My favorite hostels

During my travel career I have stayed in many hostels and some of them have stood out for me. Usually on longer trips I use mixture of hostels and couchsurfing and on many short trips I have stayed with friends so I don't have experiences of hostels in every town and city I have visited. But these ones that I will list in this blog post have been good experiences for me. Maybe you have stayed in one of them and you disagree with me but for me these places were nice and they could changed since I visited them. I think people like to complain more about their accommodation so that's why I wanted to make this list.

Hostel Majdas, Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Hostel Majdas was absolutely wonderful experience. Yes, I mean experience, not just a stay. Hostel is nicely located near the old town of Mostar in peaceful neighborhood. The owner Majda is full of knowledge about the town and gives you information where to visit in Mostar and best places to go eat out. Breakfast is included in the price and it's homemade! Also in the evening there is some traditional Bosnian dish to be served, I had really good soup! Hostel also offers day tour around the Mostar region which is very recommendable! The guide Bata really knows how to keep you interested during the whole 12-hour tour and places visited are really beautiful and unique. I'm not telling you too much, you have to experience it yourself!

Website:
http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Hostel-Majdas/Mostar/73679

Roommates Penang, George Town, Malaysia

When I stayed in Roommates it just had opened few weeks earlier. We had a lot of luck for finding this place. We arrived to Penang without any accommodation and thanks to locals tips we found this place. Since then it seems to have became the top place to stay in Penang and that what it was for us back in January 2012 already. I'm not surprised it's success. The staff was incredible friendly and helpful. They gave us tips which are best places to eat in George Town which is definitely one of the top eating destinations in the world! Rooms were comfortable with nice beds. Roommates is not big place but it makes it easier place to meet other travelers. You can also find my face advertising their place on their Facebook site.

Website:
http://www.roommatespenang.com/

Happy Seven Hostel, Gdansk, Poland

Sometimes you find good hostels in surprising locations. I had no expectations for the hostels in Gdansk so I was really happily surprised. We arrived to Gdansk without any reservations and decided to choose the best sounding hostel from my Lonely Planet guidebook. It turned out to be a really good decision. Happy Seven is great place to stay! They have really nice room full of couches for hanging out and watching films. The staff is really helpful and gave us very good advice. The best thing in the hostel is that every room has difference decoration. We stayed in the Travel room which was amazing. We loved it instantly! We also saw that there was Music, Film, Sport and Warehouse themed rooms. Hostel is well-located next to the center of Gdansk and is really clean.

Website:
http://www.happyseven.com/menu_en/strona-glowna_en.html

Reggae Mansion KL, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I only stayed one night in Reggae Mansion but that was really nice night! I arrived to Kuala Lumpur in the middle of the night and I have to admit the center of the city is quite scary at that time. Thankfully I knew the location of this hostel and went straight there to ask room and they helpfully organized me a bed. The rooms are really comfortable and the bed are designed so that you have a lot of privacy in them, you have a kind of private hole in the wall. I wanted peace and that's is what I got. But the hostel is also center for partying and they have really nice rooftop bar so maybe I was just lucky with my roommates. In the morning they provide really nice breakfast and hostel was also very clean.

Website:
http://www.reggaehostelsmalaysia.com/mansion/

Nomad Cave Hostel, Göreme, Turkey

In Cappadocia I ended up staying in Nomad Cave Hostel which is located in the village of Göreme. Like it names suggest its rooms are all located in caves which is already really cool. However most accommodation in Göreme offers cave rooms. I also liked how the bathrooms of the hostel were outside but I was there during the summer, in winter I might have thought otherwise. The hostel has nice areas to relax and watch the view over Göreme which is one of the coolest looking villages I have seen thanks to the rock formations which Cappadocia is famous for. The staff is really knowledgeable of the area and they offer the best hostel breakfast I have ever had. Turkish breakfast in general is amazing and they had the best parts of it.

Website:
http://www.nomadcavehotel.com/

Backpackers Hotel & Efe Guest House, Safranbolu, Turkey

This place is the only budget option in the small town of Safranbolu. Safranbolu is famous for it's Ottoman era wooden houses and it's really cute place to spend a day. This place offers one dorm room and seems to be really popular among Asian visitors as I was the only non-Asian guest in whole place. They have good breakfast in the morning which is made by the family who runs this place. They also prepare in the evening food which you can have for extra cost. I enjoyed the dinner with other travelers. It's really cool to stay in this historical house and the room had beautiful view over the town. I also had to thank their excellent wifi connection as I needed to do university course selections during my stay. Oh, and they picked me up from the bus station for free!

Website:
http://www.backpackerspension.com/en/index.html

Old City Hostel, Lviv, Ukraine

Their website says they are the best hostel in Lviv and that is true! The staff was amazingly helpful and me and my traveling companions are really grateful for their help for us during our sometimes really weird troubles. The hostel is really clean and located perfectly in the old town. Also it is really easy to get there from the airport and the train station. Beds were also really comfortable. The hostel definitely saved us during our trip to Ukraine.

Website:
http://oldcityhostel.lviv.ua/en/

Buffalo Backpackers, Pristina, Kosovo

If you're looking for the most laid-back place to stay in Kosovo, this is it. Buffalo Backpackers was so laid-back that I almost ended up staying there for long time. Staff is made up from locals and foreign volunteers and they have good information about the country. Thanks to them we find out a "secret" bus connection to Montenegro. If you're looking for good company this is also good place for it as they have nice areas to hang out and talk to other travelers. I made good friends while I stayed here. Also the location is good near the center in a house which is only for the hostel use.

Website:
http://www.buffalobackpackers.com/

Travellers Home Hostel, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Bosnia seems to be a good place for hostels! I really enjoyed my stay in Travellers Home. The rooms were clean and beds were comfortable. The staff was incredible friendly and helpful, they helped me to get a bed when I wanted to stay one more night and the hostel was fully booked. Yes, it was so nice I stayed one extra night! The hostel is located in the center of everything, very short walk to old town and lots of cool places to go eat and drink are nearby. I also met some of the nicest travelers I have ever met in this hostel. Experience the amazing city of Sarajevo with the help of this hostel!

Website:
http://myhostel.ba/

Exchange in Istanbul: Trip around Turkey

Not much has happened since I last wrote. Studying is going on but this week we have holiday because of Kurban Bayramı or Eid al-Adha as it is known in other parts of Muslim world. I planned to travel this week but unfortunately I was too late for buying bus tickets, everything was sold out on the dates I planned to travel. So I'm staying this week in Istanbul and see the sights I haven't visited yet. During my time in here I have usually visited every weekend in some new places in the city. I visited in Basilica Cistern which is underground palace with water covering the floor. I don't really understand what is so special in it, I think it was quite boring place. Grand Bazaar is grand but very touristic, so is smaller Spice Bazaar also. Eating fish bread in Eminönü is however recommendable touristic activity, but buy the bread from the boats, not from Galata Bridge restaurants. In Ortaköy I went taste the best kumpirs in city. Kumpirs are baked potatos with all kinds of things in it, so delicious! Ortaköy's famous waffles however were expensive but worth of trying. Otherwise my weekends have been full of partying like it should be during Erasmus exchange, good places to go are places like Eski Beyrut and Araf, no entrance fee and quite cheap beer. 

 But now I will write about my trip around Turkey which I made before university started. 

So I started my trip with shuttle bus from Baghdad Street to Ümraniye bus station which is on the Asian side of Istanbul so most travellers don't use it. I used bus company called Kâmil Koç. In Ümraniye there is no traditional bus station but every company has their own station. When I arrived I was first quite confused how everything was working but soon I figured out that I should just wait patiently and everything will work out fine. And so happened, my bus came just in time and then I was on my way to Ankara. Buses are quite luxurious in Turkey, you get free drinks & snacks on the way and there is always tv (but signal is mostly bad). I arrived to Ankara in late afternoon. I took metro from bus station to centre and found my hostel easily, it was located very near of metro station. I didn't visit any interesting place because Ankara was just resting stop for me on my way to Cappadocia. I walked around centre, went to eat and tried to buy medicines in pharmacy and that was my experience for that evening of Ankara.

After nice breakfast in hostel I went back to bus station and took bus towards Göreme which is the touristic centre of Cappadocia region. Cappadocia is famour for it's rock formations called fairy chimneys and many of them host carved caves where people used to live or they were churched or other holy places. From Ankara I used bus company called Nevşehir Seyahat. On the way to Göreme we passed huge salt lake, it was really interesting sight and I wished we could have stopped there. The bus arrived to Nevşehir bus station where I changed to minibus for the last 20 minutes to Göreme (minibus was included in the price, ask your driver what is the right minibus because there are some cheaters on the station). The views were amazing when we got closer to Göreme. I didn't expect that the town was also full of these fairy chimneys. I walked to my hostel and I realised on the way that 90% of the people in this town were tourists, and of them 90% were Asians but surprisingly I didn't care about this (like in Ubud I think touristness ruined it). I stayed in a place called Nomad Cave Hotel. They had one dorm room for 12 people but on my first night there were only 3 people with me there so it was really peaceful. Hotel was really nice and I recommed it to everyone! I went to at a restaurant and that was all I did that day. Rest of the day I was hanging out at the hotel and talked with other travellers.

Next day it was time for sightseeing. But first I stopped at one tourist office to buy tour to Mount Nemrut. I had wanted to visit this mountain since child and when I heard about the tour I wanted to take it immediately. The tour was 3 days, 2 nights, including all tickets, transportation & food and costed 180 Euros which in my mind is very good price. The tour was going to start next morning. After buying it I walked to the Göreme Open-Air Museum. On the way I made couple extra walks to take pictures of the amazing landscape. Weather was really hot that day, and I think it was only day I used sunscreen. Göreme Open-Air Museum is an area full churches carved in the rocks. Some of them have lots of frescoes, some just few. The place is worth of visit but it was really packed with tourists when I visited there. You had to line in to almost every church and wait while the tour guides were explaining the frescoes, good thing in that was that I got all that information free! For one of the churches you have to pay extra fee and it is really worth it. It had the best frescoes and not many other tourist because of the extra fee. After touring around I walked back to Göreme and took minibus to Uçhisar, town next to Göreme. The drive was only 10 minutes and the distance is walkable but it's uphill so I wasn't really in to that. In Uçhisar I went to see the Uçhisar castle, which is the highest point in Cappadocia. Eventhough it is called castle, it is not man-made building but one of the rock formations which has been carved full of caves. The views from the top are amazing but climbing down the stairs afterwards can be quite exciting. I recommed visiting the castle.

When I came back to hostel our room got 4 new inhabitants. I decided to go eat first with one of them and then after that we all went for beer with group of consisting people from Finland, USA, England, South Africa, Australia & Slovenia. It was really nice evening with interesting persons.

Next morning it was time for the tour. After amazing breakfast that the hotel offered I got picked up by the tour company. We went to pick up all the others who were also joining and then we were on the way. Our group consisted of 6 persons: me, one guy from Hong Kong, one guy from Australia, 2 women from Taiwan and one woman from Iran. Our first stop was old caravanserai in small village of Karadayı. It had just been renovated so it looked really clean. Funny thing was that inside the old camel room it was still smelling like camels. There was old lovely lady guarding the place with couple children, they were quite excited to see foreign people. Then we had long drive ahead. We were driving in quite amazing landscapes through Taurus Mountains. Our guide said we can stop whenever we want to but it would have been all the time because the views were amazing all the time. We stopped for lunch in small place called Tekir which I heard is famous for fish food (and it's middle of mountains???). After some driving we arrived to city of Kahramanmaraş were we had famous ice cream called dövme dondurma and it was super delicious! We didnät had more time to see the city but it was located quite interestingly on hillside. After that we had still some hours of driving and then we arrived to our final destination of the day, the city of Kahta. We checked in to our hotel and then had dinner and after that it was time for sleep as we would have really early wake up next day. Before falling asleep I watched some Georgian Idol from tv; the hotel had quite interesting channel options.

 Wake up call was at 3am so I think I had nice 4 hours of sleep or less. Then it was time for ride up to Mount Nemrut. When we arrived to the car park we had still lot of time until the sunrise so we had some tea before walking up to the summit. Mount Nemrut is famous for it's artificial summit amd it is believed to be the grave of Antiocus I Theos of Commagene and some of his family members. There are 2 man-made terraces on the summit which are decorated with statues of king Antiocus himself and Greek gods. We first went to the eastern terrace and waited there for the sunrise. There were other tourists too, some part of group tours, some came with their own transportation. Sunrise created interesting light on the statues but unfortunately my camera is not professional enough to capture those kind of lights. After the sun had risen we visited the western terrace where the statues are in better conditition. After that it was time to walk back down. Driving down the mountain was also quite interesting experience. There was no fences between the road and the canyons and sometimes you had to go quite close to the edges. Or pass sheep and cows. We stopped to see ruins Arsameia and the Roman time Septimius Severus Bridge. When we arrived to hotel it was time breakfast, short resting and then drive towards the city of Şanlıurfa, which for short is known as Urfa.

Most of the driving went by sleeping. On the way we stopped to see Atatürk dam which built on Euphrates River. We also stopped at Göbeklitepe which is an archaelogical site, newly opened for visitors. Göbeklitepe is the location of the oldest religious buildings made by humans in whole world and they even could be the oldest any buildings made by humans. Research is still going and there were many archaelogists working at the site when visited there. It looks mostly just pile of stones but there are some very fine carvings. And the views from the hill are nice too. After walking around the site we drove the last kilometres to Urfa.

At Urfa we left our stuff at our hotel and then went for lunch. I ate eggplant which was filled with lamb meat, it was delicious! After lunch we started to walk around the city. Soon I realised that this city was quite different from Istanbul and Ankara. There were not other tourists to be seen and everybody was staring our group. I got last time this much looks in Indonesia. We visited the famous fish pools and mosques around them, they're located in a park which is full of locals, especially women with children. Then we walked through the bazaar, had some drinks in café, and then went to see the oldest mosque in the city. After that sun was already getting down and we went back to our hotel. From my hotel room I could see a wedding party in neighbouring building and unfortunately I also could hear it. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and then it was time for bed for everybody eventhough we planned earlier to go walk around to see Friday night life in Urfa. But I needed sleep and it would be again tomorrow early wake up.

On the drove back to Göreme we only stopped to eat in Tekir again like on the way to Nemrut. We arrived to Göreme in the afternoon. I went to the same hostel I stayed before. When I went to have dinner I met one of the guys from our tour group and so went together to eat. My hostel room was full of Koreans who didn't have any respect for the people who were already sleeping. Next morning I woke up early, backed my things and went to wait for the bus to Ankara. While I was waiting I got to see the sky full of hot-air balloons, very interesting sight. In Göreme it's popular to go see sunrise from a balloon but I skipped it because it's expensive. Bus came and I was on my way to Ankara (with a change in Nevşehir again).

In Ankara I had the same bed in the same hostel as last time I was in the city. It was late afternoon when I arrived so there was no time for sightseeing anymore. I went to walk around to find pharmacy which was quite hard task on Sunday evening. All the pharmacies I saw were closed. I had dinner and then went to ask help from my hostel. They gave me directions to a pharmacy which was open and again it was nice to try explain what was wrong with and what I need. It helped a lot that I had written the key word up: ishal. Yep, my stomach finally had problem with Turkish food. Next day I went to visit in Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. I took metro to the nearest stop and I walked from there. All guide books say that it's hard walk but I found it very easy (and I'm in bad shape) and the neighbourhood you have to walk through has some old buildings which is nice sight in mainly modern Ankara. Museum was partly closed but there was still some nice things to see, I liked the special exhibition of Troyan jewellery. There was American tourists group same time with me and I followed them to get free tour. After I had enough of Hittite carvings I started to walk towards
Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of Turkish Republic. It is long walk and not easy to walk but at least you can see lot of the city during the walk. I for example passed the largest mosque in Ankara, Kocatepe Mosque. The mausoleum was very refreshing place after walking through the busy city. Large parks surrounds it and the park is surprisingly quiet. The mausoleum is huge complex and it includes of museum about Atatürk. I really recommend visiting it, the most interesting place in Ankara and the Roman architecture of the mausoleum attracted me. After walking around the complex I took metro back to the hostel where I just picked up my stuff and then it was time for bus station again. At the station I took a bus towards the town of Safranbolu.

I arrived to Safranbolu's bus station around midnight and one staff member from my hostel came to pick me up. So nice service from them! I stayed in Efe Guest House with bunch of Asian tourists, I was the only western tourist there. In the morning I went visit in house museum and then walked up to the hill fortress to see the views over the small town. That was it basically. There is not much to see in Safranbolu. After walkign around I had lunch and then I went back to hostel. I was little stressed out because I needed to do my course selection for the university at the same time so I spend rest of the day at the hostel doing that. The hostel owner made dinner and to my surprise the 2 Taiwanese woman from my Nemrut tour were also in the hostel having the dinner! Small world! Next day I took bus back to Istanbul and that was my really nice trip in Turkey!

Exchange in Istanbul: First days

This fall I'm doing an Erasmus exchange in Istanbul, Turkey. I'm trying to write this blog during my stay but let's see how it goes when the university starts. My university will be Fatih University which is located quite far from the centre of the Istanbul on the European side in the municipality of Büyükçekmece. I'm planning to stay in the university dormitories which should be a very interesting experience too.

But I'm already here in Istanbul 3 weeks before the university starts to get know how Istanbul and Turkey works. I'm staying first with my Turkish friend Can and his family. So far my plan has been very good: without Can's help and this slow introduction to Istanbul I would be probably totally culture shocking and wondering what the hell is happening around me. Thanks to Can's family I have got chance to get know Turkish food with easy way and public transportation is slowly getting more understandable for me. So far it seems that Turkish people aren't that good in English but they know enough so that I can survive here. And yes, I will be studying in English and my Turkish skills at the moment are nonexistent. But slowly Turkish words are starting to stay in my head.

Can lives in an area called Caddebostan between Kadıköy and Bostancı on the Asian side. I've been staying mostly here and we had walk with Can in Kadıköy and Üsküdar areas. Kadıköy has nice narrow walking streets full of restaurants, bars and cafés and in there I see only few other tourists. I recommend visit this area if you're staying longer in Istanbul. Üsküdar had more tourists because there is couple famous mosques and you can see the beautiful view over Bosphorus Strait to historical district of Istanbul with silhouettes of Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace and Blue Mosque. Also the famous Maiden's Tower or Kız Kulesi is located in Üsküdar and there is nice café by the water where you can sit and enjoy one of the most beautiful views in this world. We also went to visit in Taksim Square and İstiklal Avenue on the European side where we met my friend from Finland who had extra time between her flights and she wanted to quickly visit in Istanbul.

The area where I'm staying is called Caddebostan. It is affluent area and famous Bağdat Caddesi or Baghdad Street is going through it. This street is full shops and restaurants and buzzling with people all the time. Caddebostan seaside had very nice park which locals really love. It is said to be one of the most liberal places in the city where everybody can hang around freely. The views from the park are nice too: you can see famous Princes' Islands from there. There is also public beach in the park.

So far the stay here in Istanbul and Turkey has been good. Let's see what future brings!