Monday, April 18, 2011

Nha Nghi



Every night, Huyen and I have been staying in Nha Nghi's which translates into "rest house" but everyone refers to as "guest houses". In Hanoi -- as I've blogged before -- these are placed people go to have sex. However, in small towns they are basically the only hotel options. On average, a nha nghi costs about $7.50 a night to stay and has a fan and hot water. The sheets can be a little bit sketchy so Huyen and I have brought our own sheet to use every night.

Some of the highlights from our first week of nha nghis are:
1. The first place had someone's NAIL CLIPPINGS on the bed! Yeah, gross.
2. The second place had about twenty varieties of spiders in the bathroom. One spider was just like this one.
3. Someone was burning garbage next door and the fumes were blown almost directly into our room.
4. The power was cut off in the morning and we had no windows with natural light. I'm pretty sure we didn't leave anything in the room.
5. The bathroom door at one was about 4.5 feet high...and yes, I slammed my head into it.
6. A crazy person literally came into the nha nghi (he was friends with the owner and that's how they described him when they said, "Don't worry about him, he's crazy.") and kept using the toilet next to our room. He hacked up about twenty lugies and would often stop in front of our door and assumingly listen in. We could see him because the door was frosted glass.
7. For three nights in a row we had dead mosquitoes and dead spiders on our sheets when we came into the room at three different places!

And that's after one week! More fun stories to come!