02
THE LONG @
TIMES SQUARE
There’s no shortage of space to belly
up at this serpent of a bar, a 48-meter
long counter that stretches between
Saigon’s most fashionable street, Dong
Khoi, and its most monumental avenue,
Nguyen Hue. Opened in September
2014, The Long (which literally
translates as Dragon in Vietnamese)
anchors the ground floor of the city’s
most sumptuous new hotel, The Reverie Saigon, but hearkens back
to another era, when Dong Khoi was
known as Tu Do Street, a wild, wooly
thoroughfare of go-go bars and night
clubs during the Vietnam War.
and the main post office in Lyon,
this one-of-kind ‘Arc of Life’ mural
was created by French artist Roland
Renaud. If the beauty of the arc alone
is not worth the price of admission,
indulge a little history: It was through these doors at Tet in 1968 that Viet
Cong cadres infiltrated the hotel and
made off with the highest ranking
South Vietnamese official abducted
during the war.
03
LE GOUVERNEUR
In the lobby bar of 1930-built La
Residence Hotel & Spa, the Arc of
Life curves with the rotunda wall,
depicting scenes of Vietnamese daily
life. Inspired by frescoes on the walls
of the Musée des Colonies in Paris
78 ILHA