About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

The Kim Hotel is a really good backpacker deal - stay at the Kim Hotel and you have Bui Vien Street at your doorstep, right at the heart of Pham Ngu Lao ward in District 1 and its shopping, dining, and tourist services. For a really low price, you get air-conditioned rooms with comfortable beds, fridges, and bathrooms en suite. The family-run ambience is all due to friendly Mrs. Kim and her family, who still call the Kim Hotel home in the most literal way.

Pros

• Great value for money - comfortable accommodations, low (and negotiable) prices
• Prices negotiable - pay lower if you don't use the elevator or air conditioner
• Convenient location near corner of Bui Vien and De Tham Streets
• Cozy rooftop terrace
• Charming family-run atmosphere

Cons

• Bad signage and small frontage makes Kim Hotel hard to find and easy to miss
• Family space bleeds over into hotel space
• Literally closet-sized elevator

Description

• Address: 40/18 Bui Vien Street,Pham Ngu Lao Ward, 1st District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• Phone: +84 8 836 7495
• Twelve rooms, six floors - elevator services all floors
• Amenities: telephone, writing desk, cable TV, air conditioning, bathroom en suite, hair dryer, and 220V electric outlets
• Narrow frontage makes it easy to miss, just count down the unit numbers to 40/18
• Set in alleyway surrounded by other mini-hotels
• Creature comforts and not much more, in exchange for really low rates

Guide Review - Review of the Kim Hotel, a Mini-Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The Kim Hotel is a mini-hotel on Pham Ngu Lao, District One's Bui Vien Street, the part where it constricts to alley-like dimensions past its intersection with De Tham Street.

The hotel's frontage is small and the sign is rather poorly designed, so it's easy to miss when you're looking for it, but just look for the street number and you'll find it.

The Kim Hotel is run by the family that gave it its name; Mrs. Kim is the laconic but friendly proprietor cum hotel manager. Her warm welcome is part of the Kim Hotel's charm, as is the family-run feel of the place. In fact the Kims never moved out - they live on the ground floor, and the lobby doubles as their living room area when night sets in.

The family is charmingly proactive - the daughter inquired as to how much your guide paid for the taxi ride from the airport, and volunteered her uncle's car to take me back for my flight the next night, if I paid the same rate.

Visitors can choose from about a dozen rooms, two rooms per floor, fore and aft, through six floors served by the smallest elevator your guide has ever seen. It's really small - couldn't have been more than nine square feet in size, your closet is probably bigger.

Rooms are inexpensive, and prices can even be lower if you swear off access to the elevator and discontinue use of the air conditioner. What you get for the bargain-basement rates: a comfortable room with a double bed (the mattress is rather thin), wispy but clean sheets, a mini-bar, air conditioner, and a bathroom en suite with free soap, toothbrush, and toothpaste. (The latter is the standard-issue chemical muck you'll find in most Vietnam budget hotels, so I advise you steer clear.) Rooms in the front of the hotel have small balconies, not so with the rooms in the rear.

The convenient location of the Kim Hotel puts visitors right in the middle of the action. Great eats can be had just across the alleyway, at a brightly-lit Indian restaurant you can't miss, but more choices can be had if you venture out into Pham Ngu Lao. Or you can simply take a beer from the mini-bar and head on up to the rooftop terrace to take in the view of urban Saigon and chill out - the kind of cheap luxury that makes it all worth it.