The Mercure

There's just one hotel at the top of Ba Na Hills, the Mercure, a four-star resort designed to look and feel like a French Village. We arrived at Louvre Station, the mountaintop cable car station, just as the daily cultural show was finishing up.

European cultural show

It was still too early to check in to our room, but we were hungry and tired. We headed first to Le Crique, the Mercure's big buffet restaurant, one of only many fine dining options at the hotel.

 

buffet restaurant

Now, this is travel! Pinky and I have been surviving, and living quite well, on around $5 a day. We have been eating lots of street food (which you can see HERE on our new food blog) and cooking boiled noodles, soup, oatmeal, and eggs with a water kettle, and having bread and peanut butter or cheese for other meals. We certainly haven't been starving, but it's amazing to eat at the buffet of a four-star hotel. And at a buffet, you've got to get your money's worth, right?

luxury!

We would also end up having breakfast here too, since it was included with the room rate.

Carbs! How I've missed pastries.

Speaking of the room, the resort is made up of several different buildings, each called "hotel", and each designed like a French villa or castle.  We were booked into a family suite at the Hotel Bordeaux.

Hotel Bordeaux

The room was warm and cozy. There wasn't any air conditioning - who would need it when the weather is so perfect all year round? We opened the window and let in the cool misty air.

inside the family suite

As soon as we checked in to our room, it began to rain. Shortly, an incredibly thick fog rolled in, and we could see literally nothing, not even the buildings just outside our window! This fog is apparently characteristic of Ba Na Hills.

the view outside our window

This meant that it was the perfect time to settle in, make a pot of tea, and wait for the weather to clear and for all of the tourists to take the last cable car back down the mountain. After that, we would have the whole place to ourselves.

the front desk is inside this castle

In the evening, we went exploring to find the swimming pool. It was too cold to swim. Although the pool is indoors and heated, we would have to walk through the drizzly outdoors back to Hotel Bordeaux, and that  just seemed too chilly! The pool was great, though. They even had a "dive in" theater, which played popular movies throughout the evening.

the heated swimming pool

Captain Michael

Tomorrow, I'll show you around the French Village at the top of Ba Na Hills. Once all of the tourists and day-trippers were gone, the mountain was ours to explore!

French Village at night