The journey from Hoi An was a long 13 hour sleeper bus, however we got through it with a little bit of sleep and lots of Netflix! We arrived in Da Lat around 7am and it was very cold compared to the heat we had been experiencing! We headed straight for our hostel and luckily they let us straight into our room so we could have a nap before the day of exploring.
On our first day in Da Lat we explored the city, it’s culture and history. We walked around the beautiful Xuan Huong lake, had lunch in one of the famous coffee houses and also visited the ‘Crazy House’. The Crazy House was really interesting and cool to see, we enjoyed climbing up the narrow staircases and getting to look out over Da Lat city. That evening we found a nice, little restaurant which sold amazing Vietnamese food. We also had some drinks with friends at the hostel and then headed for bed!
On day 2 we decided to rent a motorbike with some friends and head to the waterfall. The waterfall was around 20 minutes out of town and the drive there was pretty crazy as we were trying to get out of the busy city during rush hour! When we arrived at the waterfall we discovered that you could get a a toboggan ride down to the waterfall (costing 150,000 dong). This was such a fun experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting the waterfall even if it a little on the expensive side! The waterfall itself wasn’t actually that impressive if I am honest (I think partly because the waterfall we saw in Luang Prabang was breathtaking), however the ride down made the whole thing worth it!
For the rest of that day we explored Da Lat more and saw a beautiful lake. We were also going to trek to the viewpoint however the rain soon started to come down so we decided this wasn’t the best idea! Instead we headed back to the hostel and had the family cooked dinner that evening and then had some drinks whilst playing lots of pool!
On our final day in Da Lat we headed to the elephant waterfall. It was about an hours drive out of town (again quite stressful as we were driving through rush hour and nearly got stopped by a policeman) but the roads were really nice to drive on and we saw some amazing views. When we arrived at the falls we trekked down towards the waterfall. On our way down we discovered a cave below the waterfall which was really noisy as the waterfall came crashing into it. The waterfall itself was huge which I did not expect and it was definitely not a disappointment. Even though the water wasn’t clear, the waterfall itself was beautiful.
After the waterfall we stopped for lunch in a small town, the lunch was very strange and the woman spoke no English so I’m not actually sure what we were eating was what we ordered! The drive back into town was eventful as the rain started to come down extremely heavy making it very hard to see anything. However we made it back into the city in one piece and finished the day off by visiting the maze bar and having dinner.
Our time in Da Lat soon came to an end and we were again making our way back onto another bus! We enjoyed Da Lat as we didn’t find it too touristy and their were lots of locals buzzing about constantly. Although it rained a lot we enjoyed the colder weather (18 degrees) compared to the hot 35 degrees weather we had been having! We found it quite hard to find the city centre in Da Lat where all the bars and restaurants were but we soon realised they were scattered all over the city. We enjoyed spending time with the friends we had made and making arrangements to do some further travelling with them. Next stop and the last of Vietnam … Ho Chi Minh!
Adventure Awaits... 