We arrived in Da Lat at the weekend, and got a nice upgrade to a bigger room with a balcony since the hotel was completely empty. After checking in went straight out to explore the town. There’s a large lake in the centre, so we headed here first, with a stop at an enormous supermarket on the way to pick up some essentials (toothbrush and chocolate). We took in the lake views from a large square where a lot of food sellers suddenly packed up very quickly and ran away when someone spotted a cop, and then we watched them come right back as soon as he’d left. We wandered along the lake front towards the market street, which was not as markety as most towns – some clothing stalls all selling the same coats and hats, and a couple of food stalls with the local ‘Vietnamese pizza’ made on rice paper instead of bread. We picked up some sweet potato crisps, and wandered through the inside market where again every single stall was selling the exact same selection – dried fruits, candied fruits, and various vegetable chips. And all for the same price, so I don’t know how you’re supposed to choose which stall to go to, and can only assume that the people in the middle are not particularly successful. Being in the mountains Dalat is hillier than anywhere we’ve been recently, and next we had to climb lots of steps to reach the rest of town. We sought out a wine bar (Dalat is where all Vietnamese wine is made) but it turned out to just be a shop with a smaller selection than the supermarket, and then hit up a bakery that Creed remembered from his trip here 11 years ago. We picked out a bacon-wrapped hot dog, a bacon-wrapped egg and cheese sandwich, a pork-floss pizza, a pastry with an unknown filling (it turned out to be meat and very tasty), an orange cake and a chocolate muffin. This seemed like enough food to get us through the day, so after continuing down the main bar street to explore future evening options and checking out a tourist office to see if we wanted to do any day trips, we took a taxi back to the hotel for a picnic in front of the TV.

The next morning we went to a Japanese style onsen spa that Creed had found, with 5 different types of tub to soak in with different healing and relaxation properties, and 3 different types of sauna and steam room. We got a happy hour deal that included 4 hours and lunch of we went early in the day, so we were pretty much the first in but it filled up quickly. There was a specific order to use the tubs and saunas, so by the time we’d done it all and finished lunch there was no one left in the hot tub section, so we went back again to have it to ourselves for a while. In the afternoon we’d intended to go back out into town to wander some more, but weren’t feeling motivated to do anything at all and ended up just staying in the room for over 24 hours, save from the couple of trips downstairs to get the food delivery.

The following day we eventually decided to stop being so lazy and took another walk, this time to the Crazy House which is exactly how it sounds. It’s a hotel built with weird pathways and bridges between the different buildings, with creatures coming out of the walls and weird decorations and statues in random places. Despite being a hotel most people just go to wander around as a tourist. From here we headed back into town in search of food, but ended up back at the same bakery from the first day. This time we tried the local favourite of meatball broth with bread to dip into it. We also got another bacon-wrapped hot dog and meat pastry thing since those were the winners from our previous picnic, and sat on the steps leading down to the market to eat. In the evening we tried a couple of interesting cocktails, and then ended up at the Maze Bar which was very much like the crazy house, but with drinks. We explored multiple possible routes to various seating areas and alcoves, and climbed all the way through the multi story building to reach the rooftop, only to find the were also many different sections of rooftop with various staircases leading to them. This was definitely one of the most unique bars I’ve been to, but since you buy your drink at the entrance, by the time you’ve explored your way through the maze to a table you definitely don’t want to go back to get another drink, and by the time you’ve found your way back to the entrance you may as well just leave, so it doesn’t seem to be a great business model. 

Our next day we hired a motorbike to explore all the tourists sites on the outskirts of town. The first stop was a temple completely decorated in mosaics of glass and ceramics, with some more weird decoration of creatures coming out from the walls. There were a few different buildings to explore, some with huge statues, and a pagoda to climb. There was also a basement level, with a walkway through the Buddhist version of Dante’s 9 circles of hell. We witnessed very confusing depictions of demons torturing skeletons, lots of faces with glowing eyes and yet more animals coming out of walls. After this very surreal experience we hopped back on the bike and drove to Datanla Waterfall. Unfortunately this series of three waterfalls has no been split into two different ticketed areas, one of which is only accessible by a mountain coaster ride or zip line. We chose the mountain coaster as it seemed like the waterfall at the end of it was the most impressive of the three. The ride was fun, but the waterfall had been turned into a very gimmicky tourist area with fairground games and fake wood walkways with Instagram photo spots, and then we had to queue for the ride to get back as this was the only way to leave. Then, thanks to being on a ride, I realised I’d lost the parking ticket, and the car park guards chose to take the keys out of the bike and ransom them for a large fine for the lost ticket, while laughing and running away from us when we tried to talk to them. I could tell the longer story but the whole situation was unnecessarily escalated and I ended up feeling incredibly uncomfortable, and it put a big damper on the rest of the day. Our next stop was a ‘sculpture tunnel’ which wasn’t really a tunnel, and was also gimmicky and with lots of Instagram photo spots, but this time with interesting enough statues and sculptures to be worth the ticket, and we talked and calmed down while wandering the park. From here I kind of just wanted to go home, but Creed pointed out that we had enough time left in the light to take the cable car out to another temple in the hills, and it would be easier to get to the cable car station while we still had the bike. So we drove here on the way back to the hotel, and the cable car over the trees and hills was actually very relaxing and very scenic, and quite a long ride for such a cheap price. We wandered the temple grounds at the top, and then took the cable car back again and ended our day. In the evening we decided to do a loop around the entire lake before returning the bike, and picked up a bottle of local wine from the supermarket on the way home. 

Our final day in Dalat was another leisurely one. After a slow morning we took a taxi to the flower garden for a walk, and then found a brewery to eat at and spent a long time slowly trying their selection of craft beers, ciders and fruit liquors. Our final stop for the day was a tea and sweets place that did an unlimited buffet of 10 different types of tea, all of the candied fruits and vegetable chips from the market, bread with different fruit jams, and many flavours of ice cream. We spent an hour or so snacking here, and then walked back along the lake to our hotel for the final time. 

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!