February 08, 2015

Day One in Ninh Binh

I arrived last night about nine o'clock, and was immediately greeted by a receptionist from the Kinh Do hotel less than 200 meters away. I was ushered inside quickly, and for some reason I followed. The hotel isn't necessarily bad, but it's so impressive on the inside that it's intimidating and honestly a bit scary; maybe it's just because I moved from a plain, simple, eight person dorm room to a proper hotel room, but there's more to it than that.

It's got tall ceilings. Like probably twelve feet. The floors are covered in fancy tile which might be actual marble. It's cold. The furniture is all dark wood. There's a giant, decorated wardrobe close to the door. Everything's kind of fancy, and the ceiling is embossed with sort of flowery, fancy patterns; the sort of thing you'd expect from a fancy restaurant or an older hall sort of place; if this hotel was built by Americans or the English a hundred years ago, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that Vietnam has roosters. I haven't measured the time exactly, but now, at 6:17 AM, they crow every thirty seconds, or better. I'm not sure that's why I woke up at 5 o'clock, but I did, so there.

I don't really want to stay at the hotel another night. Maybe I'll try another night, or maybe I'll try a hostel/guesthouse closer to my point of interest, Tam Coc (three caves). You could look up the photos on Google if you want to know why I'm going there, or you could wait for my next post. It's supposed to be somewhat sunny today, and around 18C/65F. I don't know if I should switch to my pants or just keep my shorts on until I shower next, as the temperature is fairly good, really. I feel like the hotel is probably colder than outside, or at least my feet (thanks to the tile) are cold.

One thing I have yet to determine is if the hotel offers breakfast in the morning; in my book, a hotel that doesn't offer you breakfast in the morning pretty much deserves the one night it gets out of you. That said, I'm paying 210,000 dong for this night...and one of the last meals I ate in Hanoi cost 180,000 dong. They COULD provide breakfast, but at a budget hotel like this, it would be neither surprising nor unfair if they were to simply keep that money and simply give advice on where to get breakfast (probably what I'll do if they don't have breakfast provided).

It's incredibly lonely, staying in a fancy, marble-floored hotel in the middle of a town somehow smaller, and somehow still more intimidating than Hanoi. I guess a new town will always be a little terrifying. It's also probably a big factor that I arrived at night. I arrived in Hanoi around noon, but I arrived in Ninh Binh last night, somewhat late. The town was dark, I had to cross what was probably highway 1, and I had to go down a street I didn't know into a hotel I didn't know, to find an empty, cold room with space for four and there only being one of me.

The sun is coming up, but it's very cloudy, so outside looks intimidating. I don't know how Vietnamese eat breakfast, yet; at the hostel, they'd start cooking up breakfast at 8:30, and stop at 9:30; when I got up an hour earlier one day, they wondered why I'd gotten up so early; I guess they don't hear the roosters after twenty years or so.

But it's 6:30 and I want to eat breakfast...or sleep. I know I'll need sleep if I don't sleep now, but I could check into a hotel in the afternoon and take a nap or something. I hope I can get a room in some place very close to Tam Coc, because I don't like having a 30 minute drive/1:30 hour walk to get to where I really want to be. There are some places, bars, resorts and hotels, near Tam Coc, so hopefully when I get there I'll be able to find them and hopefully there will be room.

Just spent like ten minutes looking into inns/B&Bs/hotels/homestays/hostels in the Tam Coc area.

I may never leave. It's beautiful even overcast, and there's this hotel with a good view of the area out of the front door of the rooms. There's also this set of bungalow sort of places with great views and area...a couple other options. I think I'll stay at the Anna Tham Hotel View. They've got free breakfast AND parking. Yup, they're high class. The price should be something like 200,000 dong, which, with breakfast, qualifies as an excellent value in my book. I'll have to review the breakfast when I eat tomorrow.

I'm well, if a bit lonely, having switched from a hostel to a hotel with high ceilings and marble tile floors, hardwood furniture and somewhat bad lighting. Anyway, I'll write again either later today or tomorrow, if all goes well.


!Noah!

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