There were a few rainy days that we had in Hanoi, so we were able to enjoy the highlights of this hostel. One of the biggest attractions of this hostel was the rooftop bar, where they served the best burgers we had on our travels!
Now, by this point that we were in Hanoi, we had been in Asia for around two months, so we were desperate to have some food that wasn’t Asian. You always have to be very careful when you are choosing western food in Asia though, because most of the time this is the food that can make you very ill. The burgers at Flipside came highly recommended so we thought we’d give it a go. While staying at this hostel for five nights in total we probably had four burgers throughout our stay. I guess that just shows you how good they were.
This rooftop area of the hostel also included a bar which served drinks from midday until the evening. They didn’t just have your standard beers, but they also made freshly made cocktails and other spirited drinks. After you’ve had two months worth of beer Chang or Saigon you will understand why this was such a refreshing change for us.
There were dorm rooms available as well as private rooms at this hostel. We stayed in a dorm room which was maximum of eight beds in total, this had its own bathroom attached to it. Quite nice when usually they are out the room and down the hall somewhere. The bathroom only had a toilet but further down the hall there were showers which ourselves and the other dorm room on the same floor would share. I know there were also private rooms available at this hostel as a couple of our friends stayed in those.
The staff were very good at this hostel and security for your luggage was alsoW when we took a trip to Nimh Binh they made sure our bags were secure for the entire duration of the two days and overnight stay. The staff were very helpful and didn’t mind keeping this luggage for us during this time. Whilst we were staying at the hostel the security for your large bags were under each bed, as well as a smaller locker in the same room for any smaller valuable items. All the rooms and bathrooms were kept clean throughout the stay.
We only had one issue no fault of the hostel at all. A backpacker decided to have one to many cocktails and peed on our dorm room floor at 3am, thinking it was the bathroom. When we told the staff the following morning they were very understanding and were very quick to clean the dorm room mess. They made sure it was back to original condition in no time as well as making sure none of the other guests got any of the fall out on their personal items.
The location of the hostel was very central and you could walk to the main sites of the night market, the temple on the lake, the womans museum, as well as the old quarter. The ‘Old Town’ or ‘Quarter’ was where the majority of the backpacker bars and restaurants are. Always good to be in walking distance of this.
You could book different day trips from this hostel which were all very reasonably priced and they were all the main sites that you’d be wanting to see from Hanoi. They were also very organised when we were trying to plan our transfers over to Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island. Hostel staff were a mix of Vietnamese and English travellers.
LEAH HANCOX 