Dalat - The Paris of Vietnam — The Millennial Experience

Let me start by saying that I know there is a “Paris” or “Venice” of any and every country. Having never been to Europe (yet), it’s not really a good descriptor for me. I wanted to go to Dalat after seeing it appear on a bunch of travel list to visit before it becomes too popular and hidden gems in Vietnam. In my mind, it was a quaint little town up in the mountains. In reality, Dalat was a clean and beautiful city in the mountains. Even though my time in the city was short, I thought I would share some of my experiences with you so you’ll have a more realistic idea of what traveling there for the first time would look like.

How to get to Dalat: There are tons of buses and mini vans from HCMC to Dalat, is relatively cheap and takes 7-9 hours. If you don’t mind being on a bus, you can take an overnight bus to save time and save money on one night of accommodation. You can also hire a driver/car to drive you from any city to Dalat, which takes the same amount of time as the buses/mini vans but is more comfortable and private. For me, I get motion sickness and prefer to spend as little time on a bus/car as possible so we opted to use air travel, which is probably the most expensive option but only took 1 hour.

Arriving to/from Airport: When we booked our flight from HCMC to Dalat, we had no idea how to get into town. We had no idea how far the airport would be from the main part of the city. Normally we would plan out everything but for this trip, we tried to go with the flow. We heard from our tour guide in HCMC that there’s a shuttle from the airport to Dalat for $10,000 Dong/pp, which is less than $1.00 CAD. Sure enough, when we got to Dalat, we found a shuttle into the main part of town but it was for $20,000 Dong/pp. The shuttle was a small mini bus and left when it was full. We did consider getting a Grab car but the app only showed Grab taxi and it was estimated to be over $400,000 Dong for the trip.

When leaving Dalat, our Onetrip tour guide help us arrange a taxi to come pick us up at our accommodation for $180,000 Dong. Our hostel tried to charge us $300,000 Dong for the same service. Our accommodation is located at a bottom of a pretty steep hill and we didn’t want to lug our luggage up the steep hill to get to the original shuttle location. If your hotel/accommodation tries to charge you $300,000 Dong for private car ride, they are ripping you off since $180,000 Dong is the standard rate.

Accommodation: So when I was looking at booking a place, I noticed that there’s a bunch of really affordable hotels. Like a giant suite with a balcony in the heart of Dalat for under $40.00 CAD. But I also noticed that none of the rooms, including higher end options had air conditioning. That means you have to leave your windows open and if you’re in the middle of town, it can get noisy. Even though it may be a cute little town in my mind, I didn’t want to risk having noisy, sleepless nights. So I opted for a private room at a hostel (Maple Hostel) with great reviews and apparently 10-15 minute walk from the center. I say apparently because I never tested it out. We had a jam pack schedule, there’s a lot of hills and we were really lazy, so we took Grab taxi into town instead of walking.

As for the hostel, it was super clean, someone came into clean the room every day. I saw a bunch of reviews where they served breakfast and there’s coffee but that wasn’t my experience. They did not serve breakfast and didn’t make traditional Vietnamese coffee. They only had instant coffee, which was a bit disappointing. They also tried to charge us $300,000 Dong for a private car ride from the hostel to the airport. Our OneTrip tour guide told us the average price is $160,000 Dong and made the arrangements for us.

Market Place: The day time and the night time market are located in the same place. There is, however, a difference in what they sold.

During the day, it’s similar to most Asian markets with a section for raw meats and other sections for produce. Food vendors are sprinkled throughout the whole market (minus the raw meats section). We went to the day time market for lunch and really enjoyed ourselves. The foods were incredibly cheap and were pretty delicious. I will be honest, we didn’t always know what we were eating but that was part of the adventure. We also did not experience stomach issues during our time here or anywhere in Vietnam.

During the night, the market focused on “Vietnamese Pizza” and skewers. We saw a couple of vendors making ice cream rolls, a stand of whole cooked chickens, and one with buckets of seafood. We only had some skewers and Vietnamese Pizza at the market but we felt like there weren’t enough variety at the night market. We did visit during off season so maybe the market is busier during other times.

One thing we did notice during both day and night are the number of stands selling avocados. There’s 2 varieties, long cucumber looking ones, and GIANT versions of the North American ones. They taste completely different and I would highly recommend that you buy both of them to try.

Other Points of Interest:

Doha Cafe and surrounding plaza is located right in front of Hồ Xuân Hương Lake in the city center. The Doha Cafe is a green structure that I thought resembles an avocado but is apparently suppose to be an artichoke. It is about a 5 minute walk from the market place along the lake and I would highly encourage you to grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the view. Underneath Doha Cafe is a huge supermarket, a number of restaurants and I think a movie theater. If nothing else, it’s a great way to get away from the sun and heat.

Da Lat King Palace I is built by a French merchant and was a royal residence of Bao Dai, Vietnam’s last emperor. It has beautiful gardens, tree lined walkways, a restaurant and lots of areas for photos. There’s even a military helicopter. Strolling through the palace, I definitely thought I was transported to Europe.

Tuyền Lâm Lake is a 20 minute drive from Dalat. It is a beautiful lake with a number of resorts and cafes. Our Onetrip tour guide took us to a small cafe (Seen House) right on the lake and as a bonus, they also have private rooms that sit directly on the lake. If you’re interested, here’s the link to the TripAdvisor page for the cafe/rooms and their Facebook page.

Waterfall or Coffee Tour is highly recommended. The area has a number of waterfalls and is known for growing coffee beans. It has a number of coffee plantation that sources the “weasel coffee”. I completed a specific blog post for the waterfall tour I took but there’s a lot of other options out there.

TLDR: Go to Dalat to escape the crowds and heat of the HCMC and Hanoi. People are friendly, it’s surrounded by nature and accommodations are very reasonable.