B2 MoneThong Hotel

I highly encourage you to read this if you're looking for a hotel in Huay Xai. If you know what to expect and know how to deal with the pitfalls, this place is a bargain for the awesome quality of the rooms. First thing is first, this hotel is in the middle of nowhere. No way to sugar coat this, a tuk tuk will charge you 50,000 kip to take you there from the main strip downtown. However, the hotel does provide a free minivan service that gets you into town. If you happen to see it in town when you're ready to come back, you may be able to catch it back, but don't count on it. Especially as they don't really run it past 7 pm. As such, make peace with the fact that you're going to get the free one way trip and then you're on your own to get back. This is where things get tricky. You see, tuk tuks disappear as early as 6 pm, so if you want to come back after a leisurely dinner, that's a problem. My solution was to find a kid at a restaurant next to the kayak trip guide office who was willing to take me back to my hotel on his motorbike. I settled on 30,000 as a fair price, but he may be happy to take less. I made an arrangement with him in advance to take me back at 9:30 pm for the following two more nights. Once I had that settled, I could truly appreciate the awesomeness of the hotel. To start with, the isolation is a huge asset. Lao is generally rife with bloody roosters so I've literally been woken up by roosters at every single other hotel at 5:00 am. Not here. As long as you're not near the 2nd floor (bars can get loud, opt for floors 5 or 6), you don't hear a peep. The hotel seems to make big weddings and such its bread and butter so it's normally pretty empty too. Best sleep in weeks! If you don't mind being pretty much alone in a huge hotel, this place rocks. Then there's the room. The rooms and bathrooms are huge, and very nice. The best you'll get for this price. The hotel also has a pool and a lovely lounging area next to it, though the pool was closed for cleaning when I was there (but lounge was open and pool looked fine, just couldn't swim). Breakfast is included, even though the voucher says no meals included. You get a few options, fried rice was great. The hotel does have some downsides. Only one of the receptionists speaks any English. At first, when trying to rent a motorcycle, I thought they were being unhelpful when they said that was impossible, but they were telling the truth. Bafflingly litetally no one will rent you a bike or motorbike in this city. The restaurant is weird. They have a full menu, but more often than not there is no one in the restaurant, including servers. It can take a long time to get their attention. Also, for some reason the dude that works there during breakfast appears to be allergic to tea, twice I've requested tea with bfast, twice I got coffee. The hotel does have a nice bar on the lobby floor (#2), but it's generally empty and closed. However if you say you want a drink, they'll gladly open it up. Rooftop bar is closed unfortunately. But the best thing about this hotel is that they have awesome karaoke rooms in the basement! They have like 8 private rooms that you can rent for 80,000 kip an hour. Tons of fun and the staff there are super friendly and will keep you company if you rent one alone as I did. Tons of fun! To conclude, if you approach this place with the correct expectations and good strategy to deal with the distance issue, this can be one of the best hotels you stay at for the price.