Ramana Hotel (2010-01-02)
There's no hotel reservation desks in the Domestic Terminal in Ho Chi Minh, you have to get back to the International Terminal for such information. But the problem is there's no way back into the building once you're outside! At the end, we dragged our bag to the arrival gate, tried to look miserable and desperate (which was easy to do at this point) and asked the two security guards to let us back inside; and they did.
The counter we approached only had two hotels on hand that were
close to the airport, so we picked the more expensive one in case it's
really bad. Fearing it could
be a seedy establishment, we booked the most expensive room in the
hotel (executive room) which was still well within the insurance
coverage rate.
Turns out Ramana Saigon Hotel is not as bad as I thought. It's
clean
and fairly large although it's located in a dingy
neighborhood. There's a snag at the beginning when the room had
no Wi Fi even though the reservation staff at the airport as well as
the Ramana staff at the reception ASSURED us there was. Can you
say they lied to us?
A major reason we booked that room was to use Wi Fi so KL could look
up the Hong Kong hotel number and call them on skype.
KL spoke to the manager who came up to our room and after negotiation,
he offered us 6 minutes free long distance calls. We finally were
able to contact the hotel in Hong Kong not to cancel the room (too late
for that) but to write us a note for insurance
purpose.
It had been one very long day for us.
Ramana Saigon Hotel 323 Le Van Sy Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City Tel: (848) 3843-9999
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