[Video] Vintage VHS Travelogue Takes You to Đà Lạt in 1992

Get ready for a road trip with nostalgia riding shotgun.

Đà Lạt of 1992 is a video posted by YouTube channel Lâm Tre Bụi. In that year, most of us at Saigoneer hadn't been born yet, but somehow the footage still feels familiar. Perhaps it's because of the narrative subtitles that Lâm added based on his personal experience of the city.

The video starts the same way most people come to Đà Lạt in real life: in a car through the Prenn Mountain Pass. The on-screen drive through the pine forest is made more real with Lâm as the "tour guide" in the annotated video sequences. Lâm adds that he got the reel from Viet Pham, a contributor who must have been well off to afford to record color videos back then.

The video then takes us to the city center as Lâm points out places of interest such as Đà Lạt Market and Xuân Hương lake. The city was much quieter back then, without the throngs of tourists and the cluster of shops we see there today. Still, some things remained unchanged through the years and here and there, the streets are littered with trash while couples hold hands and exchange smiles in one of Vietnam’s most romantic cities.

“Whoever passed through here during that time can feel themselves immersed in the reel,” Lâm writes. And whoever hasn't can still feel the same, too. Such is the case of this writer, who was a mere infant in Hanoi when the footage was taken. Watch the video below and see for yourself:

Video via YouTube channel Lâm Tre Bụi.