A month in Vietnam: Part 4 - Dalat

View from our hostel in Dalat

 After spending some relaxing days down in the Mekong Delta, our next stop was Dalat, an inland city in the mountains. To get there we took the sleeper bus for the first time, which was quite the experience. In Vietnam, these buses come with little (and I do mean little) bunk beds that you can semi-lay down in and a thin blanket. Because Tet, the lunar new year, was also around this time, the buses were all pretty packed with extra people also lying down or just squatting on the floor as well, and a lot of random stops in the countryside to let off or pick up more locals, which I think doesn't normally happen at other times during the year.

On the sleeper bus

Don't think too hard about the cleanliness of the blankets...

The nice thing is that many bus companies in Vietnam provide an additional shuttle bus service when you arrive at your destination, which will take you right to the front door of wherever you're staying for no additional charge. 

Dalat was really beautiful, especially when we arrived in the early morning and there was still heavy mist hanging between the hills. The city has a large lake in the center, parks, lots of great restaurants and cafes, and rolling pine-tree covered hills all around it. Most people take a motorbike tour when staying there or do some adventure sports in the area, like canyoning. We had a tight budget so we didn't do any of those, but heard that they were great. Instead, we took the poor man's option of hiking, which also turned out to be really nice.

Main entrance to Langbiang; Photo on left below is the side entrance

View from the peak of Langbiang

We caught a local bus out to Langbiang mountain. You can get the bus either from the city's main bus station or catch it in the main marketplace. I think it took around an hour to get to the mountain, which I believe was the last stop. There are two ways to hike: you can either go through the main entrance to the park and just walk up the road until you get to the trail, or you can go along a dirt road to the right of the main entrance, then follow a small path up into the forest which will eventually take you to the same road. Whichever route you choose, the people in the ticket office will ask you to purchase a ticket.

We followed the road to the lookout on the left first, where there was a little touristy area with photo spots and a souvenir shop. After that, we backtracked to the trail that heads off to the right of the road and leads up to the peak. It was a very steep climb through the jungle to the top, but only takes around an hour if I remember correctly. The view from the top was absolutely stunning and definitely worth the climb!

Zebra-painted horses... no idea what the hell....

Also, for some bizarre reason, you can see horses painted to look like zebras and old Russian jeeps which you can pay to ride up to the touristy lookout area.

Entrance to Crazy House

Other fun things to do in Dalat: there's the Crazy House, which is a house that was designed by Vietnamese architect Đặng Việt Nga and is famous because of its wild design. It has a very organic look to it, like the house is just growing out of trees and plants. I did not go inside because the crowds looked very unpleasant, but it's still worth seeing from the outside. 

And the Maze Bar, also known as Cafe Tram Mai, is really fun. It's a bar built in a tall narrow building and the owners just went crazy with buckets of plaster creating a warren-like labyrinth of staircases and tiny rooms which you can easily get lost exploring. If you follow the staircases all the way up, you'll eventually get to a pretty cool rooftop with views of the city. Go a bit early in the evening as they will start to close off the upper sections of the building later at night, probably to control the crowds and stop drunk people from destroying the place.

On the cable car to the lake!

From near the bus station you can get a cable car that will take you to another nice area of Dalat. There's a large lake surrounded by beautiful hills which you can wander around, and a temple with some of the most stunning gardens I have ever seen anywhere. If you've got a motorbike, it would probably be a great area to ride around for the day, but if not, the cable car is nice on its own for the views of the forests around Dalat.

Will getting his obligatory railway photo

The old Dalat train station

The last touristy spot we visited was the old train station, which has been converted into a kind of museum. The building is kind of interesting and there is an old train on display which you can peek into, but otherwise it's probably not really worth seeing unless you really like trains. Anna's brother, Will, is a railway engineer, so obviously we had to go see it.