Far East Inn

I stayed four days. When I booked through booking.com the rating was 8.6, but by checkout it had fallen to 6, and I could see why. Getting the key was nearly impossible. I had to message the contact number and get someone to sort it out remotely. My room was on the first floor, reached by going up one flight of stairs and back down another. At first the room looked clean, but the air conditioning barely worked. I opened it and found the filter blocked, so I cleaned it myself and took a photo, with the left side showing before and the right side after. There was black mold above the air conditioning. The shower had no curtain, so water went everywhere. A temporary pipe had been run from the basin to the shower. The old shower head worked, but only gave cold water. It looked like someone bought a run-down place and made a few minor updates to try to make money. The bed was comfortable, but there was a PowerPoint behind it and loose wires coming out of the wall. The hotel said they'd check the room and restock toilet paper every two days, but they never did, even when I left the please-make-up-room sign on the door for two days. Luckily, someone had left cleaning supplies out, so I took some toilet paper myself. There's no reception, so I couldn't leave my bags after checkout. Checkout was at noon, and my flight wasn't until 9:25pm, leaving nowhere to store them. I know it's a budget hotel, but it's not fit for a stay longer than a few days.

The location was fine, near several train stations, and there was both hot and cold water. I also didn't encounter bed bugs, which I'm allergic to. That's about the end of the good points. The hotel felt old in a retro way and was barely maintained. Getting the key was a problem because it wouldn't come out of the box, and I waited ten minutes for staff to respond on watsapp. I never saw anyone at reception. The place was the opposite of clean. The hallway carpet looked like it hadn't been changed since the hotel was built. The room felt abandoned, like something from the 70s, only with a thick layer of dust. Two nights were pretty miserable, though we got through them. If you like challenges or abandoned places, this might be your choice!

The key machine worked perfectly, and our room on the top floor was clean apart from the windows. The aircon worked well, and the musty smell when we first opened the door soon went away once it was running. The furniture looked dated, but for the low price and the location near the middle of Bangkok, I couldn't fault it. We enjoyed two nights in a quiet nook in the middle of BKK. We'd booked through Booking.com, where the reviews were considerably better than the Google reviews. It was a “suck and see” booking for us, just two nights, hoping to save some money and see whether the room was clean. Once we got our key, we made our way up to the fourth floor and felt as if we'd stepped into a late 1960s or early 1970s time capsule. The first flight of stairs from the street to the entrance had no handrails. That may be a problem if you have balance or knee issues.

The room was extremely disappointing, and I really wouldn't recommend staying here or paying before seeing it in person. The air conditioning barely worked, the pillows were hard and uncomfortable, and the cleanliness was almost nonexistent. The bathroom was dirty, and there was even a cockroach in the room. The hair dryer didn't work either. There's no elevator, so we had to carry our luggage up to the fourth floor. It's just not worth staying here.