Jenni goes East: chasing waterfalls in Da Lat

Welcome to Vietnam part 2! As we left off last time, I was just getting on the sleeper bus to my second stop, Da Lat. It was around a 7 hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City and the sleeper buses were actually surprisingly comfortable. Did I get a straight 7 hours sleep? No. Were the buses ideally designed for someone a foot shorter than me? Yes. But overall, a very positive experience and the ticket was around £8, so great value. Like I mentioned last time, I used ChatGPT to help me craft the itinerary and the prompt I gave it was that I wanted one bustling city destination, one scenic countryside destination, and one relaxing beach destination. So without further ado, let's jump into the scenic countryside portion of my trip.

Since I arrived in Da Lat at around 6am, I headed straight to my homestay to get a bit of extra sleep. I arrived to a gorgeous sunrise, which felt like a good sign for the days ahead. I knew beforehand that I'd be arriving at that kind of time so I requested an early check-in and they were more than happy to accommodate; my hosts at this place were so lovely. I chose the Nu Cuoi Xinh homestay and it was £16 for 2 nights. The room was lovely and spacious but my favourite thing was the view, look at those giant windows!

Once I'd had a little nap and got ready for the day, I was off exploring. The first thing I noticed about Da Lat is how green it is! It's such a luscious place and they clearly take very good care of it because all of the landscaping and flowers are beautifully done. The second thing I noticed about Da Lat is how much cooler it is. While Ho Chi Minh City was about 35 degrees, Da Lat was only about 22. The funny part is that 22 in November to me is still beautifully warm, but to all the locals it was freezing. So I'm dressed relatively summery, and everyone else was in quilted jackets.

I didn't bother buying a sim card while I was away because nearly everywhere had wifi (including the buses!), so I just used google maps to save things and plot my day while I was on wifi, then just used the GPS to make sure I was following the plan once I was out and about. I know that the sim cards are cheap out there, but I've been to quite a few countries where my roaming isn't included and I always get on just fine doing it this way so I stuck to what I know. And what I know, is big walking days! Starting with venturing up towards the French Quarter. Da Lat is very hilly but the plus side of that is the beautiful views you get on the climb up.

It was very obvious once I'd actually reached the French Quarter as the building styles changed immediately. I love this style of architecture so really enjoyed wandering around looking at all the buildings. But the main amazing part was the views. The camera can't even do them justice. It was simply incredible. Even though I'm someone who travels a lot and has been to so many different places and countries, I'm still not even close to numb to it all. I'm someone who's really full of wonder and I feel like as I was walking around the French Quarter, my face could've been likened to the starry eyed emoji. I have many pinch-me moments where I think "This is my life. This gets to be my life." and this was definitely one of those.

After emerging from the French Quarter, I ticked a few more landmarks off the list. The one and only place that Da Lat seemed to be lacking was in its eiffel tower; that one was no Paris!

I was getting peckish by this point so I grabbed a tea and then found somewhere for lunch. Da Lat was a hell of a lot less touristy than Ho Chi Minh City had been and I felt like I got a true Vietnamese experience being there. The only downside is that they seemed less receptive to tourists and less generally bothered by them. And in this restaurant, they even got me a fork for my food so I was determined to prove them wrong and use chopsticks.

I always love street art and lucky for me, there was a whole street dedicated to it! I love finding quirky little spots like this.

I'd already covered a lot of ground by this point but I'd plotted a kind of circular walking route, so I was back on the uphill climb now and stopped off at the Buddhist temple. It was so beautiful! Buddhism is one religion that I have to admit I don't know a whole lot about, but everything I see, I like.

The final stop of the day for me was the flower park. It was actually quite a big attraction that you could probably easily spend a few hours going around. But with only a couple of days in Da Lat, I settled for a quick nosey and then stopped off for a drink. Vietnam honestly do hydration so well, and this lychee and dragonfruit cooler was amazing. Maybe I'd drink less alcohol if I were always in Vietnam? Maybe that wouldn't be a good thing though, drinking is part of my personality afterall.

What goes up must come down, and so I began the long walk back to my homestay which ended up taking about 40 minutes. Which I had timed perfectly, because the views over the lake and the sunset were absolutely beautiful. The sun was setting there at around half 5 each day, so it wasn't very late by the time I was back and I had chance to get ready for the evening.

Because of the lack of tourists in Da Lat, I wasn't sure if I would be making any friends on this portion of my trip. But I decided to head out for a couple of drinks anyway, in the interest of making the most of my evening. I started at a craft beer place, and then headed across the road to a cocktail bar, where I got chatting to a lovely group; Niels and Riham from the Netherlands, and Nina from Switzerland. We got chatting because I heard them mention Mui Ne, which was my next stop, and turns out Niels and Riham were heading there the next day! Although I still had another day in Da Lat, as did Nina...

So Nina and I met up and spent the day together, which worked out so well! We started off with brunch and I finally tried one of the frozen coconut coffees which was literally like a milkshake and it was SO good.

We started off at the crazy house, which felt like stepping into a Dr Seuss book! I'd read about it in a few places and all the tour days and excursions seemed to go there but I had no idea what it was. It's basically just a fun architecture project that's been there a while so it's sort of famous. There's nothing to do per se, just have a wander around and get some fun pictures. I really liked it though and loved to see the creativity and detail that had gone into it. It was also a hotel though and I wouldn't like to stay there with loads of tourists wandering up to your room the whole time!

Our plan after that had been to get the cable car up to the top of the mountain. But we actually managed to pick the one afternoon out of the whole year when the cable car was closed for maintenance! That was probably my fault because things like that are, as my brother Aidan put it, "very classic Littlehales". We seem good at bad timing! We were still able to enjoy the view from the cable car station before ordering a taxi to take us up instead.

Then we were back on the Buddhist vibe as we took a trip around the monastery. It was a really beautiful complex, with lovely grounds and a view of the mountains beyond. The sun even started to come out for us so we had lovely blue skies!

When I factored in a countryside destination to my Vietnam itinerary, this was exactly what I was hoping for. The whole lake area was like a national park, and we decided to have a little wander around, grab a drink, and enjoy the scenery. Again, it was just literally breathtaking. I probably could've sat there all day just drinking it in.

Then we ignored TLC's advice and went chasing some waterfalls! Datanla was home to a few different falls, and even had some adventure-y things going on there like canyoning and high rope courses. They also had an alpine coaster, which was basically a toboggan run that I caught down to the falls. That was a fun touch! The waterfalls themselves were beautiful and a perfect final stop for the day.

That evening then worked out perfectly. I had a list of different Vietnamese foods I wanted to make sure I tried while out there and hot pot was high on the list, especially since I'd never tried it. This was the perfect occasion for 2 reasons. 1) because I was out with Nina and I don't think you can realistically do hot pot solo (atleast not to the variety that I would want). And 2) because doing it in Da Lat, the cooler destination, was the sensible choice. Doing hot pot is boiling, your table is essentially a stove! And the food was absolutely amazing. We went somewhere that gets you to pick 4 different broths as standard, and then we ordered 2 different kinds of beef, a mixed mushroom plate, a mixed vegetable plate, a mixed noodle plate and some tofu. It also came with 5 different dipping sauces and condiments. Honestly everything was incredible and so much fun too. I love my dinner with a side of theatre! It was definitely the perfect note to end my time in Da Lat on. Because early the next morning, it was onwards to my third destination...