Beautiful Saigon 3 Hotel

Located in a thin, pastel-pink building on a charming alleyway right off the main drag, the Beautiful Saigon 3 Hotel shares the road with a plethora of budget-friendly hotels and local restaurants. Guests with heavy baggage should be aware that a taxi won’t be able to drive them to the front door the hotel, as the alleyway doesn’t accommodate cars. 

Geared toward budget-minded travelers, the hotel is functional, clean, and pleasant, with largely nondescript decor. The reception area is small and generic but welcoming, with hints of luxury apparent in marble details, light wood walls and inset lighting. But the rest of the hotel has even more basic decor than the lobby -- the hallways, for example, have empty white walls and generic wall-to-wall carpeting. 

Tucked away in an alley in the Pham Ngu Lao Ward in District One, the Beautiful Saigon 3 is in a relatively quiet spot considering it’s location in the middle of the bustling HCM city. The hotel sits in the backpackers’ area, which is known for its budget accommodations and has a laid-back, youthful, and slightly touristy vibe. 

Guests can easily walk to a plethora of restaurants and shops, and the popular Ben Thanh Market is about 10-minutes away on foot. While there are hotels in closer walking distance to HCM’s biggest attractions, those who enjoy a healthy hike can get to most hotspots in 25 minutes or less, and everyone else can get to them by car in less than 15 minutes.

• Six-minute drive to Ho Chi Minh City Hall & Rex Hotel area
• Eight-minute drive to Notre Dame Cathedral
• Eight-minute drive to Independence Palace
• Nine-minute drive to Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre
• 10-minute drive to War Remnants Museum
• 11-minute walk to Ben Thanh Market
• 13-minute drive to Saigon train station
• 30-minute drive to Tan Son Nhat International Airport
• One-and-a-half-hour drive to the Cu Chi Tunnels

Rooms at the Beautiful Saigon 3 are nondescript, with wood furniture, cream-colored walls, matching tiled floor, and white bedding, but guests find them clean and functional with comfortable bedding. The rooms are unadorned save a small picture that hangs over the beds. And guests are surprised by the number of amenities, including a desk with a desktop computer (which is outdated but operative), a flat-screen television, a safe, individually controlled air-conditioning, and a minibar with non-alcoholic beverages. Coffee and tea service, water bottles, and a basket of fruit comes free, as does Wi-Fi, though it can be spotty. Bathrooms are more luxurious and fairly spacious with either a wet-room style shower or a shower stall with a clear glass door. A hairdryer, toiletries, and slippers are also supplied.  

Standard Rooms feature have much tighter quarters and are windowless, and many travelers upgrade to a larger, windowed room -- though some of these only look out on the wall of an adjacent building. Light sleepers should consider a room higher up and away from the alley, to avoid hearing street noise.

The Beautiful Saigon 3 offers a free daily breakfast at its small restaurant, which is actually part of the Beautiful Saigon 2 Hotel next door. Guests find the free breakfast, which is cooked-to-order, satisfactory. Western and Vietnamese foods are available, including Pho. The hotel offers its own private taxi service for guests arriving from Saigon Train Station and Tan Son Nhat International Airport. While this service is more expensive than local taxi service, the driver greets guest at the airport or station with a welcome board. The hotel is also associated with a travel company located on the same street, and has several pre-arranged tour packages available that leave directly from the hotel. Reception is open 24-hours a day, and laundry and dry cleaning services are also available.