Sleep With History At Saigon's Hotel Continental

Where: 132-134 Dong Khoi St, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

November 24, 2008 at 10:34 AM | by ced138 | 0 Comments

France's meddling in Vietnam really didn't turn out well for anyone. But one of the positive side effects to the colonization is the Hotel Continental Saigon, in present-day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. So it's no wonder Graham Greene made his protagonist a guest at the hotel when he wrote The Quiet American.

Gorgeous, imposing and extravagant French Colonial hotels are perhaps the only thing in HCM more ubiquitous than families of five speeding past on lawnmower-engine mopeds. Of these hotels, Continental is certainly the most historic and quite possibly the most beautiful.

A manufacturing tycoon built the place in 1880, and over the years it housed great poets and artists as well as some of the world's most prestigious journalism outlets--New York Times and Newsweek, for example--which covered the country's multiple conflicts throughout the 20th Century. They camped out there because of the building's close proximity to the National Assembly, which is now the Municipal Theater.

Like the adjacent building's transformation, today's guests are a bit less interested in politics and more concerned with the country's thriving culture. The hotel's rooms are large and vaulted with outdoor verandas that overlook dense gardens and the Opera House in the distance. Regular rooms start at $115.

[Photo: andrew300]

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