Garden Ecology Bao Gia Vien — Local services in Cần Thơ

We arrived and were shown to a concrete bunker "family room" which was very different from the photos on the site when we had booked. In fact we realised that the "family room" had been demolished, with only the flooring still there as evidence. After negotiating, we were shown to two huts which we were told initially were booked out but we were the only people staying in the whole complex! They were new and clean, but windows didn't seal and we had spiders, lizards and mosquitoes in the rooms. The beds were comfy and the air con and wi-fi worked well. The waterway on the photos is not a river but a pond. It is very isolated and apart from a typical Vietnamese street market a short walk away on a dusty road, there is not the scenery we'd anticipated. Not much English spoken. When the Typhoon was approaching (Christmas Day 2017), they gave us 2 candles and some matches for "big storm", offered us food midafternoon and then the staff left the complex. As we realised the Typhoon was heading straight for us, the rain was heavy, the water was rising and we finally found someone to help who arranged a hotel in Can Tho city (at no extra cost). We gratefully accepted this offer as it seemed it would be dangerous to stay in a typhoon, especially with no-one else about! It certainly wasn't a homestay, looked more like a half set up school adventure camp. Wasn't at all keen on the caged monkeys kept in terrible conditions with loads of rubbish in their little...

We arrived and were shown to a concrete bunker "family room" which was very different from the photos on the site when we had booked. In fact we realised that the "family room" had been demolished, with only the flooring still there as evidence. After negotiating, we were shown to two huts which we were told initially were booked out but we were the only people staying in the whole complex! They were new and clean, but windows didn't seal and we had spiders, lizards and mosquitoes in the rooms. The beds were comfy and the air con and wi-fi worked well. The waterway on the photos is not a river but a pond. It is very isolated and apart from a typical Vietnamese street market a short walk away on a dusty road, there is not the scenery we'd anticipated. Not much English spoken. When the Typhoon was approaching (Christmas Day 2017), they gave us 2 candles and some matches for "big storm", offered us food midafternoon and then the staff left the complex. As we realised the Typhoon was heading straight for us, the rain was heavy, the water was rising and we finally found someone to help who arranged a hotel in Can Tho city (at no extra cost). We gratefully accepted this offer as it seemed it would be dangerous to stay in a typhoon, especially with no-one else about! It certainly wasn't a homestay, looked more like a half set up school adventure camp. Wasn't at all keen on the caged monkeys kept in terrible conditions with loads of rubbish in their little...

Maybe we had wrong expectations but nevertheless after two days we were happy to leave this place. On the positive side we can definitely point out the rooms which are really nice and clean but this was the only positive thing. On the opposite side we found more things that we didn't expect. When we arrived we didn't get any information (about breakfast, tours, bicycle rentals...). The staff was very friendly but they barely spoke English. The homestay does offer bicycle rental but no other information is provided neither they offer some tours so be prepared for that. If you ask for a map (for sightseeing) they tell you to use your phone for that. Also on the negative side is their restaurant which offers a small choice of food that wasn't expensive but therfore you got very small portion (e.g. Rice with seafood but almost no seafood inside, fried squids where you got two squids the size of a finger....). Another really annoying thing was the noise. Maybe we had bad timing but the whole time there was very noisy. The first day they hosted a big group of people who were taking part in some kind of games and in the second day there was a really noisy group the whole day. And throughout the day the staff played loud music. We know that for the last problem we cannot blame them entirely but maybe before booking you can ask the homestay if they expect some bigger groups and be prepared to wake early in...