Happy elephant bungalow — Hotel in Mondulkiri

Hi ! I went in this place traveling with hamocks. The guesthouse was full and the staff friendly help me, let me sleep in my hamock for 3 nights for really cheap. Prices are the same than in every guest house kitchen.||I read reviews about rats, bugs, and lack of toilet paper....||Yeah, you're in the poorest asian country and people earn around $150 average a month for kind of good jobs, so :|| bathroom and toilet are in the same room, there are some animals in the guesthouse, but be sure that there are also mouses in some 5* places, you juste saw it in this. (Personaly i didnt see any rats or something).||The trashs around the guesthouse is just the way of life of khmer people who drops everything everywhere.||There is no toilet paper but in this country you cannot trash it in the toilet so i think it is pretty useless to provide some.||Kitchen is good, and you have for your money, you're kind of full after lunch. ||I didn't sleepp in a room so i cannot comment the hygiene of the rooms but the common area was clean and you just have to call the staff to find someone helping you. Just a strong "hi?!" Is the way to have somebody to cook for you. ||And if there is not, are you a child to stay frozzen ? Just open an ice case and drink your bear waiting ;) you can also cook by yourself in the firepit - what a did, an egg is $0.12 and a noodle soop is $0.25 let live by yourself sometimes :p -||Yeah, sometime there are nobody speaking english at the reception but is it a problem ? There are some countries where NOBODY speacks in english and you can travel in ...||For me it is just a screen of cambodian way of life, not a lot, but everything you need as a backpacker.||The Owner help us to leave to place by making auto-stop, writting the name of the next city in Khmer, organise a little party for the new year.||Conclude ?|Oppen your eyes, you just gonna live like most part au khmer people and not as a tourist for a moment, enjoy it and think about the luck you have to know what hot water is 😂😂||For the price it's the best you can have in this city. $5 for two personne.. just that make you understand that you not gonna have a...

Do not stay here...we arrived after having booked online a few months in advance and no one was at the desk for about 4 min until he walked over from a pool game to check us in. He said he couldn't find any reservation and that they didn't have any more rooms until I showed him my printed confirmation and suddenly there was one available with our name on it...We should have taken that as a sign haha But we were exhausted from a 7 hour van ride into the city and it was about 9pm so instead we walked down the ramp and up to our little bungalow.||||We aren't very picky and knew this was a cheap option so there was no expectation really beyond a mattress pad, some pillows and a light but were not expecting what we walked into...first the light didnt turn on but then after a while flickered on to reveal a mattress with holes and hundreds of ants crawling around on top. A maquito net with holes that would have done us no good and a huge frog inside of the toilet...needless to say we did not stay haha Mind you we had nowhere to go, had only been in the city for 15 min and arrived in the middle of the night, but it was worth taking our chances to leave this place. ||||With our backpacks on and key in hand we walked up to the front desk and again our "host" was playing pool with another patron and was too busy to even ask why we were leaving. Instead he asked us to put the keys on the counter and we hightailed it out of there. We walked back toward where the bus has dropped us off thinking that was the direction of the town and eventually stumbled upon a little in where we stayed the rest of our trip. ||||Definitely would NOT...

Just outside of town, Happy Elephant is not too much of a walk if tuk tuk drivers are trying to be too cheeky. We got off our bus by the roundabout and it took us about ten minutes to walk with bags.

The rooms are pretty 'rustic' but they weren't the worst place I've ever stayed. Our mosquito net had a few surplus holes but I didn't get bitten too much and the bed was comfortable. The fan was decent and made a valiant effort at keeping us cool. We were sharing our room with a few extra critters including geckos and ants but we were in a hut in Mondulkiri so it wasn't much of a surprise.

Reception is where food is served, which is all right. Not the best, not the worst and the price is pretty average. You're probably better off heading into town for a bite to eat. The beer of choice is Klang, which tastes pretty similar to both Angkor and Cambodia. Delicious of course. We hired scooters from Oromis for $7/day for getting to all the necessary waterfalls, with one of them acquiring a puncture within the first 100 metres. Staff replaced the scooter without extra charges.

Overall we had a great time. Good value for money and any issues were sorted out quickly. If you have a massive phobia of insects and cat-sized geckos then you're probably in the wrong...