Maybe I am just not Asian enough to appreciate stuff like this but when our tour guide told us about the "Clay Tunnels" attraction he didn't really do a good job in letting us know what we were getting ourselves into. He made it sound like some sort of actual tunnels.... like the underground variety. That is not what that place was like at all.
In case you don't feel like reading all of this heed this warning: If you are in Da Lat and this place is recommended to you do NOT go to it. It is ages away from the city and the entire attraction is just a collection of crap that people stand in front of and take pictures.
Before you even get inside the place you kind of a get a sneak peak of what a garbage attraction you have painstakingly made your way to. Unfortunately on the other side of the ticket turnstile things don't get much better.
A giant rooster or cock that is made of peas and cabbage you say? Ok, picture taken, let's move on!
How about some sort of Roman god looking thing with the word "Stone" under it? Well we got you covered if that is your thing.
How about a trip down memory lane to gigantic cassette tapes for some reason? It's all here folks!
I suppose this was at least somewhat lovely but is it worth the 1 hour in the taxi to see it? I don't think so.
Giant cheeseburger motorcycle for some reason!
As crazy, gaudy, and stupid as the rest of that all was the strangest part of this attraction has to be the very odd memorial to Covid-19, as if any of us want to remember that very dark and stupid part of the recent past.
In a plot of land that is probably the size of a couple of football fields there are hundreds of little or large virus statues all over the place, many of which are running in fear from giant syringes.
Who wouldn't want a horrible reminder of all the crap that the world was put through over the course of nearly 2 years? This part of the park was poorly maintained and even though you couldn't pay me to ever go back to this place I certainly hope that they just allow it to crumble into nothingness.
I don't even know what to imagine was at one point going on here. I can only presume that a vaccine was beating up a couple of Covid things in a boxing ring. No matter what it is, it is stupid.
If I had to give them accolades for anything in here I guess it would be this giant dragon thing that is also a fountain and it is located right at the entrance.
The claim in this attraction is that it is called the "Clay Caves" because all of these mostly absurd and terrible statues are meant to be made of clay from nearby caves. This isn't the sort of clay that I have ever touched though and when you touched them they all felt like cement. The stuff, such as the covid cells that were falling apart had exposed rebar and what appeared to be simple concrete so I think they are lying about what the things are made of as well.
I don't really care what they are made of but once we did the loop and took pictures and mostly just laughing about how awesomely terrible this place is, we were both ready to get back in the taxi and head to a bar.
I guess you could say that I am glad that I went only so I can warn other people to not even bother. It's too far away from where almost anyone will be staying and aside from the dragon this place looks like they just let anyone come in and play artist doing whatever they wanted. There is no theme here. It's just a random collection of stuff.
I am reminded about how the person I am traveling with asked her students what was the best thing to do in Da Lat, Vietnam for tourists and everyone just said "take pictures." Thus far aside from the ropes course that we did those kids have been spot on.