Flower Festival

Every two years in Da lat they host a flower festival in January.  Think inundated with fragrant flowers and Vietnamese tourists.  Literally every hotel room in Da lat is filled and the streets are overrun with tourists.  I live in a very small city, and for about a week every two years it is insanely swamped.  I suppose it's good for business though.  I have to imagine that all these hotels that spend the majority of their time empty need this flood of tourists like the ancient Egyptians needed the Nile floods.  The city prepares for the festival by dressing everything up, planting new flowers, and actually turning on the large fountain we have downtown.  I have only ever seen it working once.  All along the lake in the middle of the city there are shops set up selling flowers and anything you could need to grow flowers.  At night their is a huge pageant with dancers and music and it is one of the few times that Da lat will make it on to the national television stations.  There is also a convention set up with vendors from all around Vietnam selling a variety of goods.  The only thing I bought was some fried hot-dogs.