Bangkok trip hostel review

I spent my weekend holidays in Bangkok, doing a bit of touring and shopping and eating. It was great fun, and just to get away from the busy life here. 😛

I did my bookings way before hand, thinking that much research would get me a nifty hostel to stay at. Upon much searching and surfing, most people rated Big John’s hostel being the best. It’s pretty cheap too at RM20+ per person per nite. (By the way, their website is pretty bad. )
So since it’s Aussie run, I went ahead and booked it, thinking I wouldn’t be facing any language barriers.

Thailand being land of smiles, I was expecting to be greeted with much enthusiasm as we get to the hostel. We saw a big burly man, which must be Big John. He totally ignored us and left the check-in to his staff. Anyways, the staff wasn’t particularly friendly either. I couldn’t see signs of any smiles but it was ok. Until she proceeded to charge us more that the amount I had prepared. It seems that she wanted to charge the full amount, and somemore for key deposit, even though I had already paid 10%. Thank God I actually calculated the amount, else I would have to pay extra again.

Never mind that, she finally calculated again after some confusing explanations, and brought us to our rooms. The first thing I realise was that their was only one bathroom in one floor, instead of my expected bathroom in each room. I didn’t remember it being mentioned in the site, after I paid extra for a twin sharing room instead of the mix dorm. And the other thing was, the room was so tiny. Imagine a Queen size bed size room, with hardly room to walk. With my luggage placed behind the door, the door could only open a little, and we had to squeeze in and out. Plus, the door was actually those bathroom types transparent screens. We can’t even change in the room without being peeped at.

Well, everything was still ok. We went walking in the city, shopping and stuff, and came back by nite, and was already really tired. I saw on the door at the supposed lobby that says no outside food is allowed in the restaurant (the lobby is actually the restaurant itself) and may be charged 300bht (RM30) if you bring it in. So, coz we bought some snacks and drinks, we thought it’s no problem to be bringing it up to our room. Since we have our private room and all. However, Big John saw the 7eleven plastic bag we were carrying in, and instead of nicely telling us not to consume the snacks in the room, he asked one of his staff, a little Thai girl, to come up to our room to warn us(kinda threaten us I think). She seemed scared as she told us to quickly eat it or hide it from him, else he will come up to the room and it will be like end of the world for her. The poor girl. He even asked her to bring up a second time the house rules, and ask us to read it again. Gosh, after that night, we try to stay out as late as we can before going back to the hostel. It’s worse than staying in a campus hostel. What’s with the strict rules I wonder…

Another thing was they advertised for Thai Massage which was one floor above their internet cafe, but when we went to book, they actually have only one masseur and is not really open for service. Well, I think they shouldn’t have advertised and placed their flyers around in that case. Furthermore, we were supposedly given free Internet access for 20 min each day. So on the 2nd day, we went in to use the internet. I don’t wear a watch, so I don’t really know what time it was. Plus, our local time is different. So, we just asked if we could use it, and the girl just asked fo r our free coupon. We gave it to her and surfed for exactly 20 min. It was just filling time and purposely using the coupon. However, when we were leaving, another girl came and told us to pay, saying that we were using before 9pm. Supposedly we can only use the coupon after 9pm….but I thought she should have told us before taking our coupon that it wasn’t 9pm yet. That’s another turn off point….

Anyways, there was lots of people drinking and partying at night at the restaurant, which kinda becomes a pub at night. So, there was much noise as we try to sleep. And waiting for the bathrooms to be vacant wasn’t pleasant either. Big John only greeted us and said helo when we were checking out to leave Bangkok. So much for a nice and friendly place. I would advice travellers to look elsewhere.