Crazy House (Hang Nga Villa)

The Hang Nga villa, which everyone calls the Crazy House, is the best known building in Da Lat and the main argument for the idea that the city lives by its own rules. The architect Dang Viet Nga began building it at the end of the eighties and kept adding new blocks until her death, so the result resembles a baobab that has run like wax and grown windows. Concrete trunks, staircases without railings and passages in the open air tie several towers together, and themed guesthouse rooms work inside. One can walk over the roofs and galleries, though the height and the narrow passages are hard going for the unaccustomed. An ordinary yellow government office block rises beside the villa, and the contrast only sharpens the impression.

On the map