Best Hostel (Tie): Chalet Martin (Gryon, Switzerland) & Hostel Estoril (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
We stayed in a lot of different accommodations, covering pretty much the full spectrum of comfort, cleanliness and fun. These two were far and away the best places we stayed on the entire trip. Both of them have what we’d consider to be the mandatory prerequisites for high-quality hostels (clean, comfy beds, big well-appointed common spaces, good location, great staff), but they also throw a few extra things into the mix.
Chalet Martin is located in the archetypal perfect Swiss mountain village, run by the friendliest staff we met on the trip. The building has absurdly comfortable common spaces with huge picture windows overlooking the Alps, leather couches, and a kitchen big enough to run laps around. They also have a movie room with stadium seating, ski equipment rental, and fondue supplies on sale at the reception desk. What more could you ask for? If you said “regular wine tastings”, they’ve got that too.
Hostel Estoril is right in the heart of Buenos Aires, and what it may lack in kitchen space (of which it has about 7 square feet), it makes up for in sociability. It’s got a 7th storey rooftop patio bar, lounge chairs, views over downtown, and a weekly all-you-can-eat barbeque meat-stravaganza. The rooms are big, well-lit, and really well appointed. One of our rooms had a balcony, and the other was IN the cupola on the roof. We had a ton of fun here, mostly due to how easy it was to meet other travelers on the roof. Bonus points: it’s next door to La Continental, a restaurant with empanadas of unparalleled deliciousness.
Best Wall: The Great Wall (Beijing, China). A very good wall, indeed. I think it might have been the longest wall we saw on our trip.
Best Bus Travel: Argentina. The buses there have seats that recline to almost completely horizontal, meal service (of dubious quality, but the ham and cheese sandwiches were reliable), movies and complimentary beverages. And that’s in coach! First class has full beds, free wine, and I think they hand you a big lump of gold on your way out.
Worst Bus Travel (Tie): India & Tanzania. In India, most buses are run-down and dirty, and there is also a policy of selling as many tickets as they can, and then just cramming people into the bus until limbs start poking out the windows. On the upside, the tickets are cheap. Tanzanian buses are relatively expensive, and start their life being pretty nice and comfortable. However, most bus companies just drive them and drive them until they disintegrate, and then go out of business. Finding a new one, or a company with a maintenance budget, can improve things quite a bit, but it’s a roll of the dice.
Coolest Buildings (in no particular order): The Taj Mahal (Agra, India), The Tiger’s Nest Monastery (near Paro, Bhutan), St. Basil’s Cathedral (Moscow, Russia). Pretty much self-explanatory, these buildings are awe-inspiring.
Best/Worst Street Food: India. There is an insane array of food on offer on just about every street in India. Most of it smells delicious. Much of it tastes really, really delicious. Some of it will tear through your gastrointestinal system like a raging bull, leaving a path of misery and destruction. Caveat emptor, I guess.
Best Camping: Mongolia. Gers (aka yurts) are really comfortable, and surprisingly well insulated. More than once, we found ourselves in t-shirts and shorts in our tents, with -20°C gales blowing outside. Combine that with almost total isolation from the civilized world, and you get some pretty cool camping experiences. The night skies were just about the starriest I’ve ever seen.
Best Kilimanjaro Trekking Company: Team Kilimanjaro. Can’t say enough good things about ‘em. If you have the time to spend a few extra days on the mountain, their proprietary “TK Rongai” route is way, way more manageable than the standard Marangu route. We saw a lot of other trekking companies on the mountain, and TK has better equipment and better guides.
Best food overall: Way too many possibilities for this one, but the highlights were as follows: Argentinian steak (especially the Kobe beef at La Cabrera in Buenos Aires – Kobe beef for $25!), sushi at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, leg of lamb at Bukhara in Delhi, and a few of the dishes at La Vineria de Gualterio Bolivar in Buenos Aires, including this one crazy egg dish called “Huevo 62°/50” that was one of the most delicious things I think either of us have ever tasted. Honourable mention goes to Russian food, which Mal couldn’t get enough of. I should probably mention that Mal loves potatoes and mayonnaise, but then, who doesn’t?
Best Free Breakfast: We seem to be on a bit of a food theme here, but the free breakfast at the Hotel Lasserhof in Salzburg, Austria deserves a specific shout-out. Your typical hostel breakfast consists of bread, butter, maybe some jam, and occasionally juice. The Lasserhof had half a dozen kinds of cereal, a cornucopia of jams and preserves, toast, eggs, porridge, coffee, orange juice, and the king of all breakfast foods: bacon. Free bacon!
Best Country to Meet People: Argentina. Not sure why, but the hostel scene in Argentina was by far the most social we found on our trip. It was also (in our experience) a slightly older demographic than European hostels (think roughly 21-28, rather than 18-22), which was good. Not that partying with recent high school graduates isn’t fun, we just enjoyed the slight bump in maturity a little more. Then again, these are hostel-going world travelers we’re talking about, so the bump in maturity wasn’t TOO big.
Most Expensive Place: Zurich. Holy cow. Every time we bought something I felt like someone was punching me in the wallet.
Least Expensive Place: Anywhere in India. For the price of a Whopper in Zurich, you could get 3 days’ worth of meals in India.
Best Coffee: Europe. They do their espresso right.
Worst Coffee: Chile. What the heck, Chile? You are a hop, skip and a jump from some of the world’s biggest coffee producers, yet for some reason everyone drinks Nescafe. What’s up with that?
Best Wine: Argentina (Malbec from Mendoza, specifically). You can get a really delicious bottle of Malbec in Argentina for like $3 Canadian. We tried really hard to find a bottle we didn’t like, but we couldn’t do it.
Worst Wine: India. Yikes. I love the fact that India is getting into the wine game, as some high value agriculture would probably be a huge boon to the otherwise crushingly poor rural Indian economy, but it tastes like they’ve still got a bit of a way to go before you can go down to the liquor store and pick up a nice bottle of Sangali red.
Best Sunrise: Tiger Hill, Darjeeling. Not only was it an incredible experience to see the sun rise over the Himalaya, but the crowd of around 200 people burst into exuberant cheering and applause when the sun finally appeared. I guess maybe they weren’t sure if it was coming back this time?
Best Sunset: Udaipur. We spent most of our nights in Udaipur eating dinner and drinking beers on rooftops, and the views were pretty hard to beat. The skies were always clear, and the sun set just behind a big lake and some rolling desert hills. Oh, also the lake had two giant palaces in the middle.
Well, that’s just about it, I think. It’s been a great 6 months, and thanks to everyone who’s been following along for the encouraging/entertaining emails, comments, etc. It was great to have a connection to home while we were far away in (let’s be honest) some pretty ridiculous places. As a final note, we’ve put together a quick 7 minute video summarizing some of the highlights of the trip. Feel free to check it out.
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Bryce and Mal
