Located along the Saigon River since 2019, Mia Saigon has attracted a lot of attention from tourists, especially foreign tourists, who want to find a quiet space for their vacation but still convenient to the center of Ho Chi Minh City.
There are two ways to get to Mia Saigon. One is to go along Song Hanh Street, Thu Duc District; the other is to go by river from Saigon Port. Both ways take no more than 1 hour to travel from the center.
Mia Saigon is designed with inspiration from Indochina style. From the moment you step through the door, you can see through the building and see the airy space. This place does not follow a certain concept of accommodation because it is a combination of hotel and resort.
Each corridor is a display area.
Also here, guests will be invited to a hotel tour. This is an activity included in the guest accommodation package called Miacation, meaning a luxurious vacation with unique experiences, only available at Mia Saigon. Ms. Amy Tran, guest experience manager, said: "With the aim of improving the quality of accommodation, we want our guests to understand the artistic, cultural and historical values in their own rooms in particular and the building in general."
Visitors will enjoy carefully collected collections of paintings and photographs framed in specially designed frames, displayed along the corridors as if entering an exhibition hall.
Each floor has a different theme. For example, on the 2nd floor, visitors will be able to enjoy hand-painted propaganda paintings from the old Saigon era. On the 3rd floor are old book covers published decades ago. On the 5th floor is a collection of stamp drawings. On the 6th floor are hand-painted matchbox covers by former university students. On the 7th floor are the first stamps published. On the 8th floor are the covers of Indochina-era magazines in Vietnam. All of these valuable items are collected in their original form and have long-standing historical value.
Hand-painted propaganda posters
Covers of the first magazine editions in Vietnam
In the hotel lobby, guests will visit two rooms. The first room is also the reception desk, affectionately called the living room. With an architectural style inspired by the Art Deco style of the early 20th century, combining nostalgia with Indochina style, here are displayed paintings by the late artist Bui Xuan Phai, famous for his paintings of the old streets of Hanoi.
The room on the opposite side, which is often used as a conference room, is decorated with a Spring Flower Festival painting by artist Do Xuan Doan. It is known that these are all original photos, which took a lot of effort for the hotel owner to collect. Ms. Amy shared: "Once, a female guest who is an art collector came to see and recognized the works of the late artist Bui Xuan Phai. She was very moved."
In the early 17th century, Chu Dau pottery village (Hai Duong) was devastated by war, and the pottery industry here was interrupted for a long time. A diplomat working at the Japanese embassy in Hanoi discovered an ancient Chu Dau pottery vase on display at a museum in Türkiye, from which we learned that Vietnamese ceramic products had long been exported abroad.
Chu Dau ceramic products were salvaged from shipwrecks.
The owner of Mia Saigon has a collection of Chu Dau ceramic products salvaged from the wrecks of sunken export cargo ships and brought them back to decorate and display at the hotel. Currently, in addition to 40 museums around the world, Chu Dau ceramics are also displayed at Mia Saigon as a way for the owner to remind of a very proud cultural craft village of the country.
In addition to the works bearing the mark of time, the hotel bar is home to two paintings painted in the style of oil murals on a scrap background. With the meaning of beautiful art not only made from expensive materials but also lies in the meaning, style as well as how viewers appreciate them.
The oil painting in the bar depicts a beautiful and elegant young woman, attracting the eyes of the viewer. When coming to the bar, guests will feel that her eyes follow them no matter where they sit in the room. When introduced, most visitors are very surprised, they are explained by the hotel tour guide that: "The value of a work of art does not lie in the things that make them, but in the context in which we place them and how we appreciate them."
Rooms at Mia Saigon are designed around a different gemstone.
Campus full of green space
The space of the riverside restaurant at the hotel.
The cultural and historical imprint of Vietnam at Mia Saigon is not only expressed through the displayed works of art but also subtly expressed through the spatial structure. For example, the arrangement of the restaurant's location next to the riverbank, that is because in the past, Vietnamese families often placed their kitchens next to the riverbank, where there was a cool space, relieving the heat of the fire. Or the structure of the building is designed to be able to see from front to back as mentioned above, also mentioning the love of comfort and openness of ancient Vietnamese houses.
The hotel bar is an ideal place to watch the sunset.
Mia Saigon has all the amenities and facilities of a five-star hotel, but with the current price for a night in Ho Chi Minh City, it is still high compared to the majority of guests, especially Vietnamese guests. However, if you just understand the nature and other values besides being a place to stay, visitors will feel that the money spent is worth it.
