Taiwan Taichung Youth Hostel, Taichung, Taiwan

I'm writing to voice a legitimate complaint about the Taichung Youth Hostel in Taichung, Taiwan.

This place is a trap for getting people lost and frustrated for hours, in several ways, which I will elaborate on below. So I ask that you contact the owner to make corrections to his inaccuracies to prevent others from wasting hours of time getting lost and frustrated.

First, the hostel is much farther than a few minutes walk from the bus stop. It's more like 7 to 10 minutes along an unpleasant fast lane road along a high brick wall below the university. At night, the hostel is not even lit up and you can't see the sign. His listing also does not tell you which direction to walk from the bus stop!

But worst of all, the guy at the reception cannot speak any English at all, and even worse than that, believe it or not, cannot even give directions IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE! (I know that sounds incredible, but I swear to God it's true)

When a friend of mine was driving me to this hostel, we couldn't find it, so we called them (from their number on their own website) about 6 times to get directions from the nearest bus stop. My friend spoke fluent Chinese and Taiwanese, yet the reception guy was unable to give any specific directions other than "I'm below the bus stop", which he repeated each time we called and could not give more specifics. It was a very frustrating experience, and I was dumbfounded by the lack of cooperation on his part. He would not specify which direction was "below" nor if we were supposed to stay on the main road or take one of the two forks in the road along the way. He did not even offer to stand outside so we could see him, or come meet us where we were at, like most hostel staff do!

When we finally found it after driving around in circles and asking many people, the lights were off and the outside metal cover was pulled down. We met another guy outside who had also spent a long time trying to find it too, so we asked him to follow us.

When I rang the bell and entered, it turned out that the reception guy had been sitting on the couch watching TV in a dirty T shirt during the whole time we were lost, as if he couldn't care less! Had he turned on the light in the lobby and gone outside to wait for us, we would have found the place much faster. But he didn't even have the common sense or courtesy to do that!

Immediately I asked him about his total inability to give simple directions, but he just avoided them. I also asked why he lied when he said he could speak English on the phone, which he denied and said he could speak English. But when I asked him why he couldn't answer any questions in English, he just gave a blank stare. In fact, he could not answer many simple questions in Taiwanese or Chinese either (I speak them both because I'm Chinese American). Honestly I have never met such an incompetent hostel staff in my life, and I've stayed in many of them. Usually they are very good with directions and offer to pick you up nearby, but not this guy. He lacked basic communication skills, common sense, and courtesy, and was very apathetic.

In the morning, he even gives you the wrong directions for taking the bus. He tells you to go across the street, where the bus goes left. You can do that but it will take a lot longer for the bus to arrive. The driver of the bus 15 route explained to me that you should be on the other side where the university and hostel are. The bus route there is a bit tricky though, cause it makes a loop, so it's not a simple case of going back the way you came.

Besides the inconvenient location and incompetent staff, the bus there is very infrequent and takes a long time to get there. From the train station area, it only comes once an hour and arrives at a street near the station, not at the station itself, which is not easy to find and not even well known. (I had to ask the bus staff to find it). Then the ride takes around 30-40 minutes to get there. And of course, takes that long to get back. So you're looking at a wasted 3 hours just for getting there and back alone! Add to that the time wasted in trying to find it, and you've got a very bad frustrating experience.

If you look on the other hostel websites about this place, you will find similar complaints, though not as detailed as mine.

Something should be done about this, otherwise other travelers will end up wasting hours getting lost while trying to find this place (as in the case with the other guy on the street who was lost as well). Wouldn't you want to prevent that?

Other hostels that are hard to find will have their staff come out to meet you at the nearest bus or metro stop. But this one won't bother. As far as they're concerned, it's your problem. He'd rather sit and watch TV while we are lost out there. I'm serious! He did just that.

The owner of this place should be warned about this and fix the inaccuracies in his listing, but he doesn't even answer his emails, nor does he care. Thus I recommend he should be given a warning or else have his listing removed.

Thanks,
Winston

PS - I am a highly credible source with a 100 percent positive feedback rating on Ebay (user name WWu777) and many good comments from others on couchsurfing.com and hospitalityclub.org (user name WWu777 for both). And I am honest, accurate, and do not say such things unless they are true.

Algemeen

2

Locatie

1

Netheid

4

Waarde

3

Voorzieningen

4

Service

1

WWu777 (Travellerspoint Budding Member) verbleef hier in apr '09