Buon Ma Thuot is the capital city of Dak Lak Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. While Da Lat is the best-known city in the Central Highlands, Buon Ma Thuot is the largest city and is closer to the geographical centre of the Central Highlands region.
I have been to Da Lat many times, mainly because it’s more convenient to get to from Ho Chi Minh City. On my recent trip to Da Lat, I got the bus to Buon Ma Thuot, saving me a longer bus trip (or flying) from HCMC. These are my notes on Buon Ma Thuot from my visit in March 2025.
Buon Ma Thuot city notes
Buon Ma Thuot is also spelled as Ban Me Thuot, and Ban Me is also used as its name. BMT is also an acceptable abbreviation, which I will use from here on in.
What is immediately noticeable about BMT compared to Da Lat is that the city is flatter and there is a street grid in the city centre. Da Lat is surrounded by steep hills, and there are barely any straight roads. BMT is on a plateau, and it’s easy to walk around.
Being in the Central Highlands, I was wondering where the mountains were. It’s a twisty and mountainous road between Da Lat and BMT, but you can’t see any mountains in BMT. I checked a topographic map, and BMT is on a plateau of around 500 metres in elevation.
My visit was just after the 50th anniversary of the Buon Ma Thuot Victory. There were still many posters around the city celebrating this anniversary.
[50th anniversary of Buon Ma Thuot Victory.]
The central roundabout of the city features the Victory Monument, which has become the main landmark of the city.
Every visit to a new city in Vietnam requires a visit to the central market.
The BMT market has a skybridge connecting two buildings.
When in a provincial capital, always check out the provincial museum as they are usually the most architecturally interesting building in the city.
[Dak Lak Museum.]
Note: I was in BMT before the announcement of provincial mergers that happened in July. Dak Lak province was merged with coastal Phu Yen province, and the expanded province is still called Dak Lak with BMT as the capital.
In addition to being walkable, BMT is also very green. There are many tree-lined streets, and the city is also good at pocket parks.
Cities in Vietnam use the same street names of Vietnamese heroes, and streets named Le Duan are usually in the most prestigious locations. The Le Duan Street of BMT has much nicer trees than the Le Duan Street of Ho Chi Minh City.
There is a cathedral near the main roundabout, though it looks more like a parish church.
[Ban Me Thuot Diocese Cathedral.]
There has not been a construction boom like in the coastal cities of Vietnam, so BMT is still a relatively low-rise city. The Saigon Ban Me Hotel is the landmark tall hotel of the city.
[Saigon Ban Me Hotel.]
Coffee
The Central Highlands is a major coffee-growing region, and BMT is the hub of the coffee industry in Vietnam. In a case of poor timing, I arrived in the city just as they were packing up the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival.
If you are visiting BMT for coffee, there is the Coffee World Museum.
The museum houses antique coffee-making equipment with displays that show the history of coffee.
The museum is built in highland-style houses.
Next to the museum is a new urban area called The Coffee City. The project was under construction when I visited, though some sections looked abandoned.
Coffee World Museum was built by Trung Nguyen Legend Group, who were founded in BMT and are now headquartered in HCMC. Trung Nguyen Legend Group are the largest domestic coffee brand in Vietnam, though Highlands Coffee are listed as the largest by number of stores in Vietnam.
Trung Nguyen was on the cusp of cafe domination in Vietnam in the 2010s until a messy public divorce between the founders. The cafe chain rebranded around this time. When I came to HCMC in 2012, Trung Nguyen had the best cafe logo.
[Trung Nguyen Coffee logo in HCMC (2012).]
The new logo is not as distinctive and the branding has gone with notable European coffee-drinkers (such as Beethoven) and imagery of successful people flying in private jets and a G7-brand instant coffee.
On my last visit to Singapore was in a random mall and I saw a Trung Nguyen cafe with the original logo. The wife of the original partnership set up Trung Nguyen International in Singapore using the original logo.
[Trung Nguyen Coffee in Singapore.]
If I were in charge of the Trung Nguyen branding, I would drop the weird obsession with the G7 and famous Europeans and lean into their highland heritage. Have an image of a highland house with the steep roof (like at the museum), and celebrate Vietnamese culture.
I rarely visit Trung Nguyen cafes, mainly because I don’t like the iced tea they serve with coffee. Most iced tea in Vietnam is weak and almost flavourless, while the Trung Nguyen iced tea has a strong flavour (possibly barley tea), and I don’t like the taste of it.
Considering that I was in the origin city of Trung Nguyen, I visited the flagship cafe (Trung Nguyen Coffee Village). Having just said that I don’t go to Trung Nguyen cafes, this cafe was a delight to visit. The village is more like a large garden area with water features and plenty of places for photo opportunities.
I had an iced coffee and tried the iced tea to see if it still tastes weird (it still tastes weird).
In addition to visiting the coffee king of Vietnam, I was curious to see what the cafe scene in general was like in BMT. I visited Dak Lac Coffee purely because it has a cool name. Dak Lak is such a great name for a province, and it would be very brandable as a chain.
The coffee lived up to its good name.
I visited Soul Specialty Coffee, who show on Google Maps as Soul Fine Robusta BMT.
There is a new wave of Vietnamese cafes that are celebrating the robusta coffee that is grown in Vietnam. For too long, the arabica cabal has been badmouthing robusta, so cafes like Soul are promoting Vietnamese robusta.
And there are of course Highlands Coffee cafes in BMT, though the cafe chain was started by a Vietnamese American in Hanoi, and not the Highlands.
Food
For food, one local specialty I was looking for was banh uot. A friend from Dak Lak introduced me to a banh uot restaurant in Saigon, so I had to try it in Dak Lak.
[Bánh Ướt Chồng Dĩa Bà The BMT]
Banh uot (translated as wet cake) is a sticky rice sheet that is used to roll around fillings. The sheet is wet and sticky, so it is brought out on a stack of plates. You then roll your own rolls with meat, vegetable, and herb fillings. The sticky nature of the sheet makes it easier to roll, and at the end of the meal, they count how many plates you used.
When it comes to finding food in new cities in Vietnam, I will see if there is a local specialty (like banh uot), and also walk around and see what is popular. I saw this place called Banh Canh Ca Dam Huong (fish cake noodle soup).
There were many people here, and they had extra seats outside, so that was a good sign.
One of my travel rules is not to eat fish so far inland, but I made an exception here for fish cake. The soup had a delicious broth that I can’t describe (which is why I am not a food blogger), and I noticed it got a bad review on Google because they only offer spoons. I looked around, and everyone was eating the noodles with two spoons and no chopsticks.
Vietnam has been slowly globalising, with chains such as Starbucks and McDonald’s finding their way into more provincial cities. The Central Highlands has few global chains so far. BMT has Jollibee from the Philippines (which partly owns Highlands Coffee), Lotteria from Korea, KFC (which was one of the early fast food arrivals in Vietnam), and Pizza Hut. Starbucks are opening in more provincial locations (including Da Lat), but there are no international cafe chains here.
Elephants of Buon Ma Thuot
Elephants are an icon of highland culture, and they are used in imagery around the city (thus the elephant mascot for the coffee festival).
One of the most clever logos I have seen is for the Tay Nguyen Hotel (Tay Nguyen being the name for the Central Highlands in Vietnamese).
[Tay Nguyen Hotel logo.]
One of the best hotels in Buon Ma Thuot is Elephants Hotel.
Another cafe I visited was Ama H’Rin Coffee House. There are some highland houses on display here with wooden carvings, such as this elephant. I didn’t get to explore highland culture outside the city, so I haven’t covered that in this article.
Riding elephants is still prominent in Vietnam, even while other elephant sanctuaries in the region are going “no ride”. The Vietnam tourism website is promoting the first ride-free elephant sanctuary in Vietnam near BMT, though there was still elephant riding at the coffee festival.
Further reading: Buôn Ma Thuột’s thriving elephant culture in 1957.
Transport
BMT is a good place to start if you are visiting other cities by bus in the Central Highlands.
I got the bus to BMT and then took a flight to Da Nang. Most of the flights from BMV are to SGN and HAN, with only a few other domestic locations. There was talk of upgrading the airport to international standards, though every city wants to become international.
There are no trains in the Central Highlands (apart from the fragment of an old railway in Da Lat). There is a long-term plan to build a Central Highlands railway, which would effectively be an inland version of the train from HCMC to Da Nang. I made a map that shows what a Central Highlands railway system would look like if all of the proposed railways were built.
[View full size map of Central Highlands Railways.]
This is a great city update! The Imperial Hunting Lodge was here until it was stupidly burned down in 1970(?)
IIRC the main road in the city used to be the airstrip before they built the airport to the east. See also Phonsavan, though there the old airstrip isn’t a main drag.
Thanks for that! I recall you mentioning the old airstrip on my old airports article, but it has been so well incorporated into the city that it doesn’t look like an airstrip on the map. I was looking online for some old photos to no avail.