La Ong Dao Hotel 1

REVIEW - LAONGDAO HOTEL 1 Well, I’m going to start off this review with, “I was pleasantly surprised.” I had booked this hotel late one night without looking into the reviews. It is abnormal for me to book without at least reading reviews on the various sites beforehand. Even if hotels have poor reviews, some of those reviews are quite old so I take a chance. That was the way I took this “chance”; more by accident than design. In this instance, I was looking for a hotel near the Royal Thai Consulate for this, my latest “Visa Run” – get a new 60-day tourist visa. Location was paramount. As was price. I didn’t want to be on the other side of Vientiane and need to use the (relatively) expensive taxi services to get to and from the Consulate. La Ong Dao Hotel 1 (also posted as Laongdao) ticked the two boxes: 750m (1/2 a mile) from door-to-door and about US$30 a night, including taxes and breakfast. I had driven up from central Thailand to the border crossing, grabbed a 300 baht/75,000 kip taxi from the Lao side to the door. FACILITIES The entry is nicely open, with dark woods and a nice tiled floor. I was greeted by a smiling receptionist who, upon receipt of my passport, and checking my booking on the register, didn’t know how to use the EFTPOS machine. She grabbed an equalling smiley colleague and that was solved. SIDEOTE: Not having had a chance to stop by an ATM on the way in, I had no alternative. 3.5% surcharge on Visa and Mastercard, 5% on AMEX. Considering my lovely, gouging, Australian bank will also shove another %3 on top of that, the price was going up quickly. Anyway… Given our electronic key we were pointed around the side of the reception area to the lifts/elevators. Having a room number starting with 11, I assumed we were on the 11th floor. Upon entry to the life, the place is only seven storeys high. Okay. Got back out. Looked a bit more carefully at the signage at the cross-corridor. Fine, we go left. Swipe, beep, click, open. It was, in all intents and purposes, what anyone that has stayed in a hotel would call, “a standard room”: wardrobe/closet with coat hangers and pair of disposable slippers. A stocked mini-fridge; a small basket containing packeted noodles, chips, and some pumpkin seeds; an electronic urn to boil water or the cup noodles; a hardwired hairdryer; two bottles of free water; an LCD TV; an Asian-firm King Size bed; ensuite; and an airconditioner. The minbar prices were reasonable and quoted in $US – about the same as you’d pay in a local restaurant. Free toiletries supplied: two toothbrushes, shower cap, soap, a miniature of shampoo, a miniature of conditioner, and a comb. Replaced daily, along with the water. Free Wi-Fi throughout at decent speeds. All-in-all I thought, “Hey! This place is alright for about $AUD40 a night.” LOCALE Decided to go for a walk a have a look around the area, as I pulled the room door closed, the handle came off in my hand. The locking screw had gone AWL. Plugged handled back onto spindle and we’re off. Firstly, we turned right, walked 20 metres, and then right onto Rue Dongpalane. Found an ATM outside the D*Mart. Cashed up , we ate at some street-side café/restaurant arrangement. We returned back to Rue Dongpayna and decided to do a recce of the Thai Consulate route (which is, basically, out through the front door, turn left. Walk half a mile, cross the street at the Pizza Company Restaurant on the corner and you’re there) On the way back, dropping into one of the various minimarts in the area to buy some smokes, we came across the Vientiane Social (see review) and pumped a few cleansing ones into us. Back to the room. Open the airconditioning. Set it to 25 degrees. Aaaand, now it’s time for the NEGATIVES: The fan on the A/C was Boeing-like. I tried “quiet mode” on the remote but the LCD display on the device was knackered so I don’t know if it worked, the volume didn’t seem to change. The wall unit beeped so it received some sort of signal; the adjustment of fan speed didn’t seem to do anything. The remote for the TV had a dead battery. Fortunately, we had spares for the camera. Sorted (and replaced before leaving; rechargeable AA batteries are expensive) The shower cubicle’s door didn’t fully close as the rollers on the top of the sliding track were missing, water penetrated under the pre-fabricated structure, allowing water to seep across the floor. The mixer tap in the shower alternated between Arctic and Volcanic if one so much as moved the mixer a nanometre. BREAKFAST The restaurant is signposted to open at 0600. We arrived at 0635. The trays of steamed rice; fried rice; mixed vegetables; fried noodles; chicken and vegetables; crinkle-cut potato chips/fries; “ham” and “smoky” boiled sausages; fried eggs; and the tureen of rice soup, were all still covered in clingfilm. It was duly removed after another small group also entered the restaurant. Nothing was under these dishes to keep them hot so the chips and eggs, especially, were luke-warm. The ham and sausages were cold (or maybe they were supposed to be, hard to tell) The (excellent) tea and coffee were replenished regularly, but there was no milk, only powered creamer. Toast was available via some bored functionary that spent most of his time tooling about on his phone, occasionally putting pieces of bread into a six-slice toaster. So when you wanted toast he gave you the oldest, coldest pieces. Options for spreads on the toasts were: margarine and packeted strawberry jam. Which you had to spread with a dessert spoon because the place doesn’t provided knives. The crockery was melamine plastic, with ten percent of the plates having (ancient) cigarette burns on them to some extent; the orange juice was made from powder. The fresh fruit was dragon-fruit, watermelon, pineapple and was adjudged “good” by my travelling companion. Second morning the breakfast was served in the function room on the fourth floor. Not that there was a sign telling you that it had been moved from the ground floor, we had to enquire at the reception at about 0730. I wondered at the time how many people had asked why the restaurant was empty in the previous ninety-minutes. Morning three we just went straight to the fourth floor. Conference room was empty. Laughing, we went back to the ground floor, entered the restaurant, and steadied ourselves to some tepid breakfast and hot coffee. ENTERTAINMENT On our second night, the standard “I’ll be back in ten minutes, I’m going for a smoke” call was deployed. I eased past the reception area, through the restaurant, and outside to the eating/smoking area for a cigarette and a sneaky beer. Four hours later after meeting two Filipinos, an American, an Israeli and a Bhutanese, I returned to the room all “tired” after singing during the free karaoke session which is held, it seems every night. I only sang one song - coincidentally, the last one of the night. I’m not sure if that was natural timing or the organisers have thought, “Okay, we don’t want that tall White bloke any more chances to have a crack at sounding like a dying buffalo.” The karaoke list is comprehensive and has songs from artists in different languages. Some three-and-a-half hours earlier I had purchased some peanuts from a wandering street hawker to apologise for being twenty minutes later than expected. However, a packet of fresh peanuts doesn’t cut much weight when you’re four hours late. Seems we didn’t need the aircon anyway, the room somehow already felt a bit frosty… OVERALL La Ong Dao Hotel 1 is a three-star hotel. Its proximity to the Thai Consulate is ideal. The price is spot on and, with the exception of the aircon which we didn’t even use after about 0200 our first night, the room was fine. The hotel does seem to cater for package tours. The biggest downside wasn’t the quality of the breakfast – it was all tasty enough – it was the temperature of it. They just need to put those tea-light candles onto the little tray under the dishes to keep them warm. I mean, the holders were there for the candles; the restaurant just needed to employ them. STAY AGAIN? Yep. RECOMMEND TO FRIENDS? Yep.

This hotel harkens back to what would be a 1980's type of stay. It feels as if this was built and that was it. No renovation of anything. Just stuck in time. The place is filled with mostly Thais and some foreigners doing visa runs to where I don't know. But there is a karaoke bar attached to the place and comes alive at night. Other than that, if your looking for something modern,look elsewhere.

I stayed on the fifth floor and after on my second night I had to change rooms because I was living with at least 2 rats that would come down from the ceiling at night and get in to the very little food I had. I switched rooms only to find ants.The breakfast was ice cold.1000 bt a night I expected a bit better.Shop around my friends.One more thing The beds are so uncomfortable no matter how you sleep.

More affordable, easy to find and near to countries landmark, like the Mee Cong river, and the victory arc of French who discover Laos as a republic. More touristic places, and amazing prices of everything that everyone doesn't experience paying almost millions of money

I recently stayed in this hotel for one night. After looking at one of their cheaper rooms we decided to stay in the main hotel, as the cheaper room was in a court yard at the back of the hotel and was filthy and stank. The room appeared to be OK, so we stayed. The room had many cigarette burns on the carpet, the shower had a leak and was spurting water up to the ceiling, no remote for the TV, no shower mat so the shower was slippery and wet due to the spurting water and shower doors that did not close properly, no WiFi. We were told that breakfast was at 10.00, only to be told the following day that breakfast stopped being served at 9.30. Yet there was a sign at reception saying breakfast stopped at 9.00, so the staff were completely hopeless in their ability to run and operate at hotel. Never again.

Stayed in this hotel for one night and it was disgusting. It was dirty, smelly and just plain grotty. So old and so in need of shutting down. I would never stay here again. The breakfast was a joke. Don't stay here.

I am not difficult person. But not having towels and no reaction from the staff, room completely broken and smelly. Breakfast that closes at 9am it is just a joke. I came at 9:10 they even refused me an orange juice. The internet is so slow I cannot even open my email. Cannot work. Your hotel really sucks and once again I am not difficult.

From the intermittent wifi, not being given towels, hard mattress, loud as hell air conditioner, to the shower doors about to fall off, our room looked good in photos but in reality it was terrible. You suffer a nights sleep only to wake up to a "complimentary breakfast" that was cooked at 6:30am and then they make no effort to keep the food warm. So unless you like waking up early after a terrible night's rest--the food will always be cold. The 5 staff members watching your every move at breakfast cant even be bothered to keep the instant coffee warm. So you get cold coffee, cold eggs, and since the 5 staff watching you are too busy staring at you, you get to sit at a table that hasn't been wiped down and has food on the floor and ants crawling across the slimy tabletop. Staff don't speak English, so when u ask for toilet paper and SHOW THEM THE DISPENSER they still just give you napkins. 2 kilos of laundry cost 16 US Dollars. The place was filthy. Laughable is the only way to describe it as a seasoned traveler. Avoid this place.

litterally terrible and disgusting. desk staff don't speak english. Rooms sound all night. Mosquitoes are biting, and water dropping sound doesn't stop. It's cheap. The cheap price may explain all. And there seems to be a girls house nearby.