Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [59]
Notre Dame Cathedral with the modern Diamond Plaza shopping mall behind
Ho Chi Minh City and around | The City | Dong Khoi |
Lam Son Square
Dong Khoi briefly widens a couple of hundred metres south of the cathedral, where the smart, white walls of the Hotel Continental(see "Dong Khoi and around") announce your arrival in Lam Son Square. Once a bastion of French high society, and still one of the city’s premier addresses, the hotel front terrace was the place to see and be seen earlier last century. Little wonder, then, that Somerset Maugham’s nose for a story led him here in the mid-twenties: “Outside the hotels are terraces,” he recounted, ”and at the hour of the aperitif, they are crowded with bearded, gesticulating Frenchmen drinking the sweet and sickly beverages…which they drink in France and they talk nineteen to the dozen in the rolling accent of the Midi… It is very agreeable to sit under the awning on the terrace of the Hotel Continental, with an innocent drink before you, [and] read in the local newspaper heated controversies upon the affairs of the colony.” Sadly the terrace no longer exists, so if you want to tap into the history of the place, the best you can do is to ensconce yourself in the hotel’s café.
Standing grandly on the eastern side of Lam Son Square, its cyclopean, domed entrance peering southwestwards down Le Loi, is the century-old Municipal Theatre. The National Assembly was temporarily housed here in 1955, but today, lovingly restored to its former glory, it once again embraces programmes that include fashion shows, drama and dance. Just below the theatre, the 1958-built and now grandiosely revamped Caravelle Hotel(see " Dong Khoi and around") gazes down across the square at the more diminutive Continental. In its former incarnation, the Caravelle found favour with those Western journalists assigned to cover the war, and its terrace bar saw many a report drafted over a stiff drink.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | The City | Dong Khoi |
Down towards the riverbank
Though glitzy boutiques predominate along Dong Khoi below the Caravelle, they haven’t yet managed entirely to eradicate the past, and it’s still possible to winkle out relics of old Saigon. Wander south of Lam Son and you’ll soon meet Dong Du, where a left turn reveals the white and blue-washed walls of the 1930s Indian Jamia Mosque, now towered over by the Sheraton(see "Dong Khoi and around"). The rounded curves of its arches and its slender minarets make a stark contrast to the utilitarian design of the hotel next door, and there’s a reassuring sense of peace that’s enhanced by the slumbering worshippers lazing around the complex. If you’re feeling peckish, check out the simple restaurant that is tucked round the back of the mosque, serving cheap and tasty dishes, many of which are vegetarian. Continuing down Dong Khoi to the river takes you past two of the city’s more venerable hotels, the lovingly restored Dong Khoi and around on the left, followed 30m later on the right by the lavish, riverfront Dong Khoi and around.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | The City |
Along the waterfront
In colonial days, the quay hugging the confluence of the Saigon River and Ben Nghe Channel provided new arrivals with their first real glimpse of Indochina – scores of coolie-hatted dock-workers lugging sacks of rice off ships, shrimp farmers dredging the oozy shallows, and junks and sampans bobbing on the tide under the vigilant gaze of colons imbibing at nearby cafés. Arriving by steamer in 1910, Gabrielle Vassal felt as if “all Saigon had turned out… Some expected friends, others came in the hope of meeting acquaintances or as mere spectators. One was reminded of a fashionable garden party,