Chicland Hotel

You have seen this building whether or not you know its name. It is the tall one on the beach road with plants falling off every floor, and it is what people stop to photograph on the walk back from My Khe.

The greenery is not decoration added afterwards. The architect is Vo Trong Nghia, whose studio made Vietnam known abroad for green buildings, and the plant is Indian Pluchea, a coastal shrub that survives salt wind. Which plants sit on which balcony was decided floor by floor, because the wind at the twentieth is not the wind at the fourth.

The rooms carry that idea into their names. Cuc Tan, The Su, Thien Dieu, Bang Bien, Truc May, Phong Ba, Nho Bien. Every one is a coastal plant, and they run from a twenty seven square metre room to a two bedroom apartment facing the sea.

On the ground floor a tea house in bamboo and lacquer serves tea the Vietnamese way from half past six in the morning. On the roof, on the top of the building, there is an infinity pool with nothing between it and My Khe. The spa is on the twenty first floor, and guests come back asking for the same therapists by name.

It stands at 210 Vo Nguyen Giap, on the beach side of An Hai, with My Khe a short walk across the road.