The art of roughing it
I love staying in hostels. Like, really love it. With a little research, you can often find a clean, comfortable, safe place full of intriguing travelers who are willing to share their stories and enhance your experience.
However, when traveling on a tight budget and on a bit of a whim, you can, from time to time, find yourself in a *less than desirable* location. This is what happened on my latest trip to Korea. Actually, I found myself in what can only be described as the worst place I have crashed in my life. This is no small feat considering how much I truly love to rough it. I have slept in cars, tents and airports. On beaches with nothing but a sleeping bag and in a hammock in Mexico to keep out the cockroaches. I spent my freshman year of college practically living in the boys’ dorm and have been a groupie to a band on the road. But, these experiences pale in comparison to the little, cheap hotel in Busan, South Korea.
We got to our destination late at night and went to a hotel where my friend had previously stayed. It was full, but the owner suggested a friend’s hotel not far away where there were rooms available. He even offered to walk us there so, exhausted, we accepted his offer. I started feeling sketch about this place when we turned down the hallway and saw the blue, metal room doors that looked better suited for a prison than a comfortable inn.
My fears were confirmed when we opened the door, only to find a red-leather circle bed. No. I am not kidding. One look at this bed and the tune bow-chica-bow-oww gets immediately stuck in your head.
A quick scan of the room – the lack of sheets (apparently finding circular sheets is not an easy task), the tissues sitting on the headboard, the hair on the soap/mattress/literally everywhere, the Asian porn on the TV (again, not kidding) – two things became painfully clear.
1. This room is typically used for one thing and one thing only, and
2. It is not often cleaned.
But, we had already paid and were getting up in a few short hours. So, after much debate over which side of the comforter was, ahem, cleaner, and therefore safest to sleep on top of, and layering ourselves in every bit of clothes we had so no bare skin was exposed to the dangers lurking on the mattress; we settled in for the night.
After all, it could be a lot worse, and it is moments like this that we will look back upon when we are old and gray and think “the crazy stuff I did when I was young, poor and stupid.”
