Dalat Waterfall Tour with OneTrip — The Millennial Experience

I would like to start off this post with stating that this is not a sponsored post. I went on this trip before I started blogging and thought it would be helpful for anybody thinking about traveling to Dalat or doing this specific tour. I realize that this is a really long post so TLDR at the end.

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. One of the things to do is visit the waterfalls and the best way to do that is by motorbike. So my original plan was to learn to ride a motorbike while I was in Dalat and go see the waterfalls. Since it’s a quaint little town, it won’t have any traffic and I can just go really slow! I even heard from a tour guide that there’s no traffic lights in Dalat! Easy peasy. Not to mention that all the Vietnam travel videos I watched had them riding motorbikes and talking about how cheap it is. So it must be easy. Fast forward to our arrival into Dalat and it was not what I imagined at all. We took a 45 minute shuttle from the airport to Dalat through very busy and winding mountain roads. First thing’s first, Dalat is not a cute little mountain town. It’s a cute city on a mountain, with all the traffic of a city. It’s true that Dalat does not have any traffic lights. Instead, it’s governed by a series of giant roundabouts. Seeing the traffic, my husband and I quickly decided that we will not be learning to ride a scooter/motorbike in Dalat and we will be needing a guide.

We went to Vietnam during the “low” season so tours in Dalat were not happening every day. Dalat also had a lay back feel to it and people were in less of a rush. Our choices came down to trying out a cheap tour company with no reviews, getting a random easy rider to take us around or go with OneTrip, a company we had already used while we were in Ho Chi Minh. We opted for the waterfall tour with OneTrip. We wanted to go with a shared van for the two of us because I was having wrist pain and a whole day of holding on to scooter on mountain roads did not seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, they will only run a shared van tour if there’s 3+ people. There’s only the 2 of us and we were stuck doing the waterfall tour via motorbike. The OneTrip tour was $79.00USD/pp and included all the fees, food, drinks and transportation. It was one of the more expensive option but we knew the tour guides from the student tour we took the previous day and we liked the idea that everything would be taken care of.

Our tour guides arrived at our accommodation at 7:30 AM to pick us up. We hopped on their motorbikes and went off to buy breakfast. They grabbed the breakfast and took us to a cafe overlooking Tuyem Lam Lake in the mountains. At the cafe, we were able to order whatever we wanted from the menu and since Dalat is a coffee town, we both ordered coffee. We grabbed coffee, ate breakfast and had a bit of a chat. For breakfast, we had banh mi, a tapioca cake and something that resembled large mochi with a sweet peanut filling. It was the perfect way to start the day.

Before heading off, we were offered knee and arm guards. I wore it for a bit but then took them off because we felt safe and the guards were annoying. We took the scenic route (not sure if there’s a non-scenic route in Dalat) through the mountains and were told that we can stop anywhere for photos. We stopped at a few view points along the way to rest our body. After awhile, I relaxed my grip on the bike and began to really enjoy the ride, the fresh air and the views. At one of the view points, they even let us hop on the bike for a photo.

Two tourist pretending to ride a motorcycle

Our first real stop was the “Chicken Village” outside of town. We stopped by and watched a girl make some handwoven goods and climbed on a giant chicken statue. We were also allowed to wander through the village. We learned that most of the villagers, and certainly the children, did not speak any Vietnamese. What I found most interesting was that all the houses in the village were painted differently and each house had a unique style. It was a short but fun pit stop.

After the Chicken Village, we rode to a mushroom farm to buy mushrooms for our lunch. Unfortunately there was some sort of miscommunication and I think they were unable to buy any mushrooms. That being said, we were able to wander around the facilities and pointed out a weird orange fruit that we’ve never seen before. Our tour guide even picked a couple of avocados for us from the trees. Then we stopped by a roadside cafe for some fresh squeezed sugar cane juice and relaxed in a hammock. The cafe is a local spot so depending on the time of year, you could see a number of locals also relaxing in a hammock.

After the cafe, we stopped at our first waterfall. In order to get to the view point for the top of the waterfall, we had to climb through what remains of an old viewing platform that doesn’t have a floor anymore. After slipping through the gaping hole in structure, we had to waddle through some really high and semi-thick bush and grass so don’t forget to pack your bug spray and maybe wear long pants. If you’re relatively fit, you’re fine but the part of the trip can seem a bit dodgy if you’re only used to perfectly manicured trails. We sat at the view point for awhile, admiring the view of the waterfall from above. Afterwards, we walked back to the main trail and went down quite a few flights of stairs to get to the bottom of the falls.

At the bottom of the falls, our guides offered to buy us drinks and we wandered around the edge of the water taking photos. I wanted a coconut but they were sold out. My guide apologized and promised that I would get a coconut as part of lunch. To get back up to our bikes, we sat in the back of a truck and was driven back to the starting point. All of this is included in the cost of our tour.

After the first waterfall, we headed towards our lunch location. But before we got there, we made a small detour to a house in the middle of nowhere along a dirt road. One of our guides had asked if we wanted to try mulberry and we said yes. We ended up going onto the property to pick some mulberry from a bush and a guava from one of the trees.

Our lunch location was at a local’s home/restaurant/roadside cafe. The front of the home was a small convenience store with a row of hammocks. Then there was a large courtyard with multiple tables and then the house proper. The washroom/outhouse was located at the side of the house. After we arrived, we probably waited about 10 minutes for the dishes to start arriving. Our guides asked us what drinks we would like and we opted for 2 coconuts. As for lunch, we had an egg omelette, stir-fried squid with pineapples and pepper, lemongrass chicken, tofu puffs, steamed vegetables, melon soup, and rice. For dessert, we had a giant plate of sweet watermelon. We ate the meal with our guides and there were plenty of food left over. I even made a doggy friend during lunch. After lunch, we had nap time in the hammocks. Initially I was hesitant because these hammocks did not look clean and I didn’t know where people had put their feet but I was sleepy from all the food and food coma got the better of me. It was a good thing that we took a nap because it started pouring rain. It was one of the heaviest downpour we’ve had on our trip. Luckily, it stopped when we were about to leave so we only had to wipe the water from the seats on our bike.

We rode to our second waterfall, which looked completely different from the first waterfall. I will also say that this waterfall is largely not accessible and you need to be wearing some reasonable shoes to make it to the bottom of the fall. When I first saw the “path” down to the waterfall, I actually laughed. It’s basically a series of twisted metal bars stuck to some rocks. There is no marked path and what was there would not meet the definition for stairs. The rocks and the metal bars are slippery from the water and the mud, which was everywhere. If you have non-slip shoes, this would be where you’d need them. During your descend, you can stop at the middle platform and call it a day. It is nice but I would recommend that you take the trek all the way to the bottom. I had to leap on to some iffy looking boulders to take that photo at the bottom of the falls but my tour guide was there to catch me if I did fall. I would say that a good tour guide is like a life jacket - you don’t always need it but you might die if you don’t have one. On our way back up, we stopped at the middle viewing platform and then our guide took us around the platform and into a narrow opening. After climbing through some muddy and slippery rocks/logs, we arrived in the middle of a cavern with an opening to the back of the waterfalls. If you’re stupid enough (like I was) to ask for a closer look, be prepared to get SOAKED. I walked up to the edge of the water and got soaked within 2 seconds. The water is seriously powerful and it was a fun experience. I would have never known about the cavern if it weren’t for my guide. I doubt every tour group would take you to a cavern to see the back of a raging waterfall. Once we got back to the motorbikes, my guide was kind enough to offer me his spare t-shirt. He was prepared and I was very grateful because the sun was starting to set and the back of the bike was getting chilly.

On our way to our last destination, we stopped by a silk factory. I didn’t take any photos because it was basically a factory with a gift shop. When I suggested that maybe we should buy something, our tour guide told us that we shouldn’t bother. I was not going to argue with him on that. Oh and the shop did offer a tasting of silk worm cooked in lemongrass. I tried one and it was mushy. It definitely needed a crunch.

Our last stop of the day was a coffee plantation with a cafe overlooking the grounds. The specialty of the plantation is weasel coffee, one of the most expensive coffees in the world. A cup of coffee is included in the price of the tour. I had a hot cup of weasel moka with a side of condensed milk. I tried really hard to taste the difference between ordinary coffee (less than $1 CAD) and a the weasel coffee ($5 CAD) but I really couldn’t taste the difference. If there was any difference, I would say that it was minimal and is not worth capturing and caging the animals and force feeding them a diet of coffee beans for 3+ years. That being said, the view from the coffee shop was amazing and we were the only ones there. Our guide even played romantic music for us to set the mood.

After we had our coffee, we started heading back. We mentioned that we needed to find dinner and needed to exchange currency. Our guides were happy to take us to their favourite dinner spots (ones that we would have never found on our own) and to a reliable currency exchange place before taking us back to our accommodations. Our guide even messaged us after he dropped us off to recommend a second dinner spot, along with written instructions in Vietnamese for the restaurant staff to ensure we get the correct item. When we needed to find a way back to the airport, our guide made arrangements for us after realizing that our airbnb was going to charge double the average price. Now that is amazing service.

TLDR: Got to see 2 waterfalls, eat huge lunch at a local person’s courtyard and drank weasel poop coffee. Everything was included and you can’t have the same experience on your own. The tour guides from OneTrip were like our friends from Dalat and answered our questions and helped us with finding food and transport even after our tour ended. You can’t go wrong with booking a trip with them. Motorcycle all day long will be exhausting for your body though…