Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [134]
The central highlands | Into the highlands | Da Lat and around | The City |
Tran Phu and around
Running west to east just south of the city centre, Tran Phu, cradles two of the city’s most memorable French-era buildings. One is the splendidly restored 1920s Palace Hotel, the social heart of colonial-era Da Lat. Now owned by Sofitel, it has great views of Lake Xuan Huong, and enjoying a long, cool drink overlooking its manicured lawns is a luxury that’s worth the expense.
Across the road and a few steps west along Tran Phu, Da Lat’s dusty pink cathedral, consecrated in 1931 and completed eleven years later, is dedicated to St Nicholas, protector of the poor; a statue of him stands at the opposite end of the nave to the simple altar, with three tiny children loitering at his feet. Light streaming in from the cathedral’s seventy stained-glass windows, mostly crafted in Grenoble, teases a warm, sunny glow from the mellow pink of the interior walls, and picks out the flamboyant colours of the fresh-cut flowers adorning the nave. A tiny metal cockerel perched almost invisibly at the top of the steeple has earned the cathedral its rather unglamorous moniker, “Chicken Church”.
The central highlands | Into the highlands | Da Lat and around | The City |
Bao Dai’s Summer Palace (Dinh III) and the Crazy House
The nautical portholes punched into its walls, and the mast-like pole sprouting from its roof, give Dinh III (daily 7.30–11.30am & 1.30–4.30pm; small admission fee), erstwhile summer palace of Emperor Bao Dai, the distinct look of a ship’s bridge. Reached by bearing left onto Le Hong Phong 500m west of the cathedral, the building is indeed palatial, though not in a traditional style. Erected between 1933 and 1938 to provide Bao Dai with a bolt-hole between elephant-slaughtering sessions, its mustard-coloured bulk, etched with stark white grouting, is set amid rose and pine gardens.
Inside Bao Dai’s Summer Palace
Past the two large blue metal lanterns flanking the front entrance, the first room to your right is Bao Dai’s working room, dominated by a bust of the man himself, and home both to the imperial motorbike helmet, and to a small book collection. Buffalo horns in the reception room come from animals bagged by Bao Dai himself on one of his hunting forays into the forests around Da Lat. His queen preferred more sedate pastimes, and would have tinkled on the piano here. The palace’s most elegant common room is its festivities room or dining room, though catching a whiff of furniture polish in this dark, echoing chamber, it’s hard to imagine the royal revelries that once went on here.
Royal ghosts are far easier to summon upstairs, where the musty imperial bedrooms seem just to have had the dustsheets whipped back for another royal season. Princes and princesses all had their quarters, as did the queen, whose chamber features a chaise longue that looks unnervingly like a dentist’s chair. But the finest room, predictably enough, went to Bao Dai, who enjoyed the luxury of a balcony for his “breeze-getting and his moon-watching”. Out on the landing, look out for a bizarre mini-sauna, labelled a Rouathermique. The place is surrounded by the usual attractions – pony rides and dressing up in minority costume, and the exit forces you to pass through a gauntlet of souvenir stalls.
On the way back into town at 3 Huynh Thuc Khang, Hang Nga’s Crazy House (small admission fee) is perennially popular with tourists, though the citizens of Da Lat are more divided over the merits of this unusual building, shaped to resemble the knotted trunks of huge trees. It functions as a guesthouse, but cannot be recommended as the experience is akin to paying to be an exhibit in a zoo. Day-visitors are welcome to look around any unoccupied rooms,