Chungking Mansions

Location: Hong Kong

I used Hostelworld to find a place to stay in Hong Kong. I found it suspicious that a dozen hostels had basically the same address, and none of them had existed for more than a few months. I guessed that the hostels were being rebranded every few months to eliminate bad reviews on sites like Hostelworld. But for $8 a night, I was willing to overlook a lot.

I found out later that the hostels were in "Chungking Mansions," which is a group of huge run-down buildings in downtown Kowloon that are famous for drugs, crime, scams, illegal immigration, murders, and being fire traps.

The hostel I booked occupied part of one floor. It wasn't so bad. The paint was fresh, the bed was comfortable, the sheets were clean, and it seemed safe enough. There was always a guy at the front desk, monitoring various CCTV feeds.

There were problems. I had picked the lower bunk of a bunk bed. The mattress above me was suspended by wooden slats, and half the slats were broken. It was concerning.

The toilet stalls had doors that were supposed to swing open into the stalls. But you could only open a door about 45 degrees before it collided with the toilet. So you had to open the door as much as possible, shimmy into the stall, and straddle the toilet before you could close the door again. Such was the craftsmanship at this hostel.

When I checked in, I was assigned to a room with four beds. I walked down the hall, found the room, unlocked the door, and opened it. There was an attractive blonde standing in the middle of the room, completely topless. She was in the middle of changing her clothes. She was surprised to see me. I was surprised to see her. I apologized and closed the door.

After the woman had finished changing, we went to the front desk and asked if the rooms were supposed to be co-ed. They were not. The guy assigned me to a different room. l ended up making friends with the woman, and we did a lot of tourism together, but I didn't see her topless again.