Red Lantern House, Beijing

...adorable courtyard. The room had red walls and a very high ceiling. The attached bathroom was OK, but pretty stinky, sewerage in China is a bit hairy. You are also not allowed to flush paper down the toilet, so leaving it to fester in a bin for a day just added to the delightful fragrance. The shower was a bit rubbish too, but I hear they all are here, so that's something we will have to get used to. The bed was firm but fairly comfortable, and the ...
...it as the weather wasn't too hot. One complaint was the level of noise. This morning some construction work started round the back of the hostel and I awoke to loud grinding. The walls were also very thin which could be irritating if you have neighbours who are late nighters or early risers. My friend was in a dorm room in the corridor by the entrance and she said it was very loud at night, and that it was annoying not being able to turn on the light ... more

I am back again, writing from the East! I write this while still at the hostel, while I wait for a train to Shanghai this evening. We checked out before 12 so effectively my experience of the place is complete. They are storing our bags and allowing us to use the communal facilities as we wait.

We booked our holiday to China in November, planning to go to Chengdu to visit a school friend of mine. She told us she would scope out the local hostels for us and that there was a chance we could stay in her friends flat instead. Then the earthquake hit Sichuan, and our holiday looked like it was going to be cancelled. We decided to change our destination to Beijing instead, and my friend came to join us. She recommended the hostel that she had stayed in on her last visit and it looked nice enough online, so she booked it for us a couple of days before we were due to arrive.

The hostel cost 260 Yuan a night plus 100 yuan deposit - this works out at about 100 pounds (this keyboard doesn't have a pound sign!) for our 5 night stay. Our room was a private double with ensuite, but there are a range of different rooms, from dorms (4-8 bed), to private twin or triple rooms to ensuites...we are snobs so we chose this option. I have used the shared bathroom a couple of times when trekking a further 10m to my room seemed too much effort.

When we arrived we checked in and paid up (cash only) at the main reception, which is in a Hutong (alleyway). My friend told us that we were in the west wing. The same guy that picked us up from the airport then took our suitcases and put them in a trailer attached to a pushbike, and beckoned us to follow him. The West Wing is actually a good 5 minute walk down the high street from the main building. The entrance is a green door with a key card entry system. This leads to the communal area, which has several dorm rooms off it. The communal area is decorated with bamboo and er...red lanterns, with a couple of PCs and a cupboard stuffed with abandoned Lonely Planet Guides and a few fiction books. There are birds tweeting in a cage and a large table with benches that seat up to ten travellers, with differing levels of pretentiousness. A couple of fridges in the corner offer beer, ice tea and water at reasonable prices. - one Tsing Tao beer costs 4 Yuan (30-odd pence). Most evenings we have returned to the hostel after eating and had a few beers, in the courtyard or inside, although we have had to try and keep voices down because of people sleeping in the adjoining rooms.

The hostel served food, but we never had any as it was more expensive than surrounding restaurants- perhaps a small convenience tax. Pixxa and pasta is available as well as "traditional breakfast' which apparently was a poor effort, but I hear it is very hard in China to get a decent breakfast anywhere. Those that we saw having main meals all said they were very nice. We instead chose to eat on the busy street that the hostel was based on. There are various street vendors and cafes and restaurants. We went to one which cost 23Yuan for 3 of us to eat lunch - that's less than 2pounds, a far cry from the price of a KFC family bucket back home! For those that want something familiar, there are McDonalds and KFC, and even a Dairy Queen on the main street though we haven't visited them, preferring to go native.

The reception desk is always manned by a Chinese youth, all of whom speak fairly to very good English and are very helpful. They are happy to help by writing Chinese directions for taxi drivers or to offer advice. A board advertises the various tours and excursions offered by the hostel, and from what I hear they are all well run. We went on one excursion to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This cost 200 yuan (15 pounds or so). However, when we got on the bus, we found out that everyone else had paid an extra 60yuan for a meal. The driver settled it with the restaurant that we would pay when we returned to the hostel, as we hadn't been offered this option when we booked the tour.

Our room was set just off the adorable courtyard. The room had red walls and a very high ceiling. The attached bathroom was OK, but pretty stinky, sewerage in China is a bit hairy. You are also not allowed to flush paper down the toilet, so leaving it to fester in a bin for a day just added to the delightful fragrance. The shower was a bit rubbish too, but I hear they all are here, so that's something we will have to get used to. The bed was firm but fairly comfortable, and the rooms have air conditioning, although we barely had to use it as the weather wasn't too hot. One complaint was the level of noise. This morning some construction work started round the back of the hostel and I awoke to loud grinding. The walls were also very thin which could be irritating if you have neighbours who are late nighters or early risers. My friend was in a dorm room in the corridor by the entrance and she said it was very loud at night, and that it was annoying not being able to turn on the light because of the people she shared with. That said, I haven't stayed in many hostels, haven't done much travelling (yet), but I'm fairly sure these are pretty common problems in the world of hostels.

Overall, our stay was successful, no horror stories to report, and none from our fellow travellers either. I would recommend this hostel to any young people staying in Beijing. Its reasonably far from the main tourist spots, but transportation is cheap, with buses at 1 Y, taxis at around 20 Y, and the subway/metro only 15 minutes walk away. There are plenty of shops selling clothes and souvenirs and loads of places to eat.

I will add pictures when I return to the UK, as I do not have a camera cable with me. If you want to see some pictures now, go to the website

www.redlanternhouse.com.

You can book the hostel through www.hostelbookers.com and a host of other similar websites. 

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