Thanks for the article, saved it. I can't imagine how many grunts keep there sanity smoking some good Dalat. ''the mind of God'' got to be a hell of a trippy sativa.A partial reprint of a High Times article. I cannot find the entire article anymore.
HEART OF DANKNESS
A Pot Crop Lives Now
by Dr. Dalat
august 2005
The story of a war-veteran helicopter pilot who never got higher than when he smoked the fabled Vietnamese strains while in country. Decades later, he seeks out these same plants to grow for himself at home and to smoke through his retirement.
Story & photos by Dr. Dalat
Thirty-two years ago, I was a 20-year-old fresh-faced and very naive young man sent to Southeast Asia by the US governmentcaught up, like so many of my generation, in the wide, sweeping net of the final military draft of the last century and sent to fight the war in Vietnam. As a helicopter pilot, I flew all over the central highlands of that country, circa 1969-71, and experienced much of the worst that man has to offer his fellow man, but also plenty of the best. One of my most remarkable memories was discovering a plantation of 30-foot-tall cannabis sativa trees in a very isolated province called Dalat.
Dalat at that time was way off the beaten path. Nestled between two mountain ranges at an altitude of around 4,500 feet and really only accessible from the air (I had a distinct advantage because of my air mobility), the region was rumored amongst the grunts to be the birthplace of Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnams spiritual and political leader, and therefore off limits to the enemy Viet Cong. The truth of the matter was, of course, quite different. In reality, the VC used Dalat for R&R (rest and relaxation) for their troops and therefore, quite wisely, refrained from initiating any action in and around the province. In effect, both sides considered it an unofficial no-fire zone.
While on one of my many fly-ins to Dalat City, I met the owner of the cannabis plantationa wonderful older French gentleman who was always more than kind when it came to sharing his bounty. For our part, those of us in the helicopter crews kept him well stocked with much-needed and hard-to-get staples and supplies that we would scavenge from the various US base mess halls and supply depots that we visited regularly.
The best of the sativas came from the highland areas of Vietnam, places like Ban Me Thuot and Pleiku, and were similar to the highland Thai sativas in almost all respects. The very best of all were grown in the province of Dalatcultivated for centuries by the indigenous tribes of mountain people known as Montagnards (although in their language, they refer to themselves as Human Beings), these crops produced without a doubt the most remarkable and mind-expanding herb Ive ever experienced.
Keep in mind that the Montagnard people are an ancient culture, with no real written recordonly stories passed down from generation to generation. I recall most vividly sitting amongst the tribal chieftains and listening to them chant stories about the beginnings of time and how cannabis had been with them forever to guide them on their spiritual journey of pantheism. They have two words in their language for cannabis. The first translates loosely as Path to the Gods. The second is used only if you smoke too much of this fine herb, and it describes the state of mind of someone who has done just that. It translates simply as The Mind of God.
For many of us who served the Masters of War in those days, Vietnamese pot became our path to sanity, our lifeline. It was a simple yet very effective way of maintaining peace of mind amidst the chaos of the conflictan escape from the horrendous reality of our daily lives. From 1964 to 1974, thousands of US soldiers came home from the war carrying as much of this boo with them as possibleintroducing the exotic smokes of Southeast Asia to the world at large, the seeds of which would provide the main genetic building blocks for many modern strains of cannabis. Ask anyone who came of age during that time, and youll notice a quick flash of the eyes as their mind recalls the experience of smoking the jungle kind. Though often ridiculed by younger generations as the quaint musings of aging hippies, the sad fact remains that most folks younger than 45 simply have never experienced the mind-bending high of the pure land-race sativa strains of Southeast Asia.
http://hightimes.com/grow/ddalat/1748
Damn had a long reply and got randomly logged out. Hopefully here cousin can hook us up. Defly not enough sativa growers. scrog seems to be the best way to control height and get light to the most bud sights. between you and bricktop I've gained alot of great info.i´ve read that you should not start to flower sativas before they´ve matured (ehh, whats it called, when the stems dont grow side to side anymore?)
since , its the the premature flowering that makes them hermy. (as in "oh shit, im starting really late, better make some insurance balls")
and so far, well, i aint seen no hermying.
on resin, you wont see any crystals or resin for the most part, curiously sativas dont tend to display that.
you can speed up flowering with a 11/13 flower cycle.
still, probably gonna take 1.5 months to begin to flower, (and thats after maturing the plant first)
about buying in vietnam, well, id make some friends first, i would not try to buy off the street. the cops are rather brutal to boot. but its a very nice place really, good people and cheap to live there.
reminding sorta of a more tropical spain in looks.
the flowering, the plants i saw out there, hehehe 6 feet tall with hardly any buds (tiny) and i didnt see any change in the plants to speak of the 2 times i saw them (month apart)
id. do either scrog or sog, if i was gonna do this strain alone.
with sog, then a ton of tiny plants all started flowering as soon as roots showed.
but, your instincts are on the button, as far as ive seen, these strains seems highly suited to scrogging, specially if you top them at the 3rd node (automatically creating 4 tops)
and create many many branches.
(btw , international canna graphic, the forum, has quite a few more pure sativa growers and is the site i would go to for more information, though, bricktop and i probably have told you most of the info.)
just felt too high in a kinda "too drunk" way. (not really comparing the "high" though) (they call it cansa(dunno if spelt right, prounounced gan sa) friendly and lovely people though (well as long as they didnt think you were doing hooha before the marriage, caused a bit of trouble our impatience wasnt that big of a deal though. but bit of a puritans, somewhat reminiscent of americans actually, 
funny life eh?)
what are you , like 18 yrs old? were do you get your information from man. i think your EXACTLY wrong about this and many other things that spill outa your keyboard and i think you END your posting career . Good to know you base your pot knowledge on a fuckin fictional Nam movie your an IDIOT
dude WTF are you talkign about? i could swear you just copied and pasted that from another post you made a few days ago. Do you go out of your way to be stupid ? Nothing you post makes any sense or holds any relvance what so ever, and 99.8721% of it is bullshit anyways.
wolf man brah--
this thread brought it all back-
he is right why are u sayi' n he is lying, many of those south east asian sativa landraces are trippy
He would have no idea. You would have to know his history to understand.