Sunday, May 18, 2008

against better judgement

Andrea is...exhausted and annoyed

I've now been in Broome for 12 days. Before I left Perth, I booked a week at a backpackers up here. It was one of 3 in Broome. Two are near the airport and town, and one is closer to Cable Beach which is not close to town. Out of the two that were closer to town and hence work, I chose the Kimberley Klub 'Resort'.

I know I should be weary of places which purposely mis-spell words following my experience at the "Klub Habitat" hostel in Prague (bed bugs, toilet block, guys taking over the female bathroom, no shower cubicles, a hard bread roll for breakfast, dirty sheets) which surprisingly was recommended by my friend Honoria (I'm sorry darl, but you have really low standards when it comes to hostels)! But the other hostel is called 'The Last Resort' which I took to be more of a warning. So Kimberley Klub was it.


Visually, it is very nice, with palm trees, tropical pool, hammock seats and thatched roofs. But I soon discovered that it had its own pool-side bar (I value sleep so if I'd realized, I wouldn't have stayed here). And that my room overlooked it! But it was to get worse. The dorm windows were all louvered, so didn't shut out any sound, and the dorms were divided by walls which didn't reach the roof! So despite opting for the 6 bed dorm over the 10 bed, I was technically in a 30-something bed dorm!

I managed to stay 3 nights and then had to escape as I have 5.30am starts at work and hence need sleep! So I treated myself to the Broome Motel which is the cheapest non-hostel accommodation available. But at $140 per night, it really seemed like too much of a luxury for me. But I made the most of my 5 nights there, enjoying having the pool to myself in the evenings (bit cold for sensible people to swim that late in the day), a double bed, not having to remove other people's razors from the shower and having my own tv with some cable channels.

But sure enough, these days went by quickly and I found myself back at the KK, in a room away from the bar (which I had requested) with surprisingly considerate people. However, the people in the connecting dorms were highly inconsiderate - some of the worst hostel people ever! I don't know why, but Aussies feel the need to be particularly loud when they are the minority in a hostel. Then there was the Brit who was taking phone calls at 7am on Saturday in his bed while 30 people tried to sleep!

Augh!!!

Additional Kimberley Klub gripes:
* Some girls thought it was fashionable to walk around in undies and a t-shirt. Have I missed something?
* The bathrooms were filthy and not because of the lack of cleaning - within 2 hours of being cleaned the girls had trashed them again
* You were not allowed to bring in your own alcohol, but had to purchase overpriced drinks from the bar ($4 for a small glass of goon!)
* There were so many rules that the walls were plastered with notices
* My food was ravaged by ants
* During the weekly(? possibly monthly) kitchen clean, the staff moved everyone's food bags around and it took 10 minutes for me to find mine this morning (everyone has the same Green Bags and blue fridge bags so it's hard to find your own even when you know where you left them!)
* The "fully equipped" kitchen had 2 saucepans to share between 100 people trying to cook 2-minute noodles every night
* The kitchen was at least 35 degrees all the time


Shall I go on...?

No, because I need a nap. And not at the KK (there was someone having a shave in the next dorm and playing music). Fortunately now I have found some lovely people to stay with, so I have gladly ditched the hostel even though I've paid for one more night there.
Good riddance hell!

3 comments:

Pilgrim Penguin said...

... and you're sick too. Bummer!

Jayne said...

Ewwww!
That sounds hideous!
Hope your new accom works out much better for you :)

Anonymous said...

blech!!!

Glad you found somewhere else - that sounds like a nightmare!