Omar Backpackers Hostel sits along a long strip of shops and budget hotels in the port city of Mersing, Malaysia. Omar, the owner, moves swiftly in and out of his hostel. No one is quite sure what he does when he leaves the doors but I'd to think he has other business he attends to while leaving backpackers to act in a mature manner and not burn the place to the ground. He is the only employee excluding the cleaning crew so things aren't strictly supervised. He really puts a lot of trust in others around him making me wish there were more people in the world like this.
Financially, the whole payment plan goes on the honor system. There is a large folder sitting on the common room table where you fill in the basic hostel registration information and he asks you to place the nightly fee in once you're done filling it out. Take a look for yourself below.
Financially, the whole payment plan goes on the honor system. There is a large folder sitting on the common room table where you fill in the basic hostel registration information and he asks you to place the nightly fee in once you're done filling it out. Take a look for yourself below.
Nothing to fancy but straight and to the point.
Something that amazed me about the place was how well the hostel and price went hand in hand. As the saying goes you get what you pay for. Same for Omar's. One might think since the cleaning crew only stops by in the afternoon and Omar seems have no real schedule and/or interest in spending quality time there it might get a bit out of sorts. Wrong. For $5.00 USD per night the place was in pretty darn good shape. The rooms were without AC but all had well equipped fans. The shared bathroom was nothing to write home about but the shower-head sprayed cool water and the toilet flushed. While it didn't look like it got much use it even had a kitchen with full size refrigerator. Here are a few photos of the interior of Omar's honor system hostel.
Clean sheets and all!
The kitchen... I guess it gets the job done.
The only real bickering that I heard from the guests and something that I contributed to was the wifi connection. It was horrendous. It was in and out of connectivity as fast as Omar was day to day check up on the place. Sometimes wifi is NEEDED... sometimes. Other then that it's one of the coolest things in regards to running a hostel and amazing to see how much faith this man has in humanity. The few others that were there with me at the time spoke a little about how you almost feel ashamed to not pay the man. While there are the extremely cheap and dishonest backpackers out there lets hope the majority of them stay away from Omar's.
