Funemployment - Part I

Ahmar told me he had booked at Ostello Bello Hostel in Bagan, and that it came highly recommended. When I set out in this trip, I had resolved to not stay in dorms because I am a light sleeper and I was wary about sharing rooms with partying twentysomethings. My past experiences with hostels over 20 years ago weren't too favorable - they were primarily crash pads for people who stumbled in at all hours. At my age, I value my sleep. However, I got good vibes from Ostello Bello's website, and so I decided to chance it and book one night with them. Part of my motivation was also to socialize, as weeks of solo travel was wearing me down. While I'm not normally an outgoing guy in my own home environment, I do love socializing with independent budget (and budget-ish, like myself) travelers as they're a different breed of people - by and large, they are adventurous, hardy, and, most important to me, curious about the world... basically the type of people I like to surround myself with.

Ostello Bello turned out to be a great experience. I booked a four person dorm and was placed in a room with three other American guys (Ryan from San Jose, Tyson from Chicago, and Dakota from LA). In all, there were eight Americans in the hostel (the others were Ahmar, Justin and Danielle from Philadelphia, and Arin from DC). I had not even seen this many Americans so far this trip. Danielle from Canada also hung out with us.

When I wasn't sightseeing, we hung out, ate meals together, and drank a lot. It felt so good to connect with people I could communicate easily with (i.e., I didn't have to speak s-l-o-w-l-y and repeat myself). It was the fix I needed. I came to realize that the American part of my identity had become culturally isolated on this trip. I had never felt this culturally isolated since my early days living in Bangkok. The Singaporean part of my identity has been well indulged during this trip, though!

The other thing that surprised me about Ostello Bello was the demographics of the crowd there. There were only a handful of students and post-college gap year kids. While most of the guests were in their twenties, many of them had jobs and were on vacation, or were in-between jobs like me. Many of them could easily afford hotels, and I was surprised they chose to stay in hostels. I was by far the oldest guy there. I was pleased that I could blend in so easily with this crowd, and not just the Americans. I guess in a way I was a curiosity to some of them. A couple of people even said that they were inspired by me.

I ended up staying two nights at Ostello Bello. As much as I enjoyed it, I did sleep badly. I checked in to a nearby hotel for my other two nights because I needed to catch up on my sleep, and because I could not sustain all that drinking. While I am now a convert to hosteling, I will still approach it with caution. I think the average hostelite traveling in Myanmar would be different from the type that goes to Thailand, for example, as Thailand is much cheaper and more geared towards a party crowd. Regardless, I resolved to balance hosteling with staying in hotels for the remainder of my time in Myanmar, so that I get to socialize with travelers but still have the alone time that I love (and that so many people misunderstand about me).

My two post-hostel nights were at the Arthewka Hotel. I booked a $20/night budget room and got upgraded! I also had access to a pool which was most welcome as Bagan is hot.Read more