Dalat

Dalat is located at an altitude of 1,600m above sea level and 300 km from Ho Chi Minh City, endowed with favourable climate and a spectacular natural landscape, Dalat was developed as a resort by the French in the early 1900s, and many reminders of its colonial heritage remain.

The city enjoys fresh air and cool weather all year round.

It is famous for its green pine forests, colourful flowers and fruits. The rolling hills and fertile valleys are dotted with lakes and thousands of villas are nestled amidst the pine trees.

Dalat is a mid-sized city that looks like a cross between Vietnam and the French Alps. Outside of the city centre, it is surrounded by a series of pine-covered hills, lakes, and higher peaks, making for some lovely scenery quite different from the rest of Vietnam.

Temperatures are pleasantly warm by day, and quite cool at night, down to perhaps 10 degrees Celsius. Be aware that during summer months, rain comes at least once a day and can sometimes dictate the mood and activities you are planning.

The city centre is quite small and feels very urban, concrete, and patches of streets and buildings are in disrepair or construction. However, outside of the small urban centre is a spacious landscape of well kempt and pretty hotels, cafes, restaurants, and lakes peppered among the rolling green hills and pine trees to offer tourists an escape from city life. Even further out from those are fields of fruits, vegetables, coffee, and canopied flower gardens that are harvested and exported across Vietnam. The tempo of life in Dalat is very relaxed, traffic is not frenetic except for the central area, streets are spacious, and the local populace is friendly to foreigners.

Dalat is also surrounded by some of the best mountain biking, hiking and canyoning opportunities in Vietnam, with hills of coffee and tea plantations, which evoke images of the colonial hill stations of the north of India