Hotel Name: Song Hung Hotel
Address: 28 Phan Ngoc Hien Street, Ward 2, Ca Mau, Vietnam.
I stayed at Song Hung Hotel in Ca Mau, Vietnam. I booked online at the rate of 300,000 VND ($13.06 USD), and I booked it for its price and location in Ca Mau.
When I made the booking I picked a room with a window, and it happened to be a quad room, even at that price. I got an email later asking if I could move to a single room, which I accepted.
Ca Mau is the capital of Ca Mau Province, and while not a big city, it’s still important to pick a hotel that has a good location for the casual tourist. I wasn’t familiar with Ca Mau, so I marked off some landmarks on a map and looked for hotels that are within a reasonable walking radius.
The Song Hung Hotel is on a major road and it appears to be three times the width of a typical budget hotel in Vietnam. I was likely the only foreigner to have stayed there this year, so they knew who I was as soon as I arrived.
I was allocated a double room with a private bathroom. When I booked I choose a room with a window, but this room only had a window above the door letting light in from the hallway. I was only here for a night so I wasn’t going to make a fuss to change considering the earlier booking confusion.
The bed was comfortable enough, but the room didn’t have convenient power outlets (a common complaint in older hotels before everyone travelled with electronics). The room had A/C and a fan. The room was not in sunlight so a fan would have sufficed. The fan though only had two speeds: 5 rotations per minute, or the speed of a turboprop aircraft taking off. I was reduced to using the air conditioner.
The room had a little work desk and cupboard, and in an unusual change for a budget hotel, all the furniture matched.
I can’t remember the last time (or indeed any time) when I stayed in a hotel room that offered cigarettes for sale.
The bathroom has a shower in a bathtub, which is my least favourite shower setup. I hate getting in a bathtub and worrying about slipping. And the bathtub wasn’t secure against the wall, leaving a gap for water to drip down. It’s better to just make it a wet room with tiles. The hot water wasn’t instant either, but in this part of the world you can get by with a cold shower.
The hotel is about 15 minutes walk to the central market, and a taxi from the airport cost 70,000 VND ($3.05 USD). After spending a day wandering around Ca Mau there didn’t appear to be any other location that would have been more advantageous.
Overall this was a decent option if you are just travelling on the cheap and want a roof over your head. I can’t complain given the price I paid.
Book the Song Hung Hotel online or search for more hotels in Ca Mau.
