Hang Nga Guesthouse & Art Gallery
The Crazy House in DaLat Vietnam

The Crazy House is one of the weirdest and best fun places to visit in DaLat.

Dang Viet Nga, born in 1940, architect and owner of The Hang Nga Guesthouse & Art Gallery, is truly a woman of vision and unconventional thinking.

She renamed herself Hang Nga - Sister of the Moon. Her fantasy emporium in the middle of DaLat's elegant French architectural buildings was soon nicknamed Crazy House by the locals, and it stuck.

She doesn't advertise nor are there any signs leading to Hang Nga Guesthouse & Art Gallery, but every child on the street can give you directions - with a smirk behind the hand covered mouth.

The Crazy House and its Magical Garden

Rapunzel Balcony

I entered Mme Nga's fantasy world through an enormous front door and found myself transplanted into a jungle scene, an amusingly bizarre world of crazy art. A noisy bunch of hens, doves, and a colourful array of singing birds in huge wire cages greeted me.

Small trails and little bent bridges led through the garden of the Crazy House. Outsized spider web worked their way from tree branch to tree branch. Huge mushrooms grew out of the ground and meandered up tree trunks. Strange frog-faces, enormous ants, birds, and no-name mythical creatures nested under native flora and fauna. Gigantic mushrooms did double duty as umbrellas and streetlights. A monster Babushka, obviously a reminder of her Russian days, sat smack dab in the middle of a walkway.

Born into privilege and status - Hang Nga is the daughter of the late Truong Chinh, Vietnam's second President - gave her advantage in education and useful relationships. Newspaper clippings in her family shrine claim that she sat on 'uncle Ho Chi Minh's and Fidel Castro's' knees. She was educated in China and received her PhD in Architecture from the University of Moscow. "I like art and technique, and architecture is art combined with technique," she said.

We met over breakfast in her French colonial Villa. She arrived in her pink morning dress and a little knitted white cap over her muddled jet-black hair. A little hippie, a little Alice in Wonderland - the petite woman in bohemian chic has a soft voice and gentle manners. Her gestures are sparse but poignant. She left her husband and father of her two grown children "because" she says, "Vietnamese husbands are preventing us from success."

Mme Nga

Nonetheless, it took the People's Government in DaLat 18 years to really approve her crazy counter cultural construction> and grant her ownership. Her interpretation of free hand curved architecture didn't fit in any traditional description and they didn't know what to do with crazy houses like that. Finally, they found a term to approve the house: "The People's committee have now acknowledged Crazy House belongs to 'expressionism'.

Her Crazy House is a work in progress and strenuous. Eight local workers between 20 and 60 transform her blueprints - paintings not architectural plans - into her work of art. None of the workers are professionals, but all of them are enthusiastic and gifted craftsmen. Everything is sculpted by hand, even the furniture, because it has to fit into the nooks of the rooms without a strait line.

Fantasy without Borders

She plans to wrap her colonial house into a tree-trunk as well, and add two more stories on top of the house.

Every building will be connected high up in the air with bridges. A roof top restaurant is planned and an art gallery for Vietnamese artists will be added up "in the air".

Buoyant and with glowing eyes she spoke about the planned water palace, the penthouse in the sky. She wants to buy more property to expand her dream, though there is resistance from the people and the government. But giving up is not written in her stars.

Every day the artificial world of Mme Hang Nga is growing a bit more. "But" she says, "there will be much more water running into Paradise Lake until I am finished. Come back in a few years and I will welcome you in my tree-penthouse."

Since her passion is a huge financial burden, and she is not getting any architectural work from DaLat residents, she had to look for a different source of income. She expanded her art gallery into a guesthouse for tourists and opened her dream world to gawker's for a fee.

Address

Hang Nga Guesthouse & Art Gallery
3 Huynh Thuc Khang Street
Da Lat, Viêt Nam

Telephone: ++84 (063) 822 070

Opening hours
Daily

Where to find

View Hang Nga Guesthouse & Art Gallery in a larger map

How to get there

• Daily flights from Hoh Chi Minh City (50 min.) and Hanoi (1 hr 40 min.) with Vietnam Airline, frequently late departures or altogether canceled - check before you go to the airport.
• Daily buses from Saigon - depending on road conditions and stops it's a 7 to 9 hour ride
• Rental cars or motorbikes

Where to stay

• Hang Nga Guest House & Art Gallery
  3 Huynh Thuc Khang Street
  Da Lat, Viêt Nam
  

  Telephone: ++84 (063) 822 070
  

  Simple rooms, no TV/Radio or phone. Keep in mind it's an Art Gallery and there is little privacy during daytime, though I survived happily and loved the atmosphere. It's maybe a tad expensive compared to other Vietnamese guest houses, but prices are negotiable, and, after all, it's truly a unique experience.

• Sofitel Dalat Palace
  12 Tran Phu Street
  Da Lat, Viêt Nam
  
  Telephone: ++84 (063)-382 5444
  E-mail the Sofitel Dalat
  

  This is the place to stay if you expect a flute of champagne, strawberries and chocolate.Lakeside, tennis, billiard-room, library, spa - early last century charm but with all the modern conveniences you expect from Sofitel.

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