The Sofitel Metropole Hanoi is often mentioned in the same sentence as the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok or Raffles Singapore.

Vintage fleet at a vintage location

The Metropole, built in 1901, is Vietnam’s grand dame of hotels whose famous white neo-classical facade has become one of Hanoi’s primary landmarks.

I have visited and inspected the hotel on many occasions, and Smiling Albino recently hosted European celebrity media for a series of events at the hotel in early 2010. During May 2010 I had an opportunity to experience the fullness of the hotel as an in-house guest, and The Metropole delivers on multiple levels.

Originally built by two French investors at the turn of the 20th Century, The Metropole has been under the management of Accor’s luxury arm, Sofitel, for several years. The original building, known as the Old Wing or Classical Wing, has been lovingly restored and features 3 room categories:

Old Wing Grand Luxury

Luxury Room (32sqm), Grand Luxury Room (37sqm), and The Legendary Suite (70sqm). These rooms are for the romantics, the nostalgia fans, those wishing to celebrate the colonial grandeur of Indochina. Period artwork and photographs line the walls, and the Old Wing gives the air of a luxury French mansion for heads of state, authors, and dignitaries.

The New Wing is a 7-story addition on the opposite side of the pool and garden area. Completed in 2007, it features stylish, neoclassical rooms with brilliant colour and lighting schemes. The New Wing still carries the air of colonial French influence, with internal shutter windows and replica claw foot bathtubs and wide hallways. The rooms feature wood and carpeted floors with fresh, tropical colours, pink, scarlet, mauve. Overall the New Wing rooms feel slightly larger and brighter than their vintage sisters in the Old Wing. Located on the side of the hotel closest to Hanoi’s gorgeous Opera House, the New Wing is also referred to as the “Opera Wing”. New Wing Rooms feature four categories: Premium Rooms (32sqm), Grand Premium Rooms (48sqm), Prestige Suites (64sqm), and the hotel’s top room, the Grand Prestige Suite (176swm).

Opera Wing Grand Premium Room

My favourite in this category is the Prestige Suite, which features fresh colours and a creative room layout, a half-wall separating the bathroom and lounging area, and a large bedroom with contemporary furniture featuring a perfect blend of colonial and Vietnamese styles.

Old Wing vs New Wing

This a “Coke vs Pepsi” debate that doesn’t have a definitive answer, and ultimately comes down to taste. The “Classic Wing vs Opera Wing” debate has gone on in the Smiling Albino office as much as the “Mandarin Oriental Bangkok vs Peninsula Bangkok” debate has. The Metropole’s Director of Rooms commented in fun that, “…the Old Wing is for lovers, the New Wing for artists…”.

Old Wing (also known as Historical or Classical Wing) rooms are located on the original three-story building of the hotel. They feature high ceilings, French window shutters, dark wood and period lamp shades, desks and accessories. There is more of a museum-like atmosphere, with a beautiful original wood staircase, open lobby with oil paintings, and a vintage telephone-booth sized elevator. The New Wing is a dramatic contrast as you exit the lift onto the floors with fashionable designer wallpaper and brilliantly striped carpets and furniture. There is a flair of Parisian hipness in this part of the hotel, and the New Wing rooms are a little more cutting edge, taking advantage of natural light and modern design innovations. The Old Wing rooms are more nostalgic, elegant, and subtle. Neither lacks luxury or class. The beds, bathroom fixtures, electronics are top drawer and the fines level of luxury.

Recommending which room is right for you and for your trip is serious business.

Smiling Albino recommends room types with an eye to our guest’s overall program, taking into account where else they are staying in Vietnam. For example, if guests are also going to Dalat and staying at the palatial Sofitel Dalat Palace , then in Hanoi we’d recommend New Wing rooms at The Metropole as the Old Wing rooms would too closely resemble the vintage colonial feel of the Dalat Palace. Same applies for La Residence in Hue, or Majestic Hotel in Saigon. Both offer an early 20^th Century classical French-style grand hotel. However, if staying at Pilgrimage Village in Hue, which is a modern luxury reincarnation of a traditional Vietnamese village, and staying contemporary in Saigon, then perhaps the Old Wing Rooms at Metropole Hanoi provide the colonial checkmark for the full deck Vietnam hotel experience.

As a general rule:

New Wing:

“Dish me up some designer-cool with a subtle stroke of colonial class. We thought Mandarin Oriental Bangkok was okay, but we’d prefer The Peninsula Bangkok next time around.”

Old Wing

“Forget the fancy contemporary flair as we can do that anywhere, we want to step back into the grandeur of colonial Indochina. Besides, we loved Mandarin Oriental Bangkok and can’t get enough of it.”

Last point, I did notice the New Wing rooms had a slightly younger crowd, there were designer jeans and fancy shoes. The Old Wing crowd featured a bit of everything, but generally a little older, fewer iPhones.

Swimming Pool with a view to the Opera Wing

The pool, spa, fitness room, restaurants are of course in a league of their own in Hanoi. Even if not staying at the hotel, some afternoon drinks in the Bamboo Bar around the pool is a must, as is Le Beaulieu for a quick peak and absolutely Angelina’s Bar for multiple cocktails and Hanoi high society intrigue. This is a local hot spot for events and business gatherings, and fashion shows, etc.

Smiling Albino was recently selected by Clarins Cosmetics Co. to host a retinue of top French media in Vietnam during their orientation to The Metropole’s Le Spa, which features Clarins’ wellness products. The spa is world class and deserves a visit for a treatment. One of the best in Vietnam.

Meet us for a drink in Le Club!

There are some outstanding top end hotels in Hanoi, not forgetting the sleek new Intercontinental Westlake, and the Sofitel Plaza, as well as old favourites the Hanoi Hilton and Sheraton. In addition to being the most storied hotel in town, Metropole Hanoi is right in the heart of the action just a few blocks from the lake. The Metropole has no equal in Hanoi, which comes at a price, but the overall experience can’t be discounted.

Smiling Albino can arrange rooms and services at Metropole Hanoi at competitive rates, and as part of your customized Smiling Albino adventure in Vietnam.

Smiling Albino co-founder Dan Fraser did a recon trip to Sapa in April 2010. Here are a few shots.

Nice paddiesTopas Lodge

A mountain scene

Down the less trodden trail

A villager

Dan taking it all in

by Bank Takaeng

It’s good for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even snacks. You may have to do a load of work but is such a hit with guests that the effort is very well spent.

Ingredients:

• Rice flour – 1 cup / 120g
• Cornflour – 1/2 cup / 60g
• Wheat flour -1/4 cup / 30g
• Water – 2 1/2 cup / 560ml
• Spring onion, green and white part sliced separately – 3
• Minced pork – 250g
• nuoc mam – 2tbls (http://www.smilingalbino.com/blog/2010/02/thit-kho-to-clay-pot-pork/)
• Minced clove garlic – 2
• Prawn, shelled, cleaned and spilt – 250g
• Bean sprouts – 250g
• White mushrooms, sliced – 10
• Eggs, beaten vegetable oil

Preparations:

• Combine all the flours and spring onion greens to make a batter.
• Combine pork with half the nuoc mamma, garlic, spring onion whites and pepper.
• Combine the shrimp with the remaining nuoc mam, garlic, spring onion white and pepper. Arrange the above, and all the other  ingredients, handily near the stove.
• Heat a small skillet or an omelette pan to high. Add 1 tbsp of oil, then 1 1/2 tsp of pork and 2-3 pieces of prawn and cook for 2 minutes.
• Reduce the heat to medium and add 3 tbsp of batter, 1 tbsp of bean sprouts and a few slices of onion and mushroom. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, uncover and pour 3 tbsp of egg cover the crepe then cover again for 2 minutes.
• Uncover and fold in half, add more oil of needed. Continue cooking  with the lid on, turning the crepe from time to time, until it is very crisp. and server with nuoc cham.

This is serve for 6.

by Bank Takaeng

Clay pot cookery is very southern, and very satisfying. It is usually small, often unglazed, with a lid, and look little different from a flowerpot with a lid.

Ingredients:

• Dark brown sugar – 3tblsp / 45ml.
• Nouc mam (Vietnamese dipping sauce) – 1/4 cup / 60ml.
• Chopped shallot – 2tblsp / 30ml.
• Black pepper – 1/2tsp. 3ml.
• Boneless pork, thinly sliced – 250g.

Nouc mam:

• Lime/ lemon – 1 part
• Fish Sauce – 1 part
• Sugar – 1 part
• Water – 2 part

Preparation:

• Make a caramel by heating the sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until the darkens and thickens.
• Remove from the heat and stir in nouc mamma
• Add shallots and pepper and set aside to cool
• Put the sauce and pork into a clay pot, cover and set over a low heat for 30 min, stirring occasionally.
• The dish is done when the sauce has turned into a rich gravy.

This dish is served for 2

By Daniel Fraser

December 5, 2009

I was in Ho Chi Minh City (generally still referred to as Saigon by locals) recently exploring some new ways to see the city as part of our Vietnam Grand Slam adventure. When Smiling Albino designs city day trips we always look for unique features to showcase the history and people, but we also try to gain insider’s access to certain areas and forge relationships with locals so that our guests experience something deeper – and more fascinating – than simply a well-organized stroll through the main sites.

So, while in Saigon last weekend I was trying to uncover the truth behind a couple of urban legends. For many years I’ve read about the famous photograph taken on April 29, 1975, the day before Saigon fell to the communists, which became one of the most compelling images of the American War.

the original image captured by photographer Hugh Van Es, April 29, 1975

The quick facts of the photo are this: it was taken by Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photographer working for the American press covering the war in 1975. The image shows people scrambling up a ladder from a distance in order to reach a US helicopter perched on top of a building. When the photo appeared in papers around the world the following day it was erroneously reported that the photo showed Americans evacuating the US Embassy, a fact which the photographer tried for many years to correct. Certainly this mistaken reporting pleased the Vietnamese government as it fit their agenda more than the truth, being that the photo is really of Vietnamese escaping from the roof of an apartment a few blocks from the US embassy where several US covert officers and Vietnamese staff were located. The old US embassy in Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City shortly after reunification in 1975) was eventually torn down 15 years ago.

When some reporters, especially the photographer himself, were allowed back into Vietnam in 1990, many of them went searching for the location where the photo was taken, but by this time the roof of the Caravelle hotel had been transformed, and the direct line of sight was marred by foliage. I think the idea came into being that if authorities reported the building had been demolished and re-built, it would put an end to the intrigue, and close yet another unusual chapter of cover ups and historic revisionism that has constructed much of what we know about the war.

Anyway, curiosity led me to search it out last weekend in the hopes it might add an interesting element to our trips in Saigon.

my shot of the existing rooftop in 2009 from a fire escape of a building half a block west

The photographer’s notes indicate he took the photo from the top of a hotel several blocks south, and that the address of the apartment for the evacuation site was 22 Gia Long Street. After the new regime took control of Saigon most of the city streets had their names changed and Gia Long Street become a distant memory. I had read that the building was torn down years ago around the same time as the old embassy and this was confirmed by several locals as well as a few western expats who had followed the story. Whatever the rumours, it turns out that the former Gia Long Street was changed to Ly Tu Trong Street sometime in 1976, and that the Vietnamese government probably perpetuated the story that the original photo took place on the roof of the US embassy in order to dramatise the American demise in Vietnam.

After some snooping around at an art gallery on the corner of Ly Tu Trong Street, I was able to climb out onto the fire escape and up to the 5th floor where I found a perfect view from the west of the famous rooftop elevator shaft captured in the iconic photo. Further curiosity brought me to befriend the building superintendent, and after a couple of gifts and a lot of waiting around I gained access after closing hours to the rooftop itself for a few moments.

a direct view with my face directly in front of the rooftop.

The image with my face in it (I just climbed climbed 6 flights of stairs) shows the original view from which the photo was taken, albeit directly in front compared to a half mile away. A US government agent in Saigon in 1975 wrote that in order to support a possible helicopter evacuation they hastily reinforced the elevator shaft with steel beams a few days before the evacuation. Why these trival details stick out in my mind I’m not sure, but the caretaker confirmed this little fact – and it is one of the reasons that the same elevator cabin is still in use 35 years later, instead of a new one, due to the limited space around the shaft supports to allow for a replacement.

Clearly I’m no detective, but this image and the story has intrigued me for years and it was a fun caper tracking down the details last weekend. Call it trip research – or a personal obsession – in any case SA guests have another neat story after their trips with us in Vietnam!

a north-view from the cafeteria of the HSBC bank a few blocks north. This view would be opposite of the original photo, which we can see now is blocked by the large construction project with green scaffolding behind.

Ultimately I guess it is these little discoveries that I hope make our adventures more interesting.

For some interesting background on the photo and the events leading to it, here’s a link to a story by the photographer: http://www.mishalov.com /Vietnam_finalescape.html