I. What is the best time to Dak Lak?
1. The rainy and dry seasons
Buon Me Thuot is the largest city in Dak Lak province, this place is considered as one of the cradles nurturing the Central Highlands Gong Community – an intangible cultural heritage recognized by UNESCO. Therefore, it can be said that Dak Lak – Buon Me Thuot tourism is associated with the culture of the ethnic minorities here.
Also in the Central Highlands climate zone, Dak Lak has two distinct seasons: the dry season and the rainy season. So when you want to travel to Dak Lak at what time, you should carefully consider the following weather:
– The rainy time is from May to November. So when traveling to Dak Lak, you should avoid the rainy season to avoid dirt roads and hills
– The dry season is the first months of the year, the weather is quite cool and not too hot, so the advice for you to travel to Dak Lak in the dry season is the best.
2. What season is for festivals in Dak Lak?
– In December of the solar calendar in the Central Highlands, there are many festivals and the wild season of anemones blooming in the Central Highlands
– At the end of February and beginning of March, the calendar is white flower season.
So the ideal time to visit this place is from December to March with wild Mexican sunflowers, coffee flowers blossoming all over hills and mountains of Dak Lak, as well as large festivals time.
Source: Lux Travel DMC
II. How to travel to Dak Lak?
1. By plan
From Hanoi and Saigon to Buon Ma Thuot, there are many routes of airlines such as Vietnam Airline, VietJetAir, JetStar to Buon Ma Thuot. The round-trip ticket from Hanoi (including taxes and fees) of Vietnam Airline ranges from VND 2,600,000, of VietJetAir about VND 2,500,000. And the round-trip price from Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam Airline is 1,200,000 VND and of JetStar is 1,000,000 VND, VietJetAir is about 1,200,000 VND. It will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour and a half to fly to Buon Ma Thuot.
2. By coach/ bus
From Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there are direct buses to Buon Ma Thuot and other districts of Dak Lak province, you can buy tickets at Eastern Bus Station or Giap Bat Bus Station. It takes about 8 hours from Ho Chi Minh City and more than 1 day for cars from Hanoi.
- From Ho Chi Minh City to Dak Lak: 200,000 – 300,000 VND – 7 hours.
- From Hanoi to Dak Lak: 600,000 – 700,000 VND – over 24 hours.
- From Danang to Dak Lak: 250,000 VND – 12 hours.
Source: vexere
3. How to transport in Dak Lak?
Transportation in Dak Lak is mainly taxi and motorbike taxi. Some taxi companies you can refer to your trip.
- Taxi Mai Linh: 0500 3819819
- Taxi Ban Me: 0500 3979979
- Taxi Ban Me Xanh: 0500 6272727
- Central Highlands Taxi: 0500 3838838
- Dak Lak Taxi: 0500 3818181
III. What are top attractions in Dak Lak?
1. Dak Lak Coffee: Trung Nguyen Coffee Village
Trung Nguyen Coffee Village is not only a famous place to buy coffee but also a miniature park with hundreds of historical artifacts of the Central Highlands ethnic groups. The small landscape is beautifully designed full of large waterfalls, bridges, streams, lakes, and stilt houses. Coming here, you may not need to buy any products, or drink water in the shop and just simply visit the farm.
Coming to Trung Nguyen coffee village, admiring the unique architecture & cultural space, sipping a pure coffee is an extremely attractive experience. If you have the opportunity to travel to Dak Lak, do not miss this place.
The architecture of the coffee village is a unique combination of creative ideas of people and beautiful natural scenery. The old-style houses of Hue with sophisticated carvings also bring a special feeling of enjoyment for visitors.
Source: daklaktoday
The Central Highlands Ethnic Museum is a must-visit place for tourists to visit Trung Nguyen coffee village. This place displays the oldest and most valuable ancient artifacts of the Central Highlands. An outstanding collection of gongs, musical instruments, agricultural tools, and weapons of ethnic minorities are displayed here as well. In addition, visitors will also learn more about the coffee processing tools, learn about the process of making delicious coffee cup through the lively explanation.
Coming to the Coffee Village, visitors will taste the delicious cups of coffee from pure coffee. Enjoying coffee among the poetic space of Coffee village will be much more poetic when drinking coffee in normal shops.
Also sipping a cup of coffee in the mountain town while watching the clear stream and lush mini garden brings a peaceful and rare feeling for visitors.
2. Dray Nur & Dray Sap Waterfalls
These waterfalls belong to the Serepok River, Dray Sap waterfall is the Husband waterfall, Dray Nur waterfall is the Wife waterfall, which are the familiar names called by the locals.
Dray Nur Waterfall is about 25 km from Buon Ma Thuot city, along Highway 14, nearly 3 km through Buon Kop hydroelectricity. Dray Nur is located right next to Dray Sap waterfall and just a distance from the Dray Sap bridge to the Serepok river. Both are beautiful and majestic waterfalls.
3. Yok Don National Park
Yok Don National Park is located in 3 districts: Buon Don district, Ea Sup district (Dak Lak province) and Cu Jut district (Dak Nong province). Yok Don is considered to be one of the largest special-use forests in Vietnam, located in a relatively flat area, with two small mountains to the south of the Serepok river. Forests are mainly natural forests, most of which are dipterocarp forests. Tourists can enjoy the typical types of ecotourism such as elephant riding, walking, mountain biking in the primeval forests. Especially, at night, you can see wild animals, or take a canoe day by day on the romantic Serepok river.
Source: truyenhinhdulich
This is the largest nature reserve in Vietnam with the vast forests of many rare kinds of wood. You can also ride elephants around the village. If you want to have more thrills, you can ride an elephant across Serepok, which is one of the adventure games when traveling to Dak Lak.
4. Khai Doan Pagoda
With the royal style of Hue imperial palace mixed with modern architecture, Khai Doan Pagoda attracts visitors to visit and worship.
Located in the heart of Buon Ma Thuot, with outstanding sophisticated architectural features, Khai Doan Pagoda is such a sacred place for tourists.
The pagoda was built by skillful hands of Hue artisans, so it has ancient Hue royal court architecture, combined with the style of stilt houses of the Western Highlands, and mixed with modern architectural features.
When coming to Khai Doan pagoda, visitors can not only learn the history of meaningful birth and special architecture of the temple but also discover more “unique & sophisticated” artworks. The Buddha Shakyamuni statue in the middle of the main hall built of bronze with a height of 1.1m, the wooden lotus, and many Buddha statues are really worth admiring.
5. Museum of Ethnic Groups in Dak Lak
Also known as Museum of Culture of the Central Highlands on Bao Dai Palace (a historical site of Dak Lak), this museum has about 1,000 artifacts and images categorized into three main display spaces (biodiversity, ethnicity and history). This is a cultural architecture built in modern style combined with national cultural traditions. In particular, Dak Lak Museum is also one of the museums pioneering the use of ethnic languages lacking indigenous numbers in the display.
Source: lingoconnector
6. Don Village (Buon Don)
Not only possesses beautiful landscapes, or from the great forest to the majestic river, Ban Don is also famous for the muscular elephants.
Located 40km from the center of Buon Ma Thuot to the West, Ban Don is located in Krong Na commune, Buon Don district, Dak Lak province.
Source: Lux Travel DMC
Ban Don has become a famous brand of Dak Lak tourism and the Central Highlands in general. The most interesting thing to do that everyone expected to come to Buon Don is elephants riding, you will only spend 300,000 VND ($15 US) to ride a cute elephant in 30 minutes with 3 people, an elephant can take 3-4 people around the village.
Riding an elephant in vast Lak lake will help you discover the mysterious beauty of the Central Highlands landscape.
In the midst of the mountains, the elephants will take you on a walk across Ban Don village, watching coffee gardens, pepper gardens, sniffing the fresh air of the Central Highlands mountains and forests.
After the chaos of urban life, spending time in Ban Don and on the backs of elephants, to cross the lush green canopy or cross the majestic Serepok stream will make you dispel all fatigue and pressure force in life.
IV. What to eat in Dak Lak?
1. Mink Coffee
Mink coffee is Dak Lak’s must-try drink as it is considered as the legendary Dak Lak coffee as well as one of the most expensive drinks in the world. Cafe was introduced to Vietnam quite early (since 1857) and grown in some provinces in the Central Coast region but for a long time, Dak Lak was known as the Mecca of Human Coffee. In recent years, the Dak Lak Coffee industry has also attracted the attention of people by the revival of the legendary Mink Coffee – a drink classified as the rarest and most expensive around the word.
Source: Caphenguyenchat
The value of Mink Coffee is made up of three basic factors including the traditional culture of the place where they were produced, rareness, and process. The Dak Lak mink coffee not only covers all three factors, but each of those factors is associated with the name of Dak Lak is far more special.
2. Red noodles
Red Vermicelli is a specialty of Dak Lak too. The name of the dish comes from a bowl of noodles with the characteristic red broth color. The dish is combined with many ingredients such as crab bricks, quail eggs, vegetables, etc.
Source: tinmoi
Only with 15,000 VND, you can enjoy this delicious and attractive red noodle. A bowl of red vermicelli consists of crab bricks, quail eggs, a little bit of fat, add a little purple heart shrimp sauce, mauve, ground chili, and celery.
You can enjoy this popular dish at the intersection of Tran Phu & Y Zut, the corner of Phan Dinh Giot – Le Hong Phong street or at the corner of Le Duan – Phan Dinh Giot.
3. Venison
Like goat meat in Ninh Binh, venison is special in Dak Lak. You can enjoy venison with 7 different ways of processing, each dish has its own unique flavor like roasted venison, stir-fried venison, chipped venison, fried venison, vinegar rattled venison, stomach porridge, and dried venison.
Source: khamphadisan
4. Hemibagrus Soup
Hemibagrus Soup with lentils is also a must-eat dish that visitors can hardly ignore the specialty of the majestic Serepork river. This dish is delicious and has a good cooling effect on sunny days. You can enjoy this dish at Phuong Dung & My Lan – Hoa Phu.
V. Topmost popular Dak Lak tours by Lux Travel DMC
With over 15 years of experience in tourism, we offer tailor-made private holiday packages to Indochina and other Southeast Asian countries. Our company is a full-service travel agency with licensed and accredited and inbound and outbound luxury tour operators. The company has won many national and international awards. If you are planning a trip to Dak Lak, contact us and we will suggest where to go and what to do to make your trip full of memorable moments with locals. Here come some suggestions for you.
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