Thach Lan Vien on Tran Phu Street of Nha Trang differs from many other coffee shops because here guests sip coffee in traditional wooden houses known as nha ruong.
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Thach Lan Vien coffee shop has four nha ruong houses that owner Le Dong rebuilt with materials from old nha ruong houses in the central Khanh Hoa Province.
Dong says that he opened Thach Lan Vien to share his love for the architecture and ambience of nha ruong houses with others. A style from the former feudal capital of Hue, nha ruong houses have more beams (ruong) and pillars (cot) than an ordinary house.The beams and pillars are joined by mortise and tenon rather than nails.The wood for the frame must be highly resistance to humidity and insects. Lim (ironwood), gu (sindora wood), and mit (jackfruit wood) have all been suitable options in the past. A nha ruong house usually has three interior areas, but instead of walls, pillars separate them. Each pillar is decorated with carvings of flowers, leaves, the Chinese script for longevity and images recalling thefour seasons.The numerous beams that support the double-tiled roof are decorated with images of flying dragons and dancing phoenixes. Bringing forth new nha ruong As Dong approached his 40th birthday in 1997 he began working on the nha ruong houses that are now Thach Lan Vien. He started by driving his van to many villages in Khanh Hoa Province to buy old nha ruong houses. Khanh Hoa Province boasts several nha ruong houses in the typical bat can dan style, which refers to a house consisting of three compartments and two side rooms. Many of the old nha ruong houses were dilapidated or torn down altogether to build new ones. However, Dong continued to purchase them just for materials such as the battens and pillars. “I’ve bought old houses and relocated them before so I knew I could do it.I wanted people can see nha ruong restored and learn more about the architecture of the central region,” Dong says. Dong first built a nha ruong house with 52 columns on Huynh Thuc Khang Street and named it Nhac Hoa Vien. However, he later sold that land because it was too close to the busy Xom Moi Market, and sought out a better site for his nha ruong houses. Finally Dong found a place suitable for the relocation of the nha ruong house on Tran Phu, the most scenic street in Nha Trang. Thus, Thach Lan Vien was born. As a punctilious person, Dong paid close attention to detail while rebuilding the nha ruong houses to ensure that they followed all the original specifications of the traditional nha ruong houses in Hue.Besides drinking coffee while visiting Thach Lan Vien, visitors can also enjoy ornamental flowers, plants, fossil wood and geological structures in the cafe’s garden.For over two decades Dong collected ornamental stones and fossil woods from all over the country to display in the garden. One highlight is a rock and a log of fossil pinewood that are more than one million years old. The 1.8-meter-high and 43-centimeter-wide piece of fossil wood weighs 520 kilograms. It was found underground in the Ayumpa Forest in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai. ThanhnienNews
