Solo Trip - Ipoh (July 2022) - Brownstone Hostel

I thought about staying in a hotel one night, cause it wasn't really that expensive. But then, this trip was meant to be a practise run for future solo trip, so I decided to save money and try a hostel. Brownstone Hostel had very good review, was quite near Gerbang Malam which was where I wanted to be at, and they have a 6-bed female hostel room for around 16SGD per person. So I decided to give it a try. If I wanted to travel cheaply, I needed to accommodate myself to a less glamorous lodging! Plus, this hostel offers free breakfast! In hostel lingo, this usually means free flow bread and spread, lol. Maybe oatmeals or biscuits with coffee or tea. But I wasn't looking for a free breakfast, since I was after all in Ipoh! But free breakfast would be my backup plan if I get hungry. 

Thankfully, it was a great decision. The hostel was beautiful and spacious! Above is the front entrance before going into the main door. It is an old building, and the tiles was so beautiful. Along with the red chairs, and green surroundings, everything just pops out at you and scream classic retro!

This is the main hall downstairs where the reception desk is. It's a small area with minimalistic decoration. Love the tiles and the bicycle placed there. The sunlight shinning down from the stairs was also a classic feel.

Further in to the second hall, there is a side exit that goes out to the open air inner garden. The have placed a beautiful wooden long table and chairs here. I thought it would be a great place for an outdoor bbq, or just a weekend picnic or food gathering place. 

Headed back to the first hall, luckily the hostel was quite empty, so I decided to head upstairs. 

Lovely tall windows allowed the natural sunlight shine in to the concrete stairs. Everything about this place feels warm and welcoming. Wish I own a place like this. It's so open, and airy, and bright!

Upstairs is where the individual rooms are located. Apart from shared dormitory style room, you could also book individual rooms. The common area though, was spacious and airy and filled with retro furniture and bean bags! I later read from their facebook page that they actually held events in the hostel like art and cultural gathering. Nice!

There is a side door going out to another open space where guest can chill out. It looks like a balcony or roof top patio of sort. Love the colour scheme of the place. It just looks so damn classic. 

This is also where the shared toilets and washrooms can be found, along with the washing areas for your to brush your teeth and wash up. Imagine waking up to this every morning. So lovely. It reminded me very much of a cheap hostel I stayed in long time back in Malacca that also have open spaces and bathroom outside with ice cold water. It sounded dreadful, but it was actually very refreshing in the Malaysian humid weather, to come back to an ice cold shower!

In my previous post I mentioned that Ipoh used to have many cinemas all over town. In this hostel, all the cinemas are frozen in time in an artistic paintings, and named after all the individual rooms upstairs. I nice way to preserved the history of Ipoh. I thought it was a very nice touch. By the way, the individual rooms are not cheap, sometimes more expensive than the 3-star hotels in town. 

Anyway, above is what my room looked like. It was fully aircon, and I think there was only one other lady who was in the room with me. She came in quite late at night, and I left quite early in the morning for breakfast, so we hardly bummed into each other. During the first afternoon, I was basically alone in the room with the air con on full blast. But to get to my room, I had to walk thru a mixed sex room. But that room was booked by a Malay family, so it didn't feel that strange at all, cause most Malaysian are super kampung friendly. 

My snack for the day was my charcoal kaya puff, and my egg tart which I ate in my room. Later I found out I wasn't supposed to eat inside the room..... There was a nice kitchen area outside which I will show more off in upcoming post.

Lastly, say Hi to the residential one-eye kitten! Doesn't it looks cute? It was falling asleep in the afternoon heat at the front door. There are other cats around too, which I found out in the next morning. More of that reporting soon!