Chị Vương Thị Chờ (in yellow) is the great granddaughter of a former H'Mong king, who lived here, now she shows visitors around the
Đồng Văn Palace
Shrubs lining the entrance to the Palace
This page continues the visit to the Palace which was started
a couple of pages previously.
Some additional shots of the outer buildings are added and the great-granddaughter of the king, chị Vương Thị Chờ - roughly Mrs Cho Thi
Vuong, is introduced.
The main entrance - a little neglected
The main entrance gateway
A roof covers the main gateway through the wall that surrounds the Palace
The doors of the entrance
The left-hand plaque
The main doors have a plaque on each side, but sadly I did not make a
note of what they say - they appear to be formal declarations written in
Chinese rather than the
native Nôm
The right-hand plaque
The left-hand door foot
Commonly doors in Vietnamese public buildings have a solid lower rails across the base - here supported by two carved blocks
The right-hand door foot
Mrs Vương introduces a school party to the Palace at the
entrance telling them of the way the king lived from the money made in
the opium trade,...
... his ambiguous position vis-a-vie the French occupiers, and his
eventual help in the resistance to that occupation. A honed history
aimed at healing divisions rather than excavating truth
In an inner room of the Palace, Mrs Voung tells us about the photographs of her ancestors. The photograph over her left shoulder shows her grandfather standing behind his mother, the king's second wife. She explains his complex family with his three wives and the various branches of the family that followed from that date.
The main entrance to the Palace
The tour of the three small courtyards does not take many minutes, and
the history is all very recent, virtually within living memory, but
having a member of the family to explain the political niceties of the
opium dealing king supported by the French to act as a buffer against
China, where he earnt his money, makes it all rather special.
Inner courtyard with the family rooms around
The middle courtyard
A plan of the buildings
Screens on the main doorway
One of the king's wife's bath, reputed to be filled for her with goat's milk, although presumably not in the courtyard
The inner courtyard where the bath is displayed
Gun room
Corner tower from the courtyard
Gunrack
Tower and roof tops
Stair up into the tower
Window in tower
The Palace roofs
The next page
goes to some very different buildings, those in the High Street of Kirkcudbright, many of which date from the eighteenth century.
The last page was about the area around the Palace
Go to the first of the pages on the Đồng Văn Palace
