Day tour in Dalat, Vietnam

I booked this tour through my hostel! As part of a promo, because I booked through the hostel I got a free breakfast. Score!

Hostels (and hotels) often have some kinda promo like this if you book a tour through them– they get a kickback from the tour operator, so it benefits everyone, really. They’ll also coordinate pickup/dropoff with the tour company for you.

Journal date: November 23, 2023

The tour I booked was a small group tour with a minivan, English-speaking tour guide and water. It covered the highlights of Dalat, including a coffee farm, a silk farm (very smelly), several waterfalls, a temple or two, and a local place for lunch (not included with tour price).

Like all the other day tours I went on in Vietnam, it was VERY tourist-y, but because it was a small group size we at least didn’t have to rush from place to place like we might’ve done if we were in a big tour bus group. Also, our tour guide was very good about taking us down side trails and whatnot so we could go to less busy viewpoints. Plus, he took photos for us!

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Here’s where we stopped at on the tour and my thoughts of each stop:

Datanla Waterfall

Our first stop! All the entry fees were covered (as far as I remember), except for this one which was (I think) 40,000 VND.

I actually had to borrow some cash from the tour guide and a fellow traveler so I could both get in and pay for the alpine coaster– there are NO ATMs at the waterfall and they only accept cash, so just be aware of that.

Round trip price for the alpine coaster is 100,000 VND. The view is much better going up than down, so if you want to save money then pay for the coaster going up (50,000 VND) and walk back down the trail.

I think the draw of this place is the alpine coaster and maybe the hiking, but the coaster only lasts maybe 2 minutes so I recommend just hiking if you want to get your entry fee’s worth of experiences.

The park surrounding the falls had interesting statues and decorations throughout, kind of cheesy but good for photos.

Pongour Falls

This was a pretty location and it was fun climbing around the rocks to get more views of the falls. Not very crowded compared to other waterfall locations I’ve been to, and there’s plenty of room to spread out and explore.

The tour guide took photos of us here and then had them printed out as a gift at the end of the tour. Cute!

Thác Voi waterfall

We stopped at a viewpoint overlooking this waterfall right before going to lunch at the restaurant next door. Some of the trail nearby was closed for renovations, and there was an unfortunate amount of trash littering the ground.

Across from the waterfall you can see Quán Thế Âm Bồ Tát Nam Bàn standing up.

Linh Ẩn Pagoda & Quán Thế Âm Bồ Tát Nam Bàn

You can climb up the stairs inside the temple and get a pretty good view of the surrounding area, so I did that. It reminded me a bit of the Chicken Church in Yogyakarta— a shaped temple with stairs and art inside leading to an observation desk.

The Pagoda is full of statues and nice places to sit, and there’s a small cafe nearby with snacks and drinks.

Cuong Hoan Silk factory

This was much larger than the silk factory I visited in Phonsavan, with huge machines and dozens of people working. It stunk a lot, to be honest. We didn’t really get an explanation of how things worked in this factory but we were allowed to go basically everywhere and look at stuff. They have a shop attached with silk items for sale, of course.

Rice wine business

I’m not 100% sure where this is, but I think the owners have an agreement with the tour company for people to stop here. They make different kinds of rice wine, and we got to try some! It’s a tiny business and we were the only group to stop during our time there, so that was nice.

Me Linh Coffee Garden

One of the places that makes weasel coffee as well as regular coffee…I refuse to drink weasel coffee on principal, but the regular coffee is delicious and I got some at the attached cafe. We got to see different stages of coffee bean production and some of the machines used to process the beans.

Flower farm

A small stop on the way back to the bus from the coffee farm. Dalat is famous for its flowers, and this farm was growing a bunch of them for an upcoming event.

Final thoughts

This tour was focused on the natural beauty around Dalat as well as some of its famous exports, and overall I really enjoyed it. We weren’t too rushed and we weren’t crowded into highly-trafficked areas with buses of other tour groups, and we had time to go wandering around by ourselves on some stops. Overall, it was a good tour!

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Other tours I’ve been on in Southeast Asia:

• Day trip to Halong Bay, Vietnam from Hanoi
• Two walking tours in Hanoi’s Old Quarter
• A sunrise tour of Mt. Bromo, Java, Indonesia
• Visiting the Plain of Jars, Phonsavan, Laos
• Three days at the Elephant Conservation Center in Sayaboury, Laos