We all have travel horror stories. We obviously try our best to avoid them. But sometimes, we run towards them without even realising.
Our time to visit Bangkok arrived and we were excited to visit the Thai capital. We flew late at night from Phuket and arrived at our destination at about 2.30am.
We booked a cheap hotel in Bangkok around Khaosan Road. The area is famous for its bars and nightlife. It’s a busy area of the Thai capital and quite turist-y too with lots of accommodation options. We just picked one that we thought was a good deal.
What we didn’t know was how badly maintained the hotel was! As soon as we set foot at the reception we knew something was wrong, like really wrong.
As we approached the reception desk to announce our arrival, the men behind the counter simply kept his earplugs on and asked for our passports in a rather annoyed mood. We did as requested and were abruptly asked for 500 Baht which we had to find out was for the key deposit. Soon after we made the deposit, our very polite receptionist threw the keys on the counter and proceeded to ignore us again.
Decorated walls
The nightmare in Bangkok:
As if that wasn’t welcoming enough, we found ourselves looking for our room with our bags on our back on a set of gloomy corridors with filthy walls around us. We finally figured that we had to go upstairs, which didn’t seem to look any better.
Once we found the right floor we made our way to the narrow aisle that led to our room. As we opened the door, an unsurprising host was patiently waiting for us, le cockroach. As if we weren’t even expecting for anything different, we killed our inconvenient roommate and made our way into the room.
Our eyes started inspecting every inch of the room and with horror with noticed way too many stains of body fluids, dust and a toilet that was without doubt dirtier than any public restroom we’ve been too in the whole of Asia.
We confabulated about the possibility of trying to find a new place to sleep but soon gave up the idea, questioning our ability to get a new (and better) room at 3:30 in the morning.
Our hopes weren’t too high but we decided to go back to the reception and try to save ourselves from sleeping with a dead roach and a moth (that was also sharing the room with us).
Our (deceased) roommate
All went as planned and we were thrown a new key with not much ceremony. Back upstairs, we found a room without inconvenient mates but equally dirty…
It was already 4am. We finally decided on spending the few hours left of the night in our nightmare room and find a new room as soon as we would wake up.
Without even taking off our clothes, we covered the bed with our sarongs and beach towels and felt asleep.
The redemption:
After 5 hours of sleep, the warmth of our room woke us up and we promptly grabbed our stuff to run away as fast as possible. We made our way downstairs and found a smiley lady looking slightly dazzled by our desperation.
We explained the situation and she promised to file a refund with our booking agency. As we had booked through agoda.com our money couldn’t be refunded straight away.
We left feeling a little defeated but still hopeful to find a better room for our 3 night-stay in Bangkok. After walking literally 2 blocks, we found a clean (and cockroach free!) room for the same price. Win, win!
Also, after exchanging a few emails with Agoda.com they offered us a full refund for our booking gone sour. Phew! Thanks agoda.com.
What are some of your travel fails? Have you ever slept in similar conditions? Where? Share your experiences with us. We’d love to hear from you.
Larissa & Jean
Nomaddictives
