This puzzled me when I noticed it for the first time. In fact, even before I noticed the hourly rate, I noticed the number of little hotels in our area. Bien Hoa doesn’t exactly attract tourists. Although the existence of a few motels could be explained by the need to accommodate visiting relatives or business travelers, there are way too many for that. How on earth could they all afford to run?
Out particular hotel is nothing special. It’s pretty new—maybe built a year or two ago? Apart from lacking sunlight and smelling a bit like a nursing home, there’s nothing sketchy about it. The owners are a very nice family. No unsavory characters lurking in the halls.
So why the hourly rate?
The owner’s daughter, Duong, who’s fluent in English, cleared it up for us. I was a little too bashful to ask, but luckily she was chatting to us about the entertainment options for young Vietnamese on the weekends: they either go to the cafe, sing karaoke, or go to the motel.
Oh. Good!
Actually, it’s usually young married couples who go to the motel to get a room. Typically, newlyweds live with the husband’s family—probably three or four generations of it. 40,000 dong ($2.29) at their local motel buys an hour of privacy.
Now that we know what’s going on, I see this happening all the time. When we get home on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, the lobby and hallway is crowded with motorbikes. Occasionally we pass a couple doing the walk of shame…
Duong said around Christmas things get so busy that they can charge as much as 300,000 dong for two hours—that’s double what we pay for a night! And they still have to turn people away! No room at the inn, indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment