Vietnam Hotels
Finding a hotel in vietnam was a little more tricky than I first thought. I expected to see (certainly in Hochimin City (old Saigon)) a range of mainstream hotels, expecting vietnam to have Mecures, Hiltons, Marriott’s and Holdiay Inn Hotels.
It wasn’t this simple however.
Most of the hotels in Vietnam were either private hotel chains or little known, national brands that most westerners would not have seen or heard of.
However, don’t fret – with some tips, finding a good vietnam hotel is possible. For a start, we didn’t book prior to landing on the plane in Vietnam. We simply jumped in cab and headed to district 1 in vietnam.
Distrcit 1 (in Saigon) is the hotel district for the town. The good news is, most of the hotels are very cost effective, so you can stay in vietnam very cheap. The 2 star hotel we first saw was a little disappointing, very old in its decor and setup and around $25 US for a basic room for a single night.
It was late, and we werem’t sure of the area or cab fares in vietnam, so we decided to stay in the basic 2 star hotel (included breakfast) and looked around the next day.
Further up the road, near more of the nightlife (the likes of the Crazy Buffalo Pub) and of course go-go bars in Vietnam – we found a strip of hotels. Some were impressive, 3 and 4 stars seemed to be the best we could find. No sign of 5 star hotels.
The hotels in vietnam are rated by the government, so you will see a good badge (quiet large) at the front of all legit hotels stating the quality. Everything from backpacker accomodation, the candian hotel stood out big time and some quality other US style hotels – nothing more than say $35-45 USD for a deluxe room per night. Suites were around $75 USD per night.
In terms of nightlife, the clubs and adult play areas are kept a little underground. You will see and hear locals pull up next to you on their mopeds and offer massages in vietnam, and the code term for extras being ‘boom boom’ and you’ll even get locals coming up and offering illegal substances.
Play it smart, common sense will keep you away from trouble and you will otherwise enjoy your holiday or vacation in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War Relics museum is great, as is the cu-chi tunnels tour which is around 1 hour outside of saigon – well worth seeing.
The reunification palace in saigon is also a great tourist spot and best of all, everything is quite inexpesnive and cheap to check out for tourists.
Just beware of the traffic in Saigon, Vietnam. With over 10,000,000 locals, the amount of mopeds, scooters, motorbikes and cars on the road in vietnam is amazing. We saw 2-3 accidents in the space of 4 days – a regular occurance on roads in vietnam.
