Come & Go Vietnam

I’ve long railed against the price-gouging policy of hotels forcing guests staying over holiday periods (such as Xmas or New Year) to pay for a “compulsory gala dinner”. Even when that dinner is decent value (say around the $30 mark) I still think it is unfair to deny guests who have already paid for a room the right to choose where they eat, and see it as essentially a room rate increase in all but name.

I stayed at a hotel over Xmas last year, and as a regular leisure client of the property I was able to negotiate myself out of their gala dinner, but it was typical of the genre - a standard Western/Asian buffet, with the mooted “entertainment” consisting solely of the hotel staff murdering classic songs, ie karaoke. Much better Xmas dinners were available in the town’s restaurants, and that’s where I ate.

So I was amused, shocked and forced to pen this blog posting when, yesterday, I received a new 2010-11 contract from a resort in Mui Ne. Like most resorts, they have a compulsory New Year’s Eve gala dinner. The price? $195.00. Let’s just type that again. $195.00. I had to look at it several times. Do they mean $19.50? 195,000VND? Or maybe even $195.00 per couple? No. It’s $195.00 PER PERSON! So if two people are staying in one of their rooms over New Year, that’s an extra $390.00 on top of the room rate.

Even worse, their Lunar New Year gala dinner is a mere $30.00, so whilst it’s OK to fleece Westerners celebrating New Year, it’s not OK to do the same to locals celebrating Tet. I thought dual pricing was illegal in Vietnam these days.

Now I don’t care if this meal consists of fresh foie gras, Kobe beef, and scallops freshly plucked from the sea and delivered to your table by a naked Cheryl Cole. It is an absolute bloody rip-off, as I told the resort in my reply. I expect, and I sincerely hope, that they have the lowest occupancy in town over the festive period.

It was a weekend in Mui Ne during a business trip to Vietnam in 2002 that persuaded me to move to the country a few months later, and since then I’ve been back several times. This weekend I went there to check out a few resorts and was pleased to see that, despite its considerable growth in the last few years, it still remains a very pleasant place to relax for a few days, and that, unlike say Nha Trang, it hasn’t been ruined by insensitive high-rise development.

We stayed at the Novela Resort, a relatively new locally run place right on the beach, with great rooms (we were upgraded to a Deluxe Suite) and a big, child-friendly pool. The only drawback was the breakfast which, and this is a common problem in Asian-run hotels, wasn’t exactly copious and lacked little touches like cheese or jam to go with the toast. Praise Vietnamese food all you like but a bowl of pho isn’t going to last me until lunchtime!

We also visited the following resorts:

Amaryllis

Brand new luxury resort at the beginning of the Mui Ne ’strip’, with Ming Dynasty-style architecture. Would possibly appeal to Asian tourists but not my cup of tea at all.

Phu Hai Resort

Opened in 2001, Phu Hai is a really nice locally run resort with individual villas. The decor around the pool area is a bit tacky (the Vietnamese do love their fake waterfalls) but the rooms are excellent and it’s located on a very flat, quiet stretch of beach.

Coco Beach

The resort that put Mui Ne on the map many years ago is still one of the best places to stay. Wooden stilthouses, laid out so they all offer a sea view, a big pool, and several eating/drinking outlets, combined with impeccable maintenance and gardening and arguably the best beach area on the whole strip. Really nice.

We ate at Good Morning Vietnam, which seems to have gone seriously downhill since my last visit, and Sailing Club, which most definitely hasn’t - its Mediterranean Pizza is the best pizza I’ve had in Vietnam, and my wife’s seared tuna with mango & chilli salsa was superb as well.

There’s also a new branch of increasingly popular Indian chain Ganesh opened in Mui Ne, which is great news, and every time I go it seems more bars and restaurants have opened, without turning the place into a noisy party zone.

However, there is a new, privately run international airport due to open in 2012, and even a Disneyland further up the coast, which I find hard to believe. If both of these ventures come off, the character of Mui Ne may well change and not necessarily for the better. Watch this space, and don’t forget to check out our galleries below.