Easy Rider Tour in Dalat, Vietnam

When Megan, Lucy, and I arrived in Dalat, after quite a hot, then rainy, then cold ride from Mui Ne, it was up to us to find a place to stay for everyone. Ally and Alma were to arrive later that night. We were planning to check out a hostel in the city, but it was raining when we arrived, and the bus dropped us off in a hotel parking lot. And well it was raining, and the hotel said they had a room that would fit all 5 of us, so after seeing the room and deciding a 10 minute walk wasn't bad to get to the city, how could we say no!?

We went on a walk around the city until Ally and Alma got here. We walked through the market that was in the city center, found our way to a lake, and just walked around for a while. After heading back to the hotel to see if Alma and Ally were there, we walked by an intersection that had a traditional dance show going on in the middle of it! There was a stage set up and everything. We stayed and watched for a bit before heading on our way again back to the hotel again, in which we got lost for an hour hah. I may have also stopped for a bubble tea as well :) Hah!

Ally and Alma were definitely there by then! We met the guys across the hall from Holland, named Frank and Ralph. Ally and Alma met a few other people back in Ho Chi Minh who were in Dalat for the next few days too. That night we hung out for Frank’s birthday! When we got to the place (can’t remember what it was called) we met Patricia, a gal from Australia who Ally met in Saigon, an English guy, George, who I talked to a lot, some people we recognized from our bus on the way there, one of which sat next to me on the bus here, and many more in our group of about 15 people chilling at this place. Some of them had gone on the Easy Rider Tour, which we were doing the next day so after talking a lot about it, we were getting pretty pumped!! Most of them are headed north too, so maybe we’ll be seeing them again!












We woke up early the next morning to head out; there ended up being 6 of us with 2 guides, the extra was Patrick, who decided to do the tour that morning. It was Ally and Alma with the guides, Megan and Lucy on a bike, and Patrick and I on our own bikes. The guides took us all over; to great viewpoints, through awesome roads on the edge of the mountains, a greenhouse where they grow flowers for the flower festival every year, coffee fields which had an area with a great view where we tried a lot of different types of Vietnamese coffee, we went to an area where there was a little trek to a waterfall, then some temples and Buddha’s at the top, and while we were there we ran into some people from the night before! When we got to the temples, as we were walking around it started to rain, and then.. It poured. Luckily it was time for lunch, so we went just across the street and got food there and fortunately, after about an hour or 2, the rain slowed down. The problem is that the roads were slippery still because they were wet, but we decided to carry on and just drive slower on the twisting roads. We headed to a silk factory, where we learned all about how silk was made via silk worms, and after, we went to a rice wine factory.

It was then time to head back into Dalat City for our last stop, Crazy House!

This place was INSANE.. The name says it all haha. This place made you feel like you were Alice, in Wonderland crossed with the world that Dr. Seuss created in his books. It was really cool! None of it really made any sense; there were steps that looked like tree trunks or a giraffe’s neck that led from one house to the other, there were rooms that were fully furnished (for guests willing to pay of course), big hemp spider webs were underneath the lifted houses along with some real ones as well lol, statues of creepy red eyed animals, tunnel walkways, ladders, and strangely decorated rooms were just some of the things we found on our way up to the highest point of the house that had a wonderful 360 view of Dalat City. It was so fun and easy to get lost in this surreal world created by Antoni Gaudi. Some of it is still unfinished, in fact it’s soo easy to get lost in, we were all alone for a bit while walking through, when all of a sudden, Ally and I found ourselves running into each other on the top floor of one of the houses which had a hole, with rebar sticking out all over, clear down to the bottom floor, which you really can only see once you step on that final top step. Hah.. some of the railings on the skinny paths and steps were waaay too low for any safety regulation back home. Its little things like this at tourist places, which remind me I’m definitely not home lol.

That night, we went around the market eating street food and playing cards in a local restaurant. Something I really enjoyed about Dalat is that it’s not completely overtaken by travelers (which you find in a lot of places out here), it was still its own city, and we were truly just visitors getting to know the area and life. The town shuts down quite early, doors close, garages cover shops, and the streets are silent by 10 or 11. It was so nice at night to be in such a peaceful little city.

<3 M



Next stop: Nha Trang!!