Thursday afternoon I found myself on a Pacific Airlines flight leaving from Danang International Airport for Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is officially called these days. Zach and I squished into our seats overlooking the left wing of the aircraft, our sweaty knees pressed against the seats in front. 6 days in HoiAn flew by between beach bumming, shopping, and eating. We were now flying into a new city and descending into a new adventure as our plane made a shaky and hasty landing at the city airport.
It was daylight and stifling hot so we quickly grabbed a taxi to whisk us into the city centre to our hostel, Canada 281. This particular hotel advertises in-room internet access and computer ( at highly inflated costs) which was exactly what we needed. Zach had a phone-interview from Canada and needed a computer. The hotel seemed promising. Sure, the room rate was higher, but the hotel had an elevator, a/c, cable TV, and a big window in the room with the personal computer.
We booked in after seeing the room and doing a quick test of the computer and internet connection. A cheaper room on an upper floor was available for our first night, but the computer room would not be guaranteed to be held for us until the next day. After some discussion, we decided to play it safe and take the computer room for both nights. I had been upstairs waiting for Zach to return the key to the room we decided against taking when he came and told me to meet him in our room, 303, one floor down.
The door to room 303 was left open so Zach hurried ahead to the room, not wanting to leave our bags unattended. Not sure whether he took the stairs or elevator, as he was quickly out of sight, I opted for the elevator that we had taken only moments earlier to the 4th floor. This was certainly the lazier option, but I was unsure if the staircase I saw did indeed lead to our floor. I stepped into the elevator and pushed my finger against the three. The elevator brought me down to the ground level. Hmm... strange, so I pushed the three again. Up I went, and the elevator stopped on three. The door seemed slow to open, so I encouraged it by hitting the door open button. Nothing. Now the elevator is taking me to floor 2, and finally the ground level but keeping me in its shiny silver metal trap, I can't get out!! The door is not opening! OK, I decided not to panic and do the most logical thing I could think of. That is what the intercom button is for, right? Hmmm... no response...The emergency ring will surely alert somebody, anybody, that I'm trapped and can't get out! After 5 minutes, panic really began to set in and I started shouting out, "Hello!!!! I'm stuck in the elevator!" At this point the elevator was stopped on the ground level, and I knew front desk was a few feet away. Couldn't they hear me? Or the irritating emergency ring of the button I kept pushing??!!
I was really starting to lose it. How long would I be stuck here before somebody realized where I was?! Fearing the worst, I began to imagine hours of confinement in an elevator with thinning air and no company. How could the elevator have worked only minutes ago, and now, like a stubborn child that refuses to move, have its doors tightly closed? After what felt like an eternity, the elevator began to move up to the third floor with me still shouting out "HELLO!!?" A familiar voice emerged from the other side, Jennie? Where have you been? Open the door." It was Zach, THANK GOODNESS! "Zach! I can't open the door, I've been stuck in here for 5 minutes!" Always the sympathetic companion, he replied "Why the hell did you take the elevator to go down one floor?" With one last gust of desperation I tried prying open the elevator doors. Moments passed that felt like frozen time until a miracle happened. Without any explanation the doors opened and released me from its iron grip, I was free! Zach's perplexed face greeted me, "Where have you been??" My hands shaking, I walked towards room 303 and answered "Stuck in that piece of sh*** elevator is where I've been."
I collected my composure before heading down to front desk to let them know something was wrong with their elevator. I turned to Zach as we walked down the stairs and said "I will lose it if they say, 'Oh, that happens' " Politely, I informed the girl behind the counter what had happened and mentioned I had been pressing the emergency and intercom buttons during my confinement in the lift that they advertise on their website ( www.canadianhotel281.com). Barely a muscle moved on her cool face. I expected an apologetic reaction, or at least some sense of concern that hotel customers were being caught in elevator purgatory, right within the very walls of their establishment! Her response was curt and calm, "Sometimes that happens when the elevator doesn't have enough electricity and stalls".
I was so perplexed by this response that I walked away without any sort of angry rebuttle. How can a hotel have an elevator if it regularly stops working WITH PEOPLE INSIDE? Had they heard my desperate cries and carried on with their text-chats on their mobile phones?? How does the elevator not get enough electricity, and why weren't we told upon check-in, "By the way, avoid the lift because you might get stuck." Hmmm.
Zach and I spent our two nights in room 303 with his interview passing without issue ( thankfully!). In the span of two days, the computer could not stay open more than 15 minutes before crashing, that is, if we were able to get it to work at all. The bathroom smelt like something died in it and had been burried below the rug with a bucket of mothballs to try and cover the smell. The large window looked out onto a brick wall less than a foot away, and the TV cable was left unplugged leaving us wondering about the advertised TV fare. The receptionist accused Zach of holding onto the room key of the first room we checked out, although he had returned it hours before. The hotel was cold and unwelcoming- by far the worst place we've seen yet in Vietnam.
Today we checked into another hotel a street over that is brimming with character. At half the price, we may not have a computer in the room, but breakfast and dinner is included and tea/coffee/juice is offered all day for free. We have to hike up a long flight of stairs to reach our room, but the hotel has a pully to lug our bags hilariously up the centre of the open staircase. At the end of the day, the most irritating part of the Canadian Hotel 281 experience is the fact that Canada is at all affiliated with this place. Supposedly a Canadian owns the hotel, but aside from a penguin-adorned shower curtain there was nothing Canadian about it.
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