Sierra Homestay

Giá cả oki và chủ home rất vui vẻ

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The top room was spacious and the view was amazing. The homestay family was lovely and always helpful. Bicycles are right at the entrance and made traveling to nearby restaurants and scenery very easy. 10/10, I feel like we found the best room in Ninh Binh.

The most amazing hosts, in a beautiful friendly village, amazing location and views. My best experience in Vietnam. I will miss this place. Highly recomended.

Not much other than the 4 people I met who tried to communicate and help when asked. If you are looking for a room with no reliance on communicating with the family, no facilities or any assistance or advice as you can normally get at a hotel or homestay, this may fit your needs. But then, an apartment with a lock code to enter would be less hassle. There was only one other guest I saw in the 3N/4D I was there; all the rest were 5 generations of family members coming and going. The negatives: I don’t understand the reviews for this place. I think people are reviewing it based on the few family members they meet rather than the lack of facilities advertised. The list of facilities such as currency exchange, ATM, and tour desk to mention just a few are laughable considering the lack of English. Let’s tick every box!!! It looks like it may have been a welcoming and busy homestay in the past but not any longer. My arrival and trying to communicate with people who don’t speak any English or work out who was running the homestay was so painfully frustrating that I initially started looking for alternative accommodation for the next 2 nights. When I arrived, I called out hello but got no reply. Then I noticed a very elderly lady in the kitchen and called out loudly until she heard me. (She was 95 yo and I assume the great great grandmother, fantastic.) She then came out and yelled up the staircase to another woman and after a yelling match for 10 minutes she came down and took me up to my room. She was aged late 60’s/70. She had trouble reading/interpreting my google translation I showed her on my phone and trying to find out the wifi password and if the air con worked – which required an unmarked master switch to be turned on. Then a man about 50 yo arrived with a bunch of younger people. I thought he may have been running the homestay but seemed confused when I approached him, but did eventually ask me to sit down and cut some watermelon for us.

continued... A younger woman in her 30’s I met the next day was very pleasant and tried to assist a few times but spoke little English other than hello. I think it was her husband who was the only person to speak English, but I rarely saw him. I was told by the older man that a taxi was the best way to get to Walking Street and one was called for me later the first evening (after much confusion, phone calls and a neighbor coming over to arrange one). But the next evening the younger guy asked if I had the Grab app! Contrary to what I had read, Grab operates very affectively in Ninh Binh!!! I chose this homestay based on description and facilities, and photos which made it look like it was surrounded by gardens/ponds and a standalone property in a rural location. In reality the building directly fronts a busy narrow road with cars, bikes, and trucks driving past and tooting. There is a sand, cement and brick supplier around the corner with tip trucks coming and going. The buildings each side butt up to the homestay, unlike some other homestays in the area. The view from my balcony on the 3rd floor faced the road and multistorey old homes across the road, wall to wall. Only looking above this did I see the mountainous karsts. The advertised rooftop restaurant which was very appealing to me to chill and have drinks with others overlooking great landscape views does not exist anymore, not that I was going to eat there based on reviews. It is now a bird cage with netting on the outside and nothing more than a storeroom. I planned to explore the area by bicycle and chose Sierra Homestay based on location and having bikes available. The only bike available cost 50k d per day, but the seat could not be adjusted, the gears did not work (not that many bikes there have gears), and the front tire was flat. This was despite advising the man the previous day which he acknowledged. I eventually found a usable bike after asking around at other homestays nearby....