It is on Trieu Viet Vuong street, 2.5km from
Dalat city in the South. It was built from 1933 to 1937 when Bao Dai was on his throne in
Hue
capital. Bao Dai used this place as a resting place in summer. When the French returned to
Vietnam, Bao Dai became the puppet minister in 1950 and used this place as his office and his house. The place had a group of guards and private convoys of cars called “Palace convoys”. There was also a private fleet of airplanes served by French pilots.
The place had 2 stories: the ground floor was the meeting place to hold feasts to welcome foreign guests and officials of the kingdom. There are such rooms as: an office room, a guest room, a reception room, a room for the private secretary (at the entrance), the play room for the princess and the prince. In the reception room, there is till one souvenir, it is the picture of Angkorvat given to king Bao Dai by king Xi Ha Nuc of Cambodia himself. Bedrooms are all upstairs: Bao Dai’s, Nam Phuong Queen’s (born 1914), Bao Dai Prince’s (born 1934), Phuong Mai Princess’s (born 1936), Phuong Lien Princess’s (born 1938), Phuong Dung Princess (born 1943) and Bao Thang prince’s (born 1944) Outside the bedroom of the king there is “The Watching Moon Balcony” were the king and the Queen enjoy the moonlight King Bao Dai had an official wife that was Nam Phuong Queen (her maiden name was Nguyen Hua Thi Lan, daughter of a rich man named Nguyen Huu Hao).
From 1949, when Nam Phuong took her children to France to study, Bao Dai had some relations with 3 concubines: Bui Mong Diep, Phi Anh and Jeny Wooong (from Hong Kong). These 3 concubines had their own villas in Dalat, when the king wanted one of them, he would sent out a car to pick her up to have dinner and spent a night with him. After Bao Dai had gone in exile in France, these villas became the holiday home of Ngo Dinh Diem and then Nguyen Van Thieu. In 1988, people discovered some precious things including 122 things of pearl and tusk of the Nguyen kingdom taken from Hue’ by Lady Tu Cung (the king’s mother). These things belonged to Lady Tu Cung and Bao Dai, and it was allowed to use freely by The Provisional Revolutionary Government in September 1945. There were a lot of noticeable things such as a gold washbasin with 16 pearl stuck in, many pearl bowls, pearl dishes and some other gold things. These precious things are now kept at the Monetary House of Lam Dong. This is perhaps the most precious collection of pearl things of all the feudal regimes that have been. |
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