Working in Hostels: The Best Way to Have a Cultural Experience on the Cheap

Sealing the Deal Pt.2

In most cases, the arrangement is this: you help with small tasks like attracting new customers with a familiar English-speaking face, taking food orders, taking payments, etc. and in exchange for being their token mascot, you will get a free place to sleep and a couple of meals a day. As was the case in Amy’s (and eventually my own) situation, this meant spending all day at Mama Piang’s and sleeping on the restaurant floor with the family. It may not sound like a dream position to some, but after all the partying with other westerners, I was happy to relax in a riverside hostel with a local family.

Amy stuck around for another couple days but eventually had to leave when her visa expired. I spent the remaining weeks of my visa eating whatever Mama cooked for me and playing with her son and the eagle that had made Piang’s its permanent home after an injury left it unable to fly (I’m really not kidding about that).

In a hilariously ironic moment of western good intentions, a group of backpackers staying in the bungalows spent a whole day cleaning trash from the Mekong river. I joined them and we looked at our gigantic pile of trash with pride. Our efforts to beautify and clean the river felt sincere and genuine. My host family looked at it with something very different than pride, as they explained there was no trash service on the island, and no way to conveniently remove it from her business’ doorstep.

Ryan Farley / Own Work