One of Asia’s most famous hotels celebrates its 50th birthday this year.
Now extensively refurbished and with a new 24-storey tower attached, the Caravelle in Ho Chi Minh City gained lasting fame between 1960 and 1975 when it was a haunt of news correspondents reporting on the Vietnam War. Not only did the broadcast and print media have bureaux here, it was also for a time home to both the Australian and New Zealand embassies.
Peter Arnett, perhaps most famous today for reporting for CNN from the al-Rashid hotel in Baghdad during the Gulf War in 1991, watched from the roof of the Caravelle in 1963 as the coup d’état that sparked the intensification of the Vietnam war unfolded below.
At the time, the hotel was the tallest building in the city, providing a vantage point and meeting place for members of the media – the bao chi – from across the globe.
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