Sim-Sim Hostel, Tours & Transport

Really excellent overall. For the older crowd, it feels a lot like an "old school" hostel - very social, very "homey". Wonderful owners and operators.

Nothing.

Everything. My fellow travellers made this stay worth remembering for rest of my life

Got a camping gas here for 60somani. Maybe prices in Panjket or Tajikistan are high, I got same can fir 27 somani in Almaty

very helpful and kind hosts

fairly dark room with one big window to the courtyard so not much privacy, also somewhat lacking airflow

Location is close to bazaar and transport. The grandma was THE BEST thing here. The man Host helped us sort out our SIM card. However, this place was not worth the money. We paid for 2 beds in 1 room. We were given 1 folding couch to share. No chair, no table, just a cupboard full of the host’s stuff. We were greeted by the teenage host, who showed us our room, and proceeded to throw our sheets and blankets on the ground, in an effort to make the bed. He seemed upset he had to do it so we did it and sent him away. We had questions about WiFi and stuff, he was rude and not interested and sent us to his mother, who was sweet but spoke no English. He would hang out right outside our window (the common table) with his friends until late night and made us uncomfortable by talking and laughing at us with his friends, anytime we walked by. We had to say something before it stopped. The room had a door communicating to another guest room that wouldn’t lock. The window also wouldn’t lock. The is only one bathroom for the whole place. It was clean only the first of the 5 nights we were there (I’ll spare you the pictures). It was obviously always busy.

Tours for 7 lakes are much cheaper from Uzbekistan. Even the host’s friend tried to rip us off. We were quoted 50$ for 2 people to just ride back from the lakes. The whole tour costs 80$ from Samarkand. We ended up staying at the other hostel in Panjakent and it was much much better for the SAME PRICE. Yes, the very same price. The breakfast is basic and rather poor, same everyday. They should also consider using filtered water for guests or boiling what they use THOROUGHLY. We were sick the whole time and it only went away when we stop drinking the tea from breakfast.