Early mornings are the bane of my backpacking adventure, well that and getting lost trying to find my hostel for the first time.
Still there was an 8:30AM bus to Vilnius to catch and it had my name all over it. I was also lucky enough to have my travel buddy from Riga coming with me which I was really excited about. Being able to hang out with one person for longer than 1-2 days was going to be a real treat.
Making the bus or should I say rolling cafe, what with its coffee machine and wifi service. I passing the time swapping from watching a movie to surfing facebook and catching up on the happenings of my other fellow travel bloggers.
It wasn’t long until I was in Vilnius and on my way to the hostel. As it so happened out my travelling friend was staying in the same hostel chain as me but just in another location…. or so we thought. Turns out, of the 3 different buildings they operate from around town only one of them was open.
Not leaving me with high hopes when I found it was my hostel that was closed I headed off to the other hostel to check in. Now until today I’ve never named a hostel on my blog, partly to keep everybody from thinking I was getting a kickback for mentioning them and I’d like to provide a review feature at some stage in the future so don’t want to double up. This is all to change for my stay in Vilnius as I could never recommend this hostel to anybody, so let it be know stay away from AAA Hostel in Vilnius.
We were greeted by rather rude staff who seemed to have no idea what he was doing. Along with that the room my friend had booked was what I could only say appeared to be the homeless/crazyman room. I think everybody has a crazy man story, take Michael’s craziest person ever met post for example. With the door left unlocked all day so anybody could come and go, my travel buddy quickly upgraded to the room I had.
We didn’t escape the horror of the place in our room either, with the smell upon opening the door something you would associate with a room that had been left shut up for years while still containing your smelly gym gear and a dieing mouse in the corner.
Alas with money paid and the hostel my friend Brooke from brookevstheworld.com told me about not open yet, this was to be our sleeping quarters in Vilnius.
Heading out to explore rather than sit around at the horror house we wandered the streets with no real direction in mind. Walking about the old town was different than the other eastern states. Tallinn had a sense of of fun and old town charm too it while Riga was giving off a party attitude.
Vilnius however felt like the forgotten little brother. Everybody knows your there but somehow nobody ever got around to dishing you up a plate of food and welcome you to the table. Everything about what I saw that afternoon made me feel like little old Vilnius still hasn’t managed to crawl out from under the soviet shroud that once cloaked it. It won’t be long before it does though so I’m glad to have seen it now rather than later.
As the light grew dim we found a restaurant hidden down a narrow street that seemed to be buzzing and settled in for what I have to say was a darn good feed and a bucket load of drinks. Eventually as the smell of the incoming rain wafted through the window we made a hasty dash for the hostel and our room ala skunk for the night.
Even the name sounds horrible. I hate it when I feel like there’s probably asbestos in the room I’m sleeping in.
Hey Ayngelina. The place really wasn’t a nice place to stay. From the smell to the dark and gloomy kitchen area followed by a splatter of old drunk guys and it just got creepy.
For the most part the place appeared to be clean, its just my room spelt so bad…
Rough timing, man. I wish you could have stayed with Pete — he would have treated you right (especially if I told him to). Vilnius was hopefully still a cool place.
I know Brooke, after emailing Pete at the time he was maybe a couple of weeks away from opening. Not to worry just means I have to head back and check out his place.
Vilnius was an interesting place for sure. I think I’ll go back if I can and try and see a bit more of it. Staying at the dodgy hostel kinda put me in a hurry to leave.
As a backpacking novice, it’s interesting to read about the less pleasant side of it too. Sounds like a pretty crappy location.
Hey Chris, yes its not all fun and partying in the land of backpackerville (althought it mainly is). Vilnius was a nice look into eastern europe and one I’d like to explore more.
The hostel however was just damn right terrible 🙂
Well, at least that gave you plenty of good reason to get out of the hostel. Sorry to hear about that, and better luck next time!
Hi Kyle, I didn’t need an excuse to go out and explore but I think even if it was raining I would have headed out from this place. Still its all an experience I just hope I don’t have too many of these ones.