Experience with Mountain View Hotel
May 10th, 2005
A lot of tourists recommended Mountain View Hotel. So did 1 of the hotel guest that came to Sapa in the same minibus with us. It was her forth time to Sapa, and everytime she had stayed in Mountain View Hotel, and even the Hmong children there immediately recognized her. Beside, the hotel locates at the wonderful place that it’s possible to view the beautiful scenery of Sapa valley.
However, our experience there was mixed. In the morning when we arrived, the receptionist was so kind and friendly. As we’re doing a day trip, so we’re looking for a place to take a shower. So we requested if it’s possible to do so at the hotel. She happily agreed that, provided we used any of their services.
However, when we returned in the evening, the girl wasn’t available. Another receptionist simply refused to let us take a shower without paying USD $1 each, which I think was pretty expensive. Actually later I found out most other hotels also demanded USD $1 each just to take bath. But I still found the receptionist behavior to be simply rude, just showed us the style of ‘if you don’t like, just leave’.
We left soon afterward.
[...] There were a lot of mini buses and vans running to Lao Cai until 4 pm. We also found a few mini buses that run to Lao Cai between 4 – 5 pm, but don’t bet on it. The buses can be found at around the Church and Main Square. I saw a few mini buses who looked for passenger at around Royal Hotel / Mountain View Hotel too. After 4 pm, we didn’t have much choice. Adeline found a hotel (most likely Queen Hotel) that has a bus to Lao Cai at around 5.30 pm. Other than that, the latest bus to Lai Cai was offered by Mountain View Hotel and Royal Hotel. We booked the tickets from Royal Hotel, as we didn’t have pleasant experience with Mountain View Hotel. However, as expected, as sibling hotel, they shared the same bus, with the same price of VND 25,000. [...]