A great stop to break up your journey south on your Vietnam itinerary. Surrounded by green hills, waterfalls and forests, Dalat is a perfect place for scenic moped drives and riding an Alpine Coaster!

How We Got Here

We travelled to Dalat on a 15 hour night bus and it was surprisingly ok. With a few good movies downloaded, the time passed quite quickly. Luckily this journey didn’t have many stops on the way, we had a final stop around 10pm for facilities use and food stop before we cruised all the way to Dalat. We arrived on time and it was by far one of the best bus experiences that we had, which you want for a 15 hour bus ride! I’d recommend booking in advance, a few days more than we did, as you might be able to get on a better coach than the budget one we were on. Regardless, with a blow up pillow, an eye mask and some ear plugs, any of them are definitely bearable for a night. As standard, you’ll get blankets on your bed and sometimes even a bottle of water. I also loved that all the night buses require passengers to take their shoes off (you’ll be given a little bag for them) which is nice to know that people aren’t walking their dirty shoes everywhere.

Han’s Hint: It’s best to wear easy to get off and on shoes, I wore trainers the first couple of times and it was so faffy, so the rest of the buses I wore birkenstocks and fluffy socks! 

Where We Stayed

Accommodation seemed to be really varied in Dalat, with not many budget options, so we opted for a private room in the Dalat Family Hostel. It’s really highly rated on Hostel World but it was possibly the worst hostel we stayed in. The photos are much nicer than it was in real life (it happens) and the room we had was windowless which was not great but you get what you pay! We participated in the hostel’s ‘family’ dinner (it was an experience for sure) and I wouldn’t bother participating f you’re staying here, as it wasn’t worth the money. The hostel boasted good facilities so we made use of them but unfortunately they weren’t the best – the bar room had snooker tables which is great but it was accompanied by a family of cockroaches. I could handle the cockroaches to an extent but after we saw a rat in the hostel on the last night, I really wanted to leave. Thankfully, the dreaded rat sighting wasn’t near our rooms but I couldn’t relax after. 

Without being too negative, parts of the hostel were fine, after all it is budget travelling! They offered ped rentals and could book our onwards travel but even this was a bit of a shamble. We asked to rent two peds on our one full day in Dalat but the hostel had issues with some of the bikes so they were working on limited fleet. We had to wait until people returned which is absolutely fine as this can’t be helped but a few people who had joined the rental queue after us were given their bikes first so that wasn’t great. We did raise this at the time and the staff apologised and kindly only charged us a half day rate instead which we really appreciated. 

On the day we left Dalat, we booked our next bus through the hostel and we arrived in the common area nice and early to wait for our transfer to the bus station. As the hostel had organised transfers for other groups, we had asked for them to do the same for us. We watched people leaving as our time for our transfer came and went – the hostel staff were shouting out the different booking names as each transfer arrived. We gave them the benefit of doubt for a while, but after seeing those with later transfers get collected, we went to chase ours and they said there were no transfers organised for anyone. It was all very confusing as they had offered, told us it has been booked and we had watched them organise other guests transfers whilst claiming they weren’t. I assumed they’d just forgotten us by a genuine mistake but instead of trying to help they told us we would need to sort it ourselves. We just arranged a Grab ourselves and luckily we made it to the bus stop with a few mins to go. But when we arrived at the bus stop, we found out that the ticket for the bus was their receipt and not our tickets, so Mike went back on a Grab, explained and they luckily gave us the tickets. It was all really stressful and a bit of a chaotic mess from start to finish, but bizarrely it is still highly rated on Hostel World, so maybe we just had a bad experience. Overall, I wouldn’t personally recommend this hostel!

Where to Eat

One night we had the disastrous ‘Family’ Dinner and the second night we ate at a really lovely restaurant called that our friend found. We all had different dishes, I had a Pho which was so tasty. We shared spring rolls and summer rolls alongside our mains, they were also good. Really fresh food and run by a lovely family. Unfortunately, it’s one of the only restaurants I have no saved place for on google maps, so I’m not able to remember the name – not very helpful on a blog, I know!

Before we arrived in Dalat, I looked at a few food options. The night market was really popular on TikTok for trying different foods. We thought we’d have a look around ourselves but we didn’t find it to be as good as TikTok made it seem. We tried some strawberries with sugar and they were ok, but the rest looked pretty unappealling – it was not the best night market. We aren’t sure if we just went on the wrong day but most of the stalls were random toys, key rings, clothes and shoes, not food. If you’re thinking of trying food at the night market, I would have a couple of back up restaurants in case you find yourselves in a similar situtation. 

How We Got Around

Dalat isn’t the most accessible, the town was busy with big roads and traffic and all the things we wanted to do were not in walking distance. We mostly used Grab to get around in the town centre, and then on our full day, rented the peds from the hostel as I previously mentioned. If you’re wanting to get out and about here, you will be best to hire a ped but if you’ve not done it before, this isn’t the place to try. You’ll find tours to all of the popular activities so I’d recommend budgeting for this if you’re not hiring a ped.

What We Did

Dalat had a few things that we wanted to see and we planned to do most of it on one day. As usual, our itinerary was split over the three days – you’d probably guessed that from the blog title! 

Day 1: Arrive in Dalat, get to the hostel, kill a couple of hours with some relaxing or planning before checking in. On our first night the family dinner took place and then we made use of the bar and snooker tables accompanied by the cockroaches. If you don’t fancy a relaxing first day after the 15 hour night bus, theres plenty more to do in the city – I’ve put some options on Day 3. 

Day 2: Day two was our ped day. Once we finally were out and about on the bikes, we firstly drove to the Datanla Alpine Coaster, which is around 45 minutes from the center of Dalat. The coaster had been on our list since we had decided to visit Vietnam as it’s what most people visit Dalat for. Surrounded by a large waterfall, the self controlled coaster takes you through the trees as you wind your way down to the bottom of the falls. The Alpine Coaster was busy when we arrived, but it moves quickly. There is a small cafe and restaurant at the entrance which we made the most of – it was expensive, as is food at every type of attraction, but it was a perfect spot to wait for the coaster queue to go down a little. The ride entrance fee is between 30,000 VND to 50,000 VND per adult and is dependent on whether you wish to a single ride or a return. We opted for a return ride and it was worth doing as it was two trips on the coaster instead of just one, from the top to the bottom of the falls and back up again. The coaster carts are for 2 person sized and you control the cart’s speed as you fly down the track by using the brake. A some points the track got a little clogged up with the number of carts but we still got to wizz around at some speed which was hilarious. Once you’ve reached the bottom of the down track, there is a small walk to see the falls and a few other attractions. The queue to go up the return track can get rather long but it moves quickly as the carts are on a constant cycle and the staff are pretty quick at getting people off and back on. If you get a chance to experience the coaster, I definitely recommend as it really is fun! 

After the coaster, we got back on our peds to head over to the Lin An Pagoda. The journey shouldn’t have taken too long, but as there were road works taking place on the forest road, we ended up driving back to Dalat to get round to the Pagoda. As this was a while ago, I am hoping the new roads have opened and the journey between the two will be much quicker. When we arrived at the Pagoda, we climbed to the top via the hidden inside staircase to the viewing platforms which gave us really good views out over the Vietnamese countryside. From the Pagoda windows we could see Elephant Falls which we headed to next. We found that the falls were closed due to maintenance but the security guard let us in to have a look. It was all a bit odd, and we said yes to entering before I really thought about what we were doing. I wouldn’t recommend entering the falls, they were closed as some of the paths had been washed away so it was dangerous and we couldn’t really see the falls from where we could get to. The view was much better from the Pagoda!

Once we had had enough of the explore at the Pagoda and the falls, we headed back to Dalat on the bikes. A lot of the ped’s don’t have great lights and as the roads were not the easiest we wanted to get back while it was still daylight. It was timed accidentally but we ended up riding back at the exact moment the sun was setting across the hills. It was one of the best sunsets we had in Vietnam! I’ve popped a photo below. Depending on what time you’re in Dalat, it might be worth seeing if you can take a sunset ride as it was so beaut! 

Back at the hostel and refreshed, we booked a Grab to the lovely family run restaurant, before heading to the night market and to the famous Maze bar. The Maze bar was on our list from another TikTok recommendation. The bar is what is says it is, and is split across multiple levels with hidden bars on the different floors. The cocktails were strong and cheap, a perfect place for backpackers. 

Day 3: Today was our move on day and with the issues that we had with our transfers and early bus, we did nothing but travel. However, if you have plenty of time, there are a few other things to do in Dalat such as the Da La Flower Gardens or many adrenaline fuelled activities such as white water rafting, mountain biking, forest treks or explore the Cat Tien National Park. 

Han’s Hint: Check out the dates of the Flower Festival if you’re heading to Dalat between December and January. 

Hope you found this blog helpful if you’re planning to add Dalat to your Vietnam Itinerary. Need more structure for your route? I’ve written a Month in Vietnam itinerary here! 

Thanks for reading!