Soa Hostel

The staff were welcoming and helpful, and even upgraded our room. The smoking area at the back is a cool spot with a nice view. Our room was basic but clean, with comfortable beds and warm linen. It’s a relatively new hostel in a great spot on the main street, though there’s a bar opposite with loud music. The kitchen was dirty and had hardly any utensils.

The garden is lovely, and they lent us towels. There are lockers in the room. We stayed three nights in a shared room. We slept fine, but it was noisy, as other reviews mentioned, because of parties at another bar on the street. The kitchen was really disgusting, and the bathroom could have been cleaned more often.

The kitchen was horribly dirty and the shower was cold. There was a party going on inside the hostel, just three meters from the rooms, so it felt like sleeping in a nightclub. Never again. I can imagine it might be a nice place as a bar, though.

The man working behind the bar was very nice, and the beds offered good privacy. The rest was frustrating. Laundry cost me 70,000 pesos, compared with 20,000-30,000 at other hostels, which felt like a huge scam. The kitchen was a mess and lacked basic things like a butter knife, cutting board, and plates. In the morning, two people were sleeping on a cot on the kitchen floor. It’s listed as a cowork hostel, but a DJ was playing music in the lobby at 5pm, so anyone needing to work should plan to do it in their room.