VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
I recently had the chance to compare a hostel with a hotel in Melaka. So I got to experience first hand the difference between what you get for $7.50 per night and what you get for around $30 per night. You’ll have to watch my previous video to see exactly what the hostel room was like. In this video, you get to see the upgrade.
VIDEO SUMMARY:
In this informal epilogue to his budget travel series, Doug reflects on the stark contrast between ultra-budget accommodation and mid-range comfort in Melaka, Malaysia, during the busy Hari Merdeka (Independence Day) weekend.
- The Unexpected Upgrade: After misbooking his stay while in town for a conference, Doug’s friend Matthew unexpectedly found himself with two non-refundable, pre-paid nights at the Estadia Hotel that he couldn’t use. Knowing Doug’s living situation, Matthew gifted him the room key, allowing Doug to transition from his local youth hostel to a proper hotel for two nights.
- Hostel Realities & Tech Mishaps: Doug details the frustrating realities of staying in a 25–30 MYR (~$6–7 USD) per night hostel, including zero water pressure across multiple floors. While attempting to test a ground-floor tap, an unmapped valve shot water directly into his chest, soaking his smartphone. The resulting moisture in the charging port short-circuited his primary Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, requiring a full night of drying tactics and technical troubleshooting to resolve. Basic hygiene at the hostel required letting a bucket drip overnight and taking a makeshift “bucket bath” using a cut-open plastic bottle.
- The Value Breakdown: Exploring the Estadia Hotel—hidden down a narrow alleyway typically used for tour bus parking—Doug breaks down the true cost of extreme budget travel. Beyond missing basic amenities like mirrors and reliable plumbing, low-cost rooms often lead to physical fatigue from cramped gymnastics and require travelers to pack redundant survival gear (towels, kettles, bedsheets).
- Key Takeaway: Spending around 100 to 120 MYR (~$22–26 USD) per night in Malaysia drastically improves the travel experience, providing essential comforts, built-in amenities, and peace of mind without breaking the bank.
VIDEO FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Turns out that I have a bit of a fun epilogue to my video about what you can get for 30 ringgit here in Melaka because yeah, it’s a little bit of a long complicated story here, but I’ll try to make it simple.
A friend of mine, Matthew, came down from Kuala Lumpur to Melaka for the weekend to attend a conference. So, he’s got a big conference here and he came down a day early and he stayed in a hotel, like a real hotel, not like a hostel where I’m staying. So, he’s going to stay in that hotel for a night and then move into the hotel where the conference is taking place. And then because checking into the new hotel couldn’t happen until 4:00 in the afternoon and he had family members coming down, he thought he might as well book his original hotel room for an extra night just to have a place to hang out while he’s waiting for the conference to get underway and then he can move to that other hotel. So he booked his hotel for a second night. But then when he went down to the desk reception to tell them what he had done and tell them, “Oh, I booked this room for another night,” they told him he picked the wrong day. He had accidentally booked tomorrow night instead of tonight. He’d booked the wrong night. And the way Matthew told the story was pretty funny because he blurted out to the guy at the front desk. It’s like, “Ah, I pulled the planet Doug.” Because as I said to Matthew, that’s exactly the kind of thing it sounds like it would happen to me. Wanting to stay one extra night but then accidentally booking the wrong night a day in the future.
So anyway, Matthew ended up with two nights at this hotel that he doesn’t need and that he’s not going to use. He’s already moved out and he’s moved into the conference building. Everything worked out there earlier than he planned. So, he doesn’t need either reservation. He can’t get a refund. He can’t change the dates. So, I met up with Matthew for dinner, and then for lunch again today. And he said to me, “Hey, I’ve got two nights already paid for at this hotel. I can’t stay there. The room is just going to be sitting empty. Do you want it?” Right. So, that’s what I’m doing right now. I’ve got my knapsack on my back. I’ve got my laptop here for a Planet Doug video editing. And yeah, so now I’m walking over to this hotel. It’s called the Estadia. So I’m moving up in the world is what I’m saying. From hostel living to a real hotel for two nights. I still have my room at the hostel. So I left my bicycle and trailer and all my other camera gear. I left everything there in my room. I just brought the bare minimum with me to move into this nice, quiet, clean, luxurious hotel room for two nights. Yeah, thanks to my friend Matthew. So that’s a pretty crazy story.
I’m walking through Dutch Square again, as I often do. So busy here this weekend. Hari Merdeka. Happy Independence Day to all everyone I know here in Malaysia, to all Malaysians. But yeah, this this is turning out to be really good timing for me. I’ve only spent one night in that hostel so far. I went there yesterday. I moved in and stayed there one night and then yesterday and all last night and this morning, zero water in the bathrooms. That was the biggest problem there. Like there was no water. Like you just got a dribble of water coming out of one of the taps up there. So last night what I had to do was just go wandering around the hotel from floor to floor to floor trying out all the different bathrooms, seeing if any of them have water. And everybody else in the hostel was doing the same thing. So all the bathrooms were full all the time and it was a real hassle.
And the Planet Doug stories go on and on because I’m testing all of these bathrooms just by standing there and turning on the taps to see if any water comes out. I’m on my way out the door to meet Matthew for dinner. And I get all the way down to the ground floor. So I’m in I’m on the ground floor where if there’s going to be any water pressure at all, I’m figuring it must be at the ground floor. And there’s a one bathroom down there, kind of next to a laundry room. So, I go in there, the shower head is up on the wall. I aim the shower head away from me cuz I’m fully dressed. And I turn the tap and I grab the tap, turn it on to full blast, and it turns out that bathroom had water. But for whatever reason, instead of the water being directed to the shower head, it hit this little valve halfway up the wall, like just about like chest level, chest level for me, and it was just like an opening in the pipe. I don’t know what it’s doing there. I guess there’s supposed to be a cap on it, but the cap is missing. So, it’s just basically a hole in the pipe. So, I turn on the tap, full blast, water comes pouring out of that hole like a fire blast, a fire hose, hits me in the chest and soaks me chest down. This I went from no water at all. I finally find a bathroom that has water and for some reason it shoots directly out of the wall and drenches me even though I’m fully dressed.
And I didn’t realize it, but I had my smartphone in my pocket and it was sitting facing upside down in my pocket. So, the USB charging port on the bottom of the phone was pointing upwards and all this water that hit me in the chest went pouring down my body and I didn’t realize it. It poured into my smartphone and it shorted out the charging port of my Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, my workhorse, my main phone for my like day-to-day life. So, there I am. I didn’t realize any of this had happened. Later that night, I tried to charge up my phone. I plug in the USB cord and I get this huge red warning label, you know, warning, warning. Do not try to charge. The charging port has been moisture has been detected and it’s shortcircuiting. So now you know it’s sort of a lesson in life. Sometimes you try to save money. You save money by moving into a cheap youth hostel and then staying in the youth hostel causes so many problems. You basically end up it ends up costing you more money than if you had stayed in a regular hotel for like a 100 ringgit a night or something like that.
I’ve always thought that for Malaysia to have a good experience here as a traveler, you really have to adjust your budget expectations. And if you have the money like 100 to 120 ringgit per night, if you had that budget for accommodation, then life would be smooth sailing cuz every single town, everywhere you go is going to have a very good hotel for around 100 ringgit a night. And then you never have to worry about it. You don’t have to worry about, oh, can I get a room? Can I find a place? Am I going to get Wi-Fi? You know, if you’re trying to go low budget and you’re always looking for 30, 40, you know, 50 ringgit a night at most, you’re struggling. Your life just becomes an endless hassle. You can never find a place to stay. And when you do, there’s all kinds of problems. Yeah. There’s one of the dancing mascots. They make money by posing with children. Get donations. Got a lot of those here during the Independence Day holidays.
So anyway, all last night I was working on my phone reading up on all the instructions like what do you do when the charging port has been flooded? How do you dry it out and what should you do and this and that and the other thing consulting all of my AI buddies. So I had fans blasting away at my phone. And I’m shaking it, trying to shake the water out like all night long, all today, trying to get my phone to dry out. And luckily, I seem to have managed to do it. So, I did not end up destroying my phone, which is nice. I was able to charge it up again. I had to go into some special system apps to clear the USB settings cache. That was the only way I could get it to unlock and get rid of the moisture warning because my phone was completely seized up. And I had to clear this cache setting in order to get it done. But apparently everything is fine. It dried out. Okay. I didn’t do any real damage to it. But yeah, stay in a place that costs 25 ringgit a night and you risk your sanity. You have no water in the bathroom.
Oh, I didn’t quite finish that story. Because what I ended up doing there they had a bucket. So you can take this bucket from the laundry room, put it in the bathroom underneath the tap which just sort of drips water a little bit and you leave it in there for an hour or 2 hours and just wait for the bucket to fill up hoping that nobody else goes into the bathroom in the meantime. And then you can take like a water bottle, like a one one and a half liter plastic water bottle, cut it in half to make a scoop. So suddenly I had a bucket of water and a scoop. So, I was this morning I was finally able to take a shower, a bucket bath basically because I got the bucket to fill up and then I dumped water on my head using a water bottle that was cut in half. But yeah, these are the things you have to do.
So, I’m telling Matthew all these stories and of course his eyes light up and he says, “Well, you know what? By accident, I’ve booked two nights at this hotel that I don’t need. So, if you want a break from your youth hostel life, you know, I’ll give you a room card key and you can just stay here.” So, that’s what I’m doing. Given all of that and the fact that I made this video about what you can get in Melaka for 25 or 30 ringgit a night, I thought it’d be fun to add an epilogue. And now you can see what you get in Melaka if you raise your budget to like 100 to maybe 150 ringgit per night. And as I said, it’s called the Estadia Hotel. It’s right on the other side of the Hatten Hotel. And right beside the medical center, there’s the Well, it’s right beside the Mahkota Parade, this giant shopping mall here. Really nice mall. I had lunch with Matthew in there earlier today when he gave me the room key card. And this Estadia Hotel is quite a big well-known place, but it’s really hard to locate. It’s there like it’s beside the medical center and beside the Hatten Hotel up here.
Yeah, Melaka is still pretty jammed. So many people here for the Hari Merdeka celebrations. Come down here for the weekend from KL and from other places.
Yeah, this Estadia Hotel has a really strange entrance. It’s really hard to find. I knew about the hotel and I knew where it was, but when I met Matthew there the other day, I really I had to go around the hotel a couple of times before I could finally track down the entrance. And I’ll show you why that is in a minute. Up there is the tower of the Hatten Hotel. Very large hotel here. Nice 7-Eleven down at floor level. And to get to the Estadia lobby and reception, you’ve actually got to go down this alleyway. I remember looking down here before and thinking, there’s no way the front of the hotel is down here. But this is where it is. And they’ve got a lot of bus parking for this hotel. I think like big tour groups come from all over the place and stay at the Estadia because it’s so convenient. And I think the pricing is good and they have all kinds of big parking spots right outside the hotel for the tour buses that show up, but it’s jammed into this narrow alleyway. So, if you don’t know what’s down here, you’d really struggle to find the front doors and the lobby where you check in. But, it’s just up here on the right hand side. Oh, we’re getting closer in this alleyway entrance. Yeah, from a distance it looks like a parking area, bus parking up here on the right hand side, these long parking spots. And then right over there, the sign is being covered up by the pillar. And all those lanes ahead of me, 1 2 3 4, those that’s all bus parking. And then right here, there it is. The entrance to the Estadia Hotel. If you’re ever looking for this place, you got to come down this alleyway. And at night, it really looks like it leads nowhere. If you’re looking around at night, you would probably never come down this alleyway cuz there’s like no way a big fancy hotel is going to have an entrance down here. But it does. And I have a key card to Matthew’s room. He’s told them about me. So, let’s hope this all works out.
That’s cool.
Wow.
Ah, here we are. Elevator waiting for me. I didn’t make it. And now let’s hope my card works.
Oh, it’s funny. I guess you have to scan your card then hit the button. I was worried there for a minute my card wasn’t going to work and I breezed right by the security guard just said hello. I had my key card in my hand to make it look like I’m a real guest. Uh oh. Down this way. What a difference from my youth hostel thing.
Hello.
Hello. It’s so quiet in the hostel. Every footstep is like a thunderous echo because of the wood. But here everything is solid, soundproofed, very different experience. And this could be my new home for two nights. 457. Let’s see what happens. Oh, look at that. I have access to the kingdom.
And there I am hitting the mirror. A bathroom. A bathroom with a mirror cuz yeah, lowbudget hotels in the bathroom often have no mirror at all. And if they do have one, it’s like a small one way down like below waist level. So, I have to go way down here in order to see myself. But here, yeah, you can see very nice bathroom. All the toiletries you could want. What the heck is that? Oh, that must be from Matthew. He left behind some mints. I don’t think those are complimentary. And then a really nice shower area. Shower cabinet. Yeah, I’ve definitely moved up in the world. Now look at this kettle, complimentary water, beautiful beds, sheets, all cotton, feather pillows, air conditioned.
There you go. It’s a very interesting experiment because as I said it gets to the heart of the issue of value. Like you stay in a cheap hotel to save money.
Oh, just couldn’t feel my wallet for a minute. I put it over there on the counter. Yeah, you stay in a cheap hostel to save money, but then you end up I don’t know. You have to work so hard to be in those places. As I was telling Matthew, I’ve talked about this in the past with cheap hotels, the spaces are really tight and very narrow and awkward and you end up straining your back and and your hips and different things because you’re trying to go around corners and then you’re bending over and you’re trying to, you know, get this water out of the bucket and you’re trying to get it back here and you’re banging into things. And I ended up pulling some muscles in my back just in the one night that I stayed in the hostel cuz I had to bend over in weird angles just to do normal things. You end up physically tired just living in that environment moving around because yeah like even the bed is pushed up against the wall. So I don’t have access to the bed from two sides. I can only get at the bed from one side. And if I have all my luggage piled up on the bed on the other side, I can’t get to it. And you and you do all these weird gymnastics in those small cheap places. Plus, you have to carry more stuff like here for me to spend two nights in this room. Obviously, I don’t need towels anymore. I don’t even need toiletries cuz all the toiletries are provided. I don’t need a bed sheet. I don’t need a pillowcase. I don’t have to carry any of that stuff with me. I don’t have to worry about survival equipment like a giant water bag because water is provided. They probably have a water filter out in the hallway. I don’t have to bring my own kettle because the room supplies a kettle. I don’t even have to bring a cup cuz they supply coffee mugs, even supply coffee and tea and stuff like that. So, basically, this is all you need to bring with you. So this is my, you know, clothing and stuff, my life stuff. And then over here is my laptop and camera gear. So I need those two bags. And that’s all I need all of a sudden to survive because the hotel provides everything else that you might need. So you can just be a lot lighter, a lot more convenient.
So anyway, just wanted to capture a little bit of the contrast what 30 ringgit gets you in Melaka and now you can see what maybe 100 120 ringgit can get you in Melaka and that’s even on a holiday weekend. So that works out very well.
Thank you to Matthew for thinking of me when he had two extra nights at this hotel. Took pity on planet Doug. He broke me out of the hostel life and gave me two nights of luxury. All right, so that’s it. Shutting down for real. See you next time.