I am sitting in the Pearl River Hotel (Best Western) in Hai Phong, Vietnam wiaiting for a ship to come in. It is seasonally cold at 22 degrees (gets a little nippy in the evenings) and oh, so very quiet. So far I am the only patron of the establishment. Maybe a tour bus will pull up shortly and disgorge thirty red-faced and overweight Americans who will then proceed to noisily ruin all that was good, but I doubt it. It is perhaps poignant to state that Western New Year is just around the corner so apart from a couple of stray hippy nomads from Australia (and they prefer rock bottom priced wooden sheds for the night – can’t score in a good hotel now can we?) the tourism industry grinds to a halt.
When I checked in I was greeted by no less than four staff members who obviously welcomed the interruption to an otherwise undisturbed day. The restaurant where I am sitting now for a beer was silent, I’m sure I detected a layer of dust on the tables and no other customer looks to enter any time soon. I feel that the staff should be tipping me for gracing the place with my presence!
The hotel is very nice indeed. It is set back from Hai Phong in what looks to be like a “posh” residential area (the streets are tarmacked) and it is oh, so quiet outside too. Except that is for the house that is being built opposite. It is a quiet build, nothing metal or noisy about it and so it does not ruin the atmosphere and in fact gives life to the place.
The breakfast was included into the price. I expected it would be off-the-menu but they went to the enormous effort of putting out the buffet but it was obvious that it was only for me. There were four strips of bacon neatly laid out in the tureen, an incy-wincy bowl of baked beans (34 in total), the orange juice level in the enormous container was well, residing at the bottom and I had to lean the contraption precariously close to the edge to get anything to come out. Wow, they had everything there, all in miniature and right down to the extremely small French Loaf!
Nice hotel, pleasant and extremely friendly staff but wow, they must be bored.
it's a great hotel, it will be pleasure to stay this hotel
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