I have always wanted to be like Pho Nguyen- a famous hotelier in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. So even on my darkest moods I try to be as cheerful as possible.
But even Pho Nguyen has her shortcomings... When I arrived at her hotel, I was excited to engage on a chitchat with her. We checked-in late and I guess she was already tired and done for the day. She was smiling at the white guy who just checked in, when 'twas our turn for registration, I noticed she wasn't smiling at all! I was holding two passports and I only showed one. Her face went sour and in a serious tone demanded, 'I need to see both'. I replied, 'one would do' and to my horror her Vietnamese 👀 became bigger looking so frantic at me. She was about to say something, which stopped the moment I placed on the desk the thing she was asking for. I was appalled like I literally wanted to cry in disappointment.
The following day, I noticed how her hotel looked so dusty! I didn't have a good initial encounter with her so I frustrated and focused on the littlest inconvenience and on what I see as less acceptable drawbacks of the hotel. It was huge and there seems to be nobody but us and the Caucasian guest from last night. Even the lobby looked so unwelcoming.
I wondered why every reviews on TripAdvisor about her hotel with special mention of her ofcourse were all remarkably good!
Days went by, me and my friend were getting stressed and stretched of Ho Chi Minh taxi drivers looting us with their overpriced taxi rate.
We even got lost in search for this ticketing office for Cambodia tour, nobody we approached for directions speaks good enough english. We had no choice but to 911 Pho Nguyen that day. To my surprise, she sounded cheerful that moment, and told me 'You must be tired, I'll arrange your tour and just pay me soon as you come back'.
Good Lord!
All my resentment at her disappeared! Thanks for the help!
Back at the hotel, the wifi signal in our room was too weak so we decided to kill some time at the lobby. My friend was browsing the internet questioning why Notre Dame Church looks red on google while the Notre Dame where the cyclo drivers took us to, looked modernly white!. I stupidly blurted, maybe it only looks red on an aerial view.
She couldn't control her curiosity and so with her inquisitive mind she approached Pho Nguyen, and our questions were answered. Notre DAMN it! The cyclo drivers shammed us. It was already dark outside to go to the place, but per Pho Nguyen the real one is just near and she could call us a taxi that could take us there and bring us back to the hotel.
After the quick tour and back to the hotel, we finally got to have a small conversation with her.
You may expect traits such as discretion and attention to details to be the most important when managing a hotel. But if we look beneath the surface... it's so much more than that. It's about HUMILITY and PASSION FOR MAKING OTHER PEOPLE SMILE #
