Da Lat flower festival patrons left homeless

Thousands of visitors to the Da Lat Flower Festival were left out in the cold this weekend as the city’s 40,000 hotel rooms were no match for the 100,000 tourists who had come to marvel in the horticultural splendor.
The central highlands resort town’s biennial flower festival is one of Vietnam’s largest celebrations and never fails to attract large crowds to Da Lat, the crown jewel and de facto capital of the “tonkinese alps.”
However, only 50 percent of the festival’s visitors were able to stay overnight this year, with hundreds, settling into local parks at night and thousands others simply leaving.
As first of ten events celebrating Hanoi’s 1,000th anniversary this year, the four-day festival drew record crowds as early as Friday, though the event did not officially open until Saturday
Some 12,000 people attended the opening ceremony alone.
Da Lat’s third biennial flower festival featured flower and ornamental plant exhibitions, a flower-product trade show and a flower fair.