typical Day

6.30am in the morning, as the mists evaporate, a clear morning light warms the ochre façades and terracotta tiles of the colonial-era buildings. Activity is everywhere; a woman in lilac pyjamas sweeps her step.

Some commuters express their individuality in harmless little ways. Women buzz about the streets on their motor scooters, hands and arms gloved against the sun, heads crowned with utterly incongruous sunhats.

Dang Viet Nga, a Moscow-trained architect, creates her structures to last by using reinforced concrete. An early masterpiece, The House with 100 roofs, was condemned as anti-socialist and torn down by the authorities. Fortuitously, her contacts in high places are impeccable, since her father Truong Chinh, succeeded Ho Chi Minh as President of Vietnam.

Otherwise, the Da Lat People's Committee would have expressed even more forcefully its distaste for the giant spider webs, giraffes and eagles incorporated into her property. Motorcycle-taxi men and horsecart jockeys know this art gallery, teashop and hotel as 'Crazy House'. Yes, you can stay the night, but how could anyone sleep?

Da Lat is almost too much. Strange but unforgettable.

A Legend

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a gigantic chicken with nine spurs - more mythical than real - and his likeness still crows over Chicken Village, an impoverished hill tribe settlement outside the Vietnamese highland resort of Da Lat.

The Koho people, who hang out their woven shawls and blankets to lure tourists off the highway, aren't terribly eloquent, but their story goes something like this:

A young woman from a poor family was set the impossible task of finding the dowry demanded by the greedy family of her beloved: to bring back a chicken with nine spurs. The girl set off into the mountains in search of this elusive creature and died in the wilds, broken-hearted.