A Hostel Environment

“It’s the plastic bags that are the worst,” said a disembodied voice out of the darkness, “all the rustling and crunching – it’s highly irritating.” “But what about zippers?” I countered, knowing full well the speaker was right – plastic bags are the worst – but wanting to participate, “I have a suitcase with a million zippers. Isn’t that ziiiipppp, ziiiipppp, ziiiipppp unnerving?”

”Ah, zippers,” another voiced piped up, “they are disturbing, but they have a predictability, a definitive ending you can count on. With the plastic bags, you never know what the person is doing or when it will stop.” “Yeah,” several voices, including my own concluded, “plastic bags are the worst.”

I had just arrived to my dorm room in the hostel about 1:30am, hoping that the music from the bar downstairs would have stopped by now. It hadn’t, which is why my five roommates lay awake in the dark in neat bunk bed rows discussing the worst noises fellow hostelers can make. But right now, no noise we could concoct would be worse than the bad music wafting up from the bar directly below us. Minutes earlier, when I had gently opened the door, trying not to disturb anyone, a voice had said, “And there’s number six.” “Number six?!,” another voiced said, alarmed, “I thought we were all here!” “Y’all still awake?!” I asked. And it was clear that we would remain so until the bar closed, blessedly in half an hour. “Why don’t I go downstairs and ask them to turn it down?” I offered, “there’re only a few guys in there.” “Are you sure you want to do that?” asked one of the phantom voices. “Sure, I’m American; they’ll expect it.” And so I did, risking that 2 a.m. sloppy eagerness men who have been drinking all night get. The music subsided – somewhat – and the hilarious noise discussion began with five women whose faces I never saw, as I left early the next morning.

The hostelling experience has been at once fun and frustrating, broadening and limiting, enchanting and disgusting. I choose it both as a way to save lots of money so as to extend my travels and as a way to meet other travelers. But I was not prepared for the acquiescent behavior it would require of me. Understand I have not stayed in hostels since I was 18 – that’s nearly 30 years ago! And in the meantime I have become accustomed to the manner in which I was living, namely alone. In my own home, I stay up late, listening to loud music, doing projects, spreading them out on the floor and the table and the couch. I like to read in bed, eating popcorn. I take long, hot showers. I walk around naked. I vacuum at midnight. Sometimes, I don’t wash dishes for days. (Aren’t I a charmer? “I got nasty habits…” sings Mick Jagger.) On the flip side, in the kitchen, I use one towel for drying hands, another for drying dishes, and a third for drying food. The dishes sponge never touches the counter, the counter sponge is never used on the dishes, and certainly neither ever touches the floor! And while there may be dishes in the sink, the counters are always wiped clean. As we all do at a certain point, I have my ways.

And so, the hostelling traveler, like all animals in the wild, learns to adapt. I’ve learned to make my bed up and lay out my pajamas, wrist brace, and flashlight when I arrive so that later that night, when I invariably come in after someone is asleep (and there’s always someone asleep no matter what time of day it is), I don’t make noise and can find my things. I wear earplugs because when it comes to sleeping I resemble The Princess and the Pea and there is usually a snorer in the room or some obnoxious outside noise. I now sleep – unnaturally – on my back because the sleep sack I made out of a twin sheet (please file this under Bad Ideas) is too small to turn around in and I’m never sure about the cleanliness of the sheet below me.

If I am the first in the room, I’ve learned to pick the best bed based on proximity to the door (you don’t want to be next to it, constant noise and light), the window (you do – for air), reading lights, a hook for your towel, surface for putting your watch and water on (if you’re lucky), lower bunk in some scenarios, upper in others. And thanks to Jenny’s example, I now test each untaken pillow in the room to find the best.

Can you pick out the best bed in this room? I know what I just said, but in this case, the best bed is actually the top bunk behind the door (which you can't really see) because it has lots of space to store stuff underneath, the reading light is in the right place, and since it is behind the door, the light from the hallway doesn't shine in when the door is opened.

Despite my best efforts, however, I have come to accept that I will get good sleep only every three or four nights. I have never slept well, taking an hour or more sometimes to fall asleep, am easily awoken, and this circumstance compounds the problem. And being a Slow Learner doesn’t help either. The night after I stayed in the room above the bar – getting very little sleep – I engaged another Room Above the Bar, this time above an Irish bar – on St. Patrick’s Day. And stupidly, I when I saw the bar, I thought, “oh cool, I’m staying where the action is.”

Not all people have the same understanding of multiple-sleepers-in-one-room etiquette. To me, the sleeper has priority, even if you think it's a dumb time for them to be asleep, even if -- as happened to me recently -- you have never actually seen the people out of the bed. Two women with whom I shared a room were asleep when I came in at night, asleep when I left in the morning, and asleep when I came in between sightseeing and dinner! These alseep-at-all-hours people can be very frustrating to those of us who need to repack a suitcase or organize for a side trip the next day or who have some sort of project that would be nice to lay out on your bed. It's like that rock-scissors-paper game. Thus, dark wins over light, silence over noise. Unless you're older than your Japanese roommates, and then age wins over everything! One night when I was traveling with Jenny, we were in our beds reading when our roommates came in and got right into bed (fully clothed it appeared) as if to go immediately to sleep. We didn't turn out the light right away, nor were we asked to, and sort of invoked an inconsiderate we-were-reading-first rule. When I commented on this later to Jenny that the fact that we were not asked to turn off the light must have been an example of Japanese penchant for non-confrontation, Jenny laughed and replied, "No, it's because we were older."

I am certain that I have become known as Velcro Lady. In addition to the Velcro strap on my watch, I wear a night brace on my wrist that has three large, noisy, Velcro straps. Imagine that sound in the dark as you’re just falling asleep – riiiipppp, riiiipppp, riiiipppp. I now put it on and take it off in the bathroom.

Oh yes, the bathrooms. The place where I never let my feet actually touch the floor. The joy I experience when I walk into a room I’ve engaged and there’s a sink in it is immeasurable. I no longer notice that the room looks dumpy if it has a SINK! Bonus! Think for a moment of all the disgusting personal hygiene things you do at your bathroom sink -- you're picking, you're plucking, you're popping. Now imagine doing those things in front of strangers; now imagine doing it in front of strangers of the opposite sex!

The kitchen is another place where patience must be exercised. Think of how you operate in your kitchen, how efficiently you can put together a meal, moving gracefully from refrigerator, to sink, to counter, to stove. Now add 20 other people doing the same thing, most of whom don't know how to cook anyway. And then add dishwashing techniques that make you shudder (using no soap, for example. And many people don’t rinse soap off the dishes – is it just me or is this a problem?! Doesn’t soap make you sick?) and flagrant towel violations abound.

One night, in a Brisbane hostel, I had a meltdown. The following is what I wrote; it is unedited, for your amusement.

I’m Gonna Punch Somebody!: Tonight I’ve reached a limit. I’m cranky as can be. I’m sick of cooking in ill-equipped kitchens, on banged up, teflon-flaking pans that have to be washed before I use them, using stained (with what?!) cutting boards on food-ridden counters that even if they were wiped would be with disgusting sponges from the Pleistocene era. The two towels available have been used for potholders, wiping dishes, wiping hands, wiping up food, dropped on the floor, and were formerly diapers, for all I know. There are mountains of dirty dishes in one sink next to another so clogged up with food bits and dirty water as to make an appetizing swill. The can opener sucks. The knives suck. My attitude sucks. I miss my own kitchen!

Many backpackers cannot cook and thus are eyeing my food with undisguised envy. "Yummm, what's that?" "Oh, it's just (a love throwing in that word "just" -- I'm such a witch) a Green Bean and Tofu Stir Fry in Peanut Sauce." "Oh, that's just a Vegetable Frittata." "Oh, that. I thought I'd just throw together a Nicoise Salad." In most cases I am gracious and offer a bite or give instructions on how to make the dish. I have this vision of me traveling to hostels and giving cooking lessons, in which case sell your stock in Ramen noodles, because the volume sold will decrease enormously. In New Zealand and Australia I cooked often, to save money, to control the nature of what I eat (face it, these countries aren't known for their Haute Cuisine), or because sometimes you are nowhere near a restaurant.

In New Zealand and Australia there was often a big difference between those hostels which were YHA ones and those that were not. With the YHA hostels, there are certain standards that they must keep. You always get two sheets and a duvet. Men and women are in separate rooms. Yes, in the other hostels they frequently put men and women in the same room. Frankly, I'm not too keen on this. The only time I want a man in my room is if he is my man. It is awkward to change clothes -- my sense of modesty has lessened immeasurably -- and men are more likely to snore. Although the worst snorer of all was a woman on Fraser Island, who was so deeply asleep, even my protests didn't wake her. I changed rooms the next day. Generally I seek out the YHA hostels, but I have stayed in some marvelous private ones. Here are some pictures of a couple of favorites.

	One of my favorite hostels of all. There was actually a steamer in the kitchen, screens on the windows, and the rooms were decorated! That's Randy, the owner sitting in front.
	This is Hillcrest in Orepuki, NZ. It was a simple place, but extrememly pleasant.
	This is the Rainbow Lodge in Nimbin, Austraila. I actually hated staying there because everyone's universe revolved around pot and thus they were pretty pathetic, but the grounds and layout were so interesting.
	This is Tropic Days in Cairns. The owners (one of whom I had a major crush on!) had been travelers themselves so knew what we needed. They put a lot of thought into making an attractive place.
	Another view of Tropic Days.

I've compiled a set of Questions I Never Thought to Ask when booking a room: 1) Is there a bar under my room? 2) Will the trash be picked up outside the window at 5:30am? 3) Do you have too many dogs and cats that have the run of the place? 4) Is the kitchen ill-equipped and disgusting? 5) Does the bed sink in the middle, coming up around the sides of me like a canoe? 6) Is there a ladder to the upper bunk or will I have to catapult myself into it? 7) Is the room stifling hot, with no screens on the window, and a herd of mosquitos outside? 8) Will there be strange men in the room?

Staying in hostels, backpackers, and budget hotels means lowering expectations, finding happiness in unremarkable amenities, and accepting a loss of privacy. But it also has enormous benefits in that I have met interesting people from all over the world. In a travelogue coming to a screen near you soon, I will tell you more about the other travelers -- and how they have broadened my horizons -- as I will about the consequences of being a traveler 20-30 years older than everybody else.