Address: 634c Cong Hoa Street, Ward 13, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Website: none
160 000 + 10 000 VND tax
a/c, fan, balcony, initial smell, dresser, tv, clean bed and bathroom, spacious
One of the most drama-filled nights spent so far. We were recommended this hotel by a lady at the airport for somewhere to stay nearby as we had a flight to catch early the next morning. The taxi driver missed this spot but we found a place that initially quoted us a price for the night then added as we were checking in before noon, they'd charge us an extra fee for it! No sense at all, especially as all their rooms were empty, and they were just being plain greedy. We left them to their sad life, and eventually realised the place that we were looking for was only just opposite the road.
She quoted us 160 000 dong per night but as we came in with our luggage, she added that she'd have to add an extra 10 000 dong as 'tax'. Ok, sure. Well, it was still the cheapest place around so we checked into a room on the first floor. She asked us for our passport to make photocopies of which was all well and normal, and also got us to fill our two copies each of personal information which was a first for us, as well as annoying (why two copies?!) but we completed them. Her helper though, who rode off on her motorbike with our passports to get them copied elsewhere was a total nimrod, and photocopied our Cambodian visas instead of the Vietnamese ones! Don't know how one could stuff that one up, but she did and we had to again leave our passports with her while she went off and made the correct ones.
After getting some food, we came back and collected them off her.
At around 7:30pm, we received a call from the lady owner who with her very bad English, told us that she needed our passports AGAIN to give to the police!!! We totally freaked out at this and I went downstairs to speak with her. She was only able to repeat that she needed them to give to the police, while I was trying to ask her exactly why she needed them a third time when she already had copies of it and we were leaving the next morning for a flight and obviously wouldn't want to take any chances with them. Eventually, she realised that she couldn't communicate properly to me and that I wasn't going to give the passports to her and left it at that. But through all the night, the reception phone was ringing (the tone was really loud so everyone in the block could hear) and it was very disconcerting to feel that she was either calling the police to tell on us or talking to other people about it and possibly asking whether she should come up and insist on it.
By some miracle, we made it through the night without our door being broken down (we had also left our room phone off the hook in case she tried to harass us again) and left as soon as we could the next morning (after someone checked our room to make sure we hadn't stolen or damaged anything which was another first).
If the lady owner was so paranoid about her rooms, she should never have entered the hotelling business in the first place in which trust invariably plays a major part in. District 13 was definitely one where no overseas visitors came as there was nothing to see, so all the guests were local Vietnamese however the appearance of foreigners should not have made the proprietor of the business flip out and insist on wartime-like identity checks and evidence. It was a very stressful and unexpected situation especially one before a flight out the next morning, and never were we as glad when we left the place.
Rating: 1/10
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