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Published: October 1st 2010
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I started writing this blog in May while we were in Laos - it’s now September and even though it’s only been 5mths, our work life has been through a lot of change.
Our days in the hotel are far from the normal nine to five that Luke and I both never wanted to settle with. We certainly got what we wished for.
There are so many stories and occurrences that happen so often it’s hard to think back on all of them and put them into words on a page. Life is never dull at the hotel; it’s not always fun with excitement, but definitely never boring.
We part own and manage Hanoi Rendezvous Hotel, a 20 room hotel in the heart of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. We spent the first month working 16hr days each, glued to our laptops setting up our website and accounts on every accommodation website we could. Our old business partner, Kien is a crazy card, priding himself on being the best tour seller around, but we quickly learnt not to trust him. He all too often came to us with new business ideas, that we got sucked into, talked seriously about and then always decided that we just really don’t have enough time in the day.
In May, I wrote this about our ever changing life at the Hotel - Luke’s really taking everything in his stride, while the thought of more & more work scares me and makes me want to ‘whoa’ the rains and steady a little. The ‘whoa-ing’ never happens and there’s an emotional rollercoaster that puts my heart in my stomach daily. It really is a fun way to live, but there’s just not enough time in the day to take a step back and think about just how lucky we are. Sometimes all you can do is laugh, when Kien is sitting across from us, and says the three words we’ve come to really appreciate ‘I’ve been thinking’….. and it usually ends with us agreeing to have a look at another hotel.
Since the opening of Rendezvous, we have been forever looking forward to the down time that we very much deserve. The time where our hard work + long hours pays off and we’re able to sit back, and manage.
The closest we came to letting the reins steady a little, was in July. But our hopes for relaxing a little were shattered by our old business partner Kien. He decided to gamble away every cent of Rendezvous, his cousin’s hotel, and brother in laws hotel on the World Cup. We have been picking up the pieces since.
July was such a huge turning point for us, very hard + sad to come to terms with. When you go through something like that together though, it definitely makes you stronger + so appreciative of what you do have.
So again, we were back to the 16hr days. We took on Kien’s percentage, and over every aspect of running the Hotel. To add insult to our very sore injury, our night receptionist had been pocketing money from guests, and one of our day time receptionists was also pocketing the 10% government tax we charge for tours. So not only were we trying to come to terms with being severely screwed, but we also had to do it two staff members down.
We went through a few night receptionists, all of our night receptionists have been such strange people. The last one to fail - we should have known as his name was also Kien - decided to express on Facebook his hate for me, that while at work he watched a sex film, phoned some call girls, stole food from the kitchen, and tried stealing from our tip box. He very stupidly added me as a friend; we sacked him the next day - much to his shock. He tried justifying it all by saying he was only practicing his English to make him a better employee.
Early July, before everything went pear shaped, a wonderful new addition was added to our team here - Poppin.
Luke’s friend from Coota. He initially came over to help with a new hotel that we were taking on with Kien but that didn’t work out. He has been a breath of fresh air for us, he's given Luke and I the break we’ve needed.
Three months on and there is light now shining, we’ve worked really hard, and are seeing such great benefits. Poppin took hold of the reigns while we went to Australia for 10 days, and now we’re back and are looking forward to concentrating solely on this hotel, moving out, getting our life back and enjoying this wonderful country.
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