Ever stayed at a hotel and met a friend to travel with , and when you check in to a hotel they say you must have seperate rooms. I thought the whole reason to travel together was to cut down on expenses.
So now the hotels say , well the girl can stay with you but we must charge a extra ,vnd for the room tax to show she is in another room.
Ever had a problem like this or Similiar. Viet Nam on the surface is very opposed to positution amongst the locals and the travelers.
The front desk must keep track of every person staying in the hotel, and if they are caught in violation of the law as mentioned above , there can be very stiff penalties for the hotel. The additional room charge - tax portion anyway, is so they can indemnify themselves if the local authorities show up for a random inspection. By the way, this is how prostitution is conducted in the same hotels. Prostitute books one room and John books a seperate room and then the meet up. Just another note - if you are looking for really low end local class hotels, be aware that there may be the occasion that you are turned away also, as not all hoteliers are licensed to do business with foreign travelers.
But you are right in that the local authorities would not assume a western female traveler would actually be a prostitute working in Viet Nam. My wife and I travelled together, me on a U. S passport and her on a Viet Nam passport and if we stayed in the 'public hotels' aka Cong Doan then they kind of frowned on us because our last names didn't match, but they still let us check-in as the chances of me bringing my own prostitute with me from abroad was slim to none.
