13 April 2010
Cat Huy Hotel, Saigon, Vietnam

Hotel
US$25
10°46'1.25"N 106°41'24.15"E
1 Room

April 2010 approx A$42.00
The hotel that we usually stay at in Saigon has turned itself into a Karaoke club since this time last year, but we remembered last year finding a nice one nearby whilst we were looking for somewhere for Praba and the boys from Malaysian to stay, as we'd arrived a few days before them, so we decided to check it out again. The hotel is official rated as one star, and deserves it. It is about a minute walk off the main road which means it's fairly quiet, although I don't think I would want a room on the front of the building as there's the unavoidable buying and selling and hawking going on from about 6am - this should only bother the lightest of sleepers in the back rooms, but from the front it could possibly be a problem. There again, you can't choose to sleep in a city then complain about noise, can you?

Thee hotel had only just opened when we first looked at it, so it's about 12 months old, and has been fairly well maintained - so many 12 month old hotels in Asia look as though they are 12 years old due to lack of or very shoddy maintenance.

Rooms are modern and chic, with some very nice decorations. There was a wall mounted LCD TV with plenty of cable channels, a fridge/mini bar, a writing desk around a corner which seemed to be some sort of shaft, pretty much dividing the room into two so I was able to work on the computer whilst Peter was in bed without disturbing him, and plenty there was plenty of space, as well as a kettle and an iron. Wi-Fi was nice and fast and stable. The room we took didn't have an external window - usually it's a straight out 'No thank you, how quickly can we get out of here', but there was a high level glass brick windows which gave a fair amount of natural light (and probably kept a lot of the noise out. The other downside of the room was it was right next to reception, and one night I had to ask some guests talking to the night receptionists to keep their voices down as my husband was sleeping - they were very loud. Under normal circumstances we wouldn't have considered a room without a window, but it had been a long journey, my feet had swelled to the size of footballs and I just didn't want to start doing the rounds of checking out hotels so we took it, initially just for the night, but as I wasn't well we knew it may have been a couple of days before I was well enough to start moving around again so we booked in for 3 nights.

Because of Peter's sinus problems and his aversion to air conditioning, we asked for, and were immediately given a floor stand fan for the duration of our stay. There was a small vase in the room so I was able to buy flowers, and there were some nice little touches - with modern ornaments. The hot water was hotter than hot - dangerously so, in my opinion. It took about 30 seconds to warm up, and as soon as it did there was a big Homer Simpson-type scream and a jump. Fortunately Peter went in first and was able to warn me and tell me where to set the lever to before getting in.

Plenty of convince stores nearby, a small market a 5 minute walk away and a large supermarket about 10-15 minute walk away.

We did have a couple of issues, which had us regretting booking the 3 nights and had Peter out looking for alternative accommodation almost immediately after we checked in , the main one being about the price - OK, so it's newish and it's nice, and most of the staff were very pleasant, but it's very expensive compared to the dozen or so others Peter checked out, particularly given that there was no window in the room. They wouldn't discount for a week long stay (we always ask) - it was the only place out of 12 that Peter looked at in the $25 to $45 range price bracket that would offer not long term discount - most offered a discount for as little as 3 days. As we don't bother with hotel breakfasts we told them we didn't really want them - they somewhat begrudgingly knocked $1 off the nightly price - breakfast is obviously only worth 50 cents each - from what we saw of it through other guests ordering I'm glad we saved that dollar. The other thing which came as a very big surprise was the water - all hotels give you two small bottles of drinking water each day. At the Cat Huy you get 2 bottles of drinking water as you check in and that's it. We've arrived in towns late at night and ended up staying at backpacker places that have cost $10/night which give 2 free bottles of drinking water each day. Another guest commented on this, telling me that housekeeping had forgotten to leave their bottles of water in the room again - second day running - so she was going to complain. She were as surprised as we had been to find you didn't get a daily bottle provided. For the price they're charging it really wouldn't be such a big thing for them to make this small concession, or at least install a water cooler for guests to use free of charge.

Although it is a very nice hotel in a good location, I can't see us ever going back to it, especially after the little gem we moved into next.


353 / 28 Pham Ngu Lao, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Tel: 84.8 39208716, 84.8 39208717

Email cathuyhotel@vnn.vn I was only able to find the email address after emailing a hotel site I'd found the photograph on - www.travellerspoint.com (very nice site) to ask for permission to use the photo - they kindly passed it on to me, and the hotel doesn't appear to have a web site - will update if I find anything