Soi 1 Guesthouse

I’m sorry to say, but I had a terrible experience in this place!! I only stayed for 4 days and every day something went wrong. On the first day my towel went missing, the cleaner took it thinking it belonged to a chap who checked out; on the second day I washed 3 t-shirts and hung them up on the terrace, when I got back they were gone, again the cleaner took them! The night of the third day the owner walked in our room (no locks on doors) at 2am turning the lights on and waking everyone up whilst showing the place to two new guests; and on the last day the owner aggressively shouted at me because I took a beer up to my bunk bed. He said this wasn’t allowed but just the day before I bought a beer from him and took it upstairs, which was fine!! The issue was that I had bought my beer from the shop next door at half the price. When I’m backpacking I enjoy seeing the sites and I can walk for hours, so when I get back to my hostel I like to lay back and relax. At Soi 1 if you don’t join the owner for a beer (obviously buying it from him) till 3 in the morning and you don’t put money in the pool table, they dislike you and I felt very uncomfortable. Besides my bad experience with the owner, the location of Soi 1 is very poor, although you can get to the main attractions via different routes (canal boat or sky train + long walk), it takes about an hour to reach them and coming back at night is a pain in the back side. There are guesthouses closer to the main tourist area charging the same price. I enjoyed seeing the sites in Bangkok and the food was great but the choice of hostel was terrible, most people I’ve met here were visiting Bangkok just to get drunk and be close to the sleazy clubs and pubs, oh and to see the ping-pong show recommended by the owner!!

I had such a great time staying at Soi 1 that i had to go back at the end of my trip. Dave and Jimbo were awesome! They were ready to party 24/7 and still capable of running a clean, legit, helpful business. I loved this place! They took the entire hostel out New Years Eve as a group, including some tag-a-longs from other places. We all had a blast. I think the end of the night was around 10am January 1st. Great time, and looking forward to going back!