Hang Mua Ecolodge Garden

Our stay could have been worse and maybe a different room would have been better but we were really unhappy with the room and location. Although situated close to the Hang Mua walk (about a 5 minute walk), the road it’s self left much to be desired. Maybe it didn’t help that we arrived at night, but the street was deserted with no street lamps and only 2 places to eat including an overpriced pizza place. The room was run down and smelt of excrement, probably because of the bathroom which is just a wall with a door and a plastic ‘roof’. There was a cockroach in the room but at least it was already dead when we arrived. We had mosquito nets which were useful. There was hair in the toothbrush holder and we couldn’t open the blind. We did have a nice view of the countryside though and the room came with free bottled water and breakfast which was nice. Bedding was clean and bed was hard but comfy. The host was nice but couldn’t find a solution to the fact this the second door to our room didn’t have a lock and was pressed shut with a chest of draws from inside the room (this was to little consequence because the door opened outward and anyone could just lean in and help themselves to our things). The pool area was nice and the host was helpful otherwise, recommending us other activities and offering to drive my friend to the pharmacy when he got food poisoning. If you’re on a budget and you get a different room to ours I’d say maybe stay here, but otherwise I’d avoid.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable visit to Ninh Binh and were able to see so much of the area in just one day. The location of the home stay was super for this and we were also delighted that the staff were helpful in arranging transport to the train station and Trang An. Until we came to leave, we would have been comfortable leaving a 3 or 4 out of 5 rating. We were however made to feel extremely uncomfortable by the man who oversaw our stay, as he began hassling us to leave a review before we had had breakfast. This intensified when we returned from our day out; we were obliged to leave a review before he would drive us to the station (which we had already paid him for). We left a generous review on *********** (averaged at 8.0/10) which did highlighted the one area we felt was lacking - the cleanliness of the rooms and bathrooms. The man then proceeded to drive incredibly unsafely (including at points driving without holding the steering wheel, across two lanes in relatively busy traffic and far slower than the rest of the traffic) whilst using his phone to translate his haranguing of us about our review, eventually resulting in us having to speak to his boss on the phone about why we hadn’t left a 10/10 review. The entire interaction left us feeling distinctly uncomfortable and spoiled the end of our trip. We were relieved to get out of the vehicle, even though it was not in the drop-off location we had agreed.

The place was filthy. The bathroom hadn't been cleaned in a while. There was thick scum on the taps. The shower didn't drain and eventually sewerage came out. There was a used tampon in the soap holder. The pool was brown. The bed was rock hard. The bicycles kept breaking and half the menu was unavailable. The only two redeeming features were the friendly staff and the location.

The room was clean, cozy, hot water available, nice mountain view. Good free breakfast with pho and coffee. Scooter rental is cheap, good location to visiting around, only a few minutes to the Mua Viewpoint and Trang An. Reasonable prices for the room, laundry, meals.

Je recommande vraiment cet hostel, déjà les chambres sont vraiment magnifiques pour le prix (a 5 nous avions 2 chambres spacieuses avec sdb privées pour une trentaine d’euros), pour la piscine plus qu’agréable, la location possible de scoot sur place, ainsi que une restauration au sein de l’auberge vraiment délicieuse! Le seul hic c’est que les propriétaires ne parlant pas anglais, c’était parfois difficile de se comprendre mais après avec les outils de traduction à notre disposition aujourd’hui on ne peut pas se plaindre! A 200m du point de vue de Hang mua (magnifique), et 30 min du temple de bai dinh que nous avons rejoint en scoot. Je recommande!:)