🇻🇳 Vietnam: Da Lat. Travel and Backpacking. Dec 2019

Disclaimer

The information in this blog is accurate as of November 2019.

CONTENTS

• 🤔 – What to Expect
• 🌅 – Activities
• 🍛 – Food
• 🚇 – Transport
• 🛌 – Accomodation

🤔 What to Expect

• At night, the large lake in the centre glistens reflecting the neon lights from the town.
• Greenhouses engulf the surrounding hillsides.
• Flowers galore!

🌅 Activities

Elephant Falls (That Voi)

• 20,000 VND entrance fee per person.
• Lovely views of the cascading waterfall from the bottom.
• You enter at the top of the falls.
• Makeshift stairs make access to the bottom of the waterfall. Ensure to hold the rail as it’s slippery at points.
• Unsuitable for people who struggle with mobility as the walk down can be a little challenging at points.
• You are able to walk near the back of the waterfall but be warned you may get wet.

• Spend one to one and a half hours here.
• Easily accessible via public bus, motorcycle, taxi or tour group booking. We obviously took the public bus (see Transport). TIP: Refer to Elephant Falls as That Voi if they don’t understand where you mean.
• Few restaurants, coffee shops and mini marts nearby.

Crazy House (Hotel and Museum)

• 60,000 VND entrance fee per person.
• The weird and the wonderful!
• A mishmash of different worlds combined.
• You can even stay here for VND per night.
• A few cafes/ drinks bars located onsite.
• Souvenir shop.
• Easily spend 1-3 hours here.

Flower Gardens

• Not overally exciting.
• Mall/Big C Supermarket underneath.
• Lots of people around – watch your bags.
• Great views of Xuan Huong lake and the surrounding hilltops.

Other Things To Do

Unfortunately we only spent 1 full day here as our visa was running out. However there are plenty of other things to do in Da Lat…

• Visit the Coffee Plantation (accessible via public bus).
• See Linh Phuoc or Linh Son Pagoda.
• Visit Prenn or Datanla Waterfalls.
• Go lake pedal boating (Arran threatened to push me in a few times so I didn’t risk this one).
• Visit, yet another, night market.

🍛 Food

Blue Parrot Mexican Grill

• Average prices for fantastic food.
• 80,000 VND (£2.60) for medium and 110,000 VND (£3.60) for large beef burrito. – I mean this seems cheap but overall in Vietnam it was a little more expensive.

• You guessed it – Mexican cuisine.
• We were also tempted into getting a deep fried ice cream which was lovely. 35,000 VND (£1.20).

• Wonderful and friendly Texan owner named Tim. We spent ages chatting about his 9 years in Vietnam and getting to understand the culture.
• We learnt that the Vietnamese always believe they are right as they are not allowed to make mistakes – they can be punished at school.
• They don’t believe the sky is blue as they don’t have blue in their vocabulary – it’s green!

Thien Thanh Cafe

• Relatively cheap for Da Lat.
• Served free tea.
• Mainly Vietnamese cuisine.
• However we opted for spaghetti bolognese.
• Two spag bol and two soft drinks cost 194,000 VND (£6.25).
• Not too far from the Crazy House.

🚇 Transport

Local Bus

• Cheap and a great way to get to Elephant Falls.
• Price dependant on travel distance.
• Elephant Falls was 25,000 VND (£0.85) per person one way.
• Travel with locals and take in the beautiful landscape.

Directions to Elephant Falls

• The bus drops you off on a road in a small town/village.
• Walk around 10-15 minutes to reach elephant falls.
• Walk in the direction that the bus will continue (if you came from Da Lat), basically a straight line, until you see this sign…

• Now turn right and walk a few metres as the Elephant Falls entrance will be on your left.

🛌 Accommodation

Mr Rot’s Secret Hotel

• One of the cheaper accomodations compared to the many expensive ones around.
• However, expensive because we have had better for less.
• 397,000 VND (12.80) per night including breakfast.
• Cold – no heater – had to ask for another quilt.
• They took both passports… This was unusual for us as most places either wanted one or took pictures/scans.
• This in turn restricted motorbike accessibility and when queried the hotel stated we could rent off them.
• Room was small but clean.
• Had a small amount of amenities.
• Breakfast was basic but good.
• Shower took time to heat up…cold nuts.