Backstreet Youth Hostel

This was the place we stayed on our first two nights in Guilin city.



It's the Backstreet International Youth Hostel which was a popular backpackers' hostel in Guilin. Mostly Westerners and Caucasian tourists staying here.

From the outside it looked OK to me.



But not when I went into my room.



Well, I was not expecting too much. It was after all, a backpackers' hostel. And it only cost me about 120 yuan (RM63) per night. On first impression, the bed did look quite nice and I felt a bit like royalty. Haha! It's a double bed by the way. They did not have single beds.

I had the whole room (and bed) to myself as blogger Jam and his friend stayed together in another room. And I even had two cupboards whereas Jam was complaining their room only had one!



And this table lamp sort of looked nice.



But that's all the nice things I can say about the room! Now let's go to the "lousy" part.

See this TV?



When I first saw the TV, I could not believe it! A TV provided in my room? We are talking about a low budget backpackers' hostel here! Not even a 3 star hotel!

Well, my happiness was shortlived. The TV could not be switched on. And guess what? They had a TV in every room and none of the TVs could work! I am not kidding.

Jam enquired about it at the counter at the lobby and that was exactly what he was told. Don't ask me why they bother to place the TVs there. The only TV I know that was working was the one at the lobby.

OK, fine. No TV, no problem. I didn't expect any TV anyway.

But the door was really old and worn out. I did not take any photos but there was a crack at the top part of my door and they just stuffed the hole with a piece of paper or something to prevent peeping toms from looking in!

I really think if I bang the door shut really hard, the whole door would crumble! The management should really look into replacing the doors with new ones!

The other thing was the toilet. It was not exactly filthy but it was simply not clean. I decided not to take photos of the toilet to spare you readers, but I really think the management should improve on the cleanliness.

I did not even dare use their bath towels. They looked dirty and there were some stain patches on them. Eew!

Now in case you think I got what I paid for, let me tell you beforehand that we had stayed in cheaper hostels in China with much much cleaner toilets and room!

But that's not the end of it. No, besides the lousy facilities, we had to be content with the staff's equally lousy attitude. Maybe they think they have too many customers and there is no need to provide good service. That really sucked!

I do not understand why backpackers rated this hostel highly. I guess it could be due its choice location which was just a few minutes walk to the city central plaza, commercial pedestrian street and some of the city's famous tourist attractions.

For me however, it's totally overrated. I don't think I would ever want to stay there again!