Mui Ne bad hotel experience: Hai Gia hotel

I'm now in Thailand but wanted to finally write about a bad experience I had at Mui Ne beach.

On the advice of my Easy Rider, I stayed at Hai Gia Hotel in Mui Ne. They offered me two rooms, one big room with hot water and no TV, and one smaller with TV and hot water. After looking at a few other hotels, I chose to stay at Hai Gia in the first room. They told me someone called and reserved it while I was out looking. Fine. I took the second room, unpacked my things, killed upwards of 10 mosquitoes in the room, then went about town having dinner and getting acquainted. I returned in the evening and went to shower.

The hot water didn't work. I went to reception, who told me that the room had no hot water and they told me this when I picked the room. I related that I had been told both rooms had hot water, and I asked for a different room. They told me that hotel was full. I asked them to turn on the hot water, and they refused, saying it didn't work. I explained calmly that they told me the room had hot water, and that I looked at other hotels and would have chosen a different hotel if I knew this room was cold water. I wouldn't have stayed there at all.

It was 10:00pm by this point, and the manager woke the staff member who had showed me the room. The staff member wouldn't look me in the eye--wouldn't even look in my general direction!--while he said he had told me the room had no hot water. I said, "No, you didn't. Look at me and tell me--" when the manager cut me off to scream at me to get out of the hotel. Needless to say, I packed my things and left, telling them it was poor business to lie to people about their rooms to get them to stay, then found a room for $2 less per night next door, which also had no hot water, but the staff didn't lie to me about it!

Anyway, point being: avoid Hai Gia hotel in Mui Ne. Heck, avoid all the expensive beachfront areas and stay at the guesthouses on the other side of the road, because the water on the beachfront strip is so dirty your bathing suit will dry to a splotchty shade darker and wash out brown water. The better beaches are along the road to the dunes, accessible by motorbike.

In 8 months of travelling Asia, I've only had 2 bad experiences in hotels. This one, and here on Ko Tao at Sunshine II. I think only 2 bad hotels in 8 months is pretty lucky, but you'd be luckier to avoid Hai Gia in Mui Ne!