Christmas/New Year 2012 - Vietnam (part1)

Now on to Vietnam...first Ho Chi Minh and then Nah Trang for the beach, sun and relaxation at the end of the trip.

Might as well fly the national airline right?

Well TP decided that for our couple of nights in Ho Chi Minh city he wanted to try and stay in a backpackers hotel.  Well to say the least this is a bit out of character but he was up for it and found what he thought was the perfect place.  Great reviews on TripAdvisor, not to mention dirt cheap.  Approximately $25 a night for a two bed, air conditioned room with our own bathroom.  So why not?

Well this kind of gives a clue of why not?  It was in a very small, hidden alleyway.  The hotel is about 1/2 down on the right side.  In fairness the neighborhood looked cool, lots of local dining options and lots of travelers around.  Heck there were 3-4 hostels in this alley.

Upon getting to the hotel they require you to take off your shoes at the entrance.  I tried asking that at first, seemed to get an answer that is was ok to keep them on...until I did walk in with my shoes on and was quickly scolded!

Next challenge was they couldn't find our booking.  It took 15-20 minutes of searching to find it.  Then we find they don't have more rooms.  They probably only have 8 rooms so it doesn't surprise me.  They have us wait about another 15 minutes to "find" a room, which I take to mean it was where employees stay and they needed to clean up.

When we get to the room we initially are impressed.  It's on the 4th floor, seems clean, has the promised bathroom and the two beds.  Upon further review we find that there are no sheets on the bed.  There is just a mattress pad and that is it.  So we ask for sheets and find out "we don't have more."  The English understanding was poor to say the least so we got someone to come to the room and check it out.  He finally found some sort of sheet and blanket to put on TP's bed, but when I asked for the same on my bed he again said they didn't have more.  We kept pushing...

Finally he came back with what I thought was a blanket, but in reality it was another mattress pad.  Furthermore it had a big stain on it!  When I showed it to the guy he did what he thought was practical and "turned the blanket over."  See all fixed? :) 

Well after further conversations we realized this wasn't going to get better.  Thankfully the hostel had wi-fi, so we got out our iPads, found a Sheraton, used points and decided to check out!  Slight concern was that the hostel would be upset, normally not a concern, even if we lost the $25 but in this case they had our passports!  So be nice and let's get out of this mess.  All worked just fine in fact.  Later the hotel sent an email to TP apologizing for the mix up and hoping we wouldn't hold it against them in future travel.  All in all I'd say a decent job by the hotel all things considered.

So on to the Sheraton we go!