How ChiMi began

Today we are telling the whole story.

Everything was new

Hosting for the first time was genuinely hard. Nobody teaches you how to choose a mattress guests will actually sleep well on, how many towels a day the laundry really needs, what to do when the air conditioning gives up at eleven at night, or how to answer a booking enquiry that arrives at three in the morning.

We learned it one piece at a time. Some of it from our guests. Quite a lot of it from our own mistakes.

Building the house is the easy part

Most people assume the hardest part of a homestay is the building and the decorating. That part is actually the fun one. The hard part comes six months later, when the house has to look exactly as good as it did on opening day, every single morning.

Sheets have to stay evenly white. The plants have to stay green. The wood has to be polished. Every antique in the hall belongs to someone who remembers to dust it. There are no days off, because guests arrive every day.

The luckiest part

Happily, we found each other. Friends who shared the same idea and were willing to stay through the hardest stretch of it.

ChiMi is grateful for all of it. Every time a guest walks in and says the house is beautiful, we think back to those first months and feel that it was worth it.

To our guests

We hope everyone who stays here knows that this house was built from a fair number of sleepless nights, and from a great deal of joy as well.

Thank you for stopping by.

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ChiMi Homestay & Coffee, 313/18 Nguyen Trong Tuyen, Ward 8, Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City. Hotline 085 800 3456.