This hostel offers the usual discounts (50 Baht here with a HI card) and facilities associated with HI hostels. It's also the usual big institutional place HI's are - kind of ostere and impersonal with fairly unsmiling staff who seemed to think showing you to a room was an inconvenience.
The dorm rooms had 10 or 12 beds, which were all bunks and rather close together. The rest of the rooms were a serious of rather hot, often windowless rooms. I noticed that there seemed to be a lot more Asian people staying here and more long term guests who were either studying or teaching English. Possibly it could be a good chance to meet some of them who may show you more of the real Bangkok. There was a particularly nice Japanese girl. The only other non-Asians were a European couple who were hanging around checking email one night.
The HI is on a much grander scale to all the other guesthouses I saw in Bangkok and is kind of out on a limb. The nearest other guesthouses seemed to be clumped in a street about 5 minutes walk, and Kho San Road was a good 10-15 minutes away. The street it's in is fairly unimaginative with no real markets, just local businesses and shops so it's non-touristy and fairly authentic Thai in that sense but with no real hum.
The HI has internet, books, food etc., but they charge for luggage storage. I didn't eat the hostel because food in the markets is cheaper anyway and so much more fun to try out things you've never seen before. If you've got a HI card and want to save some money then I would recommend this place. Otherwise there's not really a lot going on, and it's a little too institutional for my taste.
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