102 House Cat Ba

Picture a section of pine trunk, hollowed out and scaled up into a house of four storeys plus a rooftop room. It stands on a hill beside road ĐT.356, the main road across Cát Bà island that everyone drives along from the ferry pier into town. Forested hills surround it on three sides, and the fourth side faces the sea. This is Ngôi nhà 102 (the 102 House) in Bến hamlet, designed and owned by Mr Trịnh Bá Dũng. According to the owner, it took about two years to build and was finished in 2022. The city has recognised it as a tourist site since 2021.

The 102 House: a hollow pine trunk by the cross-island road

The house is not old. What it keeps are images: forest, wild animals, island scenery. The first and second floors display paintings on wooden panels and sculptures of Cát Bà, landmarks of Hải Phòng and other regions of Vietnam, most of them wild animals, made by artisans from many parts of the country. The hollow core of the trunk is a two-storey garden courtyard. In the middle sits a small stilt house (nhà sàn, a traditional house raised on posts) with plants growing on its roof, used as a tea-ceremony room. It is a house inside a house. As described in 2023, the basement shows works about famous wines and spirits of the world and Vietnam, and the fourth floor has a room built to look like a cross-section of a log.

So what does it mean today? The clearest answer is on the roof and along the side of the house. On the roof stands a sculpture of a deer family. The side of the house carries works calling for the forest to be protected. One of them is a sculpted clock shaped like a chipped saw blade, set with a world map and titled "the time of the Cát Bà langur". It refers to the island's own rare langur population (voọc, a leaf monkey). Would you read a saw blade as a clock face as a warning, or just as decoration? The back garden is lighter in mood: a wooden horse in the middle of a pond, a wooden raft used as an outdoor stage, and models of a railway station, a train, tracks and Hòn Trống Mái, a well-known pair of balancing rocks.

There are a few things the brochure won't tell you. According to some visitors, the place is often empty. One group said they were the only people there, and many say they only went in because they were passing the gate and didn't know what it was. Opinions are divided. Most praise the unusual sculptures, the many photo spots and how well it suits children. Some call it "overdone" or "a bit kitsch", say it is hot inside, and find the ticket, priced low to mid-range, still a little steep for the time they spent there. A small café-restaurant in the grounds is not always open. Strange and divisive: is that exactly why it's worth stopping for once?

Enough to decide whether to go

What it is

A privately owned house shaped like a hollow pine trunk, displaying wood-panel paintings and sculpture and open to visitors; recognised by the city as a tourist site since 2021

Where

Bến hamlet, on Cát Bà island; right beside road ĐT.356, on the route from the ferry pier into town

Tickets

Paid entry, low to mid-range; prices are not published, tickets are booked through the venue's Messenger

Worth seeing

The two-storey garden inside the core with its tea-ceremony stilt house; the saw-blade clock "the time of the Cát Bà langur"; the deer family on the roof

Staying over

The house has 4 bedrooms for overnight guests

Know before you go

The small café-restaurant in the grounds is not always open; some visitors find it hot inside