It was pleasantly reassuring that what attracted us to the Park Hyatt Saigon when it originally opened and on subsequent visits remained pretty much in evidence upon our return again. The city has gone mad with construction, some of it good, and some of it not. But the manicured strip of lawn outside the hotel's front
is repeated by the poolside, seen from our room. This was a strategically important view, in that it allowed us to check whether the pool was being used, and if not, as was the case every morning before ten, we hot-footed it down to plough through 60 lengths. Doing so meant missing breakfast, but as we discovered L'Usine, this proved to be a delightful alternative, which much better suited our schedule.
The Lobby Lounge is a rather gracious affair
and is adjacent to the front entrance, beyond which is one of the restaurants, with its glass-shelved wall which doubles as a wine rack.
And the Reception desk is discreetly position behind pillars opposite the entrance. The entire public areas are adorned with rather good pictures, both oils by Vietnamese artists and old photographs of Saigon and Indochina, and some pretty passable European and Chinoiserie style furniture.
8 comments:
It all looks most splendidly cool, both in terms of temperature and also modern slang.
Do you have the telephone number handy? I want to check if I am still blackballed (that glass wall has been rebuilt, so maybe, just maybe, the management have forgiven and forgotten).
Very nice. The image at the far end of the room in the last photo appears to be an antique painting of a fantastic panorama. That's not one of the contemporary paintings, is it?
Dear Owl, yes you are still blackballed. Your name is top of the list. Clearly not something to be forgiven or forgotten.
Mark, I think from memory it is a contemporary picture, but it was very well suited to its placement.
The floors, the rugs...
First place I ever stayed in Angola had no room service, no dining room (one had to satisfy one's hunger at the Cafe de Paris across the road), no airconditioning (but the rooms had sash windows), cold water only in the showers and a telephone that no-one ever answered except out of idle curiosity. It did have, however, a magnificent example of an 18th Century stair case carved out of African hardwood and polished wooden floors. This wasn't a hotel, it was a place where Gentlemen took rooms; the sort of chaps who lined their shelves with Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. Hardly surprising, therefore, that my fellow residents were the BBC, Pravda (I NOT KGB SPY!), Reuters and other correspondents.
We all preferred wood floors and rugs to formica and chrome.
When Tom and I visit Saigon, I'd like us to stay there. Very handsome looking (and without clutter). Is noise from traffic and construction an issue in your room? I prefer the rooms overlooking the main boulevards unless noise is bad.
Hippo - If I think back there are certainly places that I stayed in that I wouldn't waste a millisecond even contemplating now. One such place was in Mombassa, and the room was crawling with very large millipedes. I slept not a wink. Another was Treetops, and another the lodge formerly owned by the Duke & Duchess of Gloucester in Kenya too. (Am I developing theme here?) But nowadays I'm famously fussy about where I lay my head and weary bones.
Loi, yes when you visit you must stay there. There isn't really anywhere better, (at the moment). We always ask for the rooms overlooing the pool, because there is less traffic noise, (although it is well soundproofed/double glazed). But facing the front is Lam Son Square which is an ugly carpark, and I'm sure there is the possibility of traffic noise, (actually horn noise); the Vietnamese drive using the horn all the time, and there are hundreds of motorcycles. We heard none of this on the pool side.
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