Lialy Hostel

Hostel with good points and bad points

The Lialy Hostel is well situated in the downtown area of Cairo - a pretty short walk will get you to the Nile and the Egyptian Museum. The rooms are clean, and the staff fairly friendly and helpful, although, as everywhere in Egypt they will try to get you to book tours with them. We did book a taxi through them to take us to the Pyramids - I don't think it was too much of a rip-off, and although it was a little late starting, the driver was good and didn't take us anywhere we didn't want to go (he suggested a carpet 'school', but was OK when we said no).

The shower rooms were basic, and not always terribly clean (mainly thanks to people going in there in their shoes and leaving dirty footprints), but I only had to queue up once, and they were in the process of adding more.

They were fine about looking after our luggage on our last day - our rucksacks were put in a locked room and we could come back for them at any time, which was great as we were leaving on a night train.

The only real complaint I have about the place is that I asked for stamps, and the guy behind the desk (who introduced himself as Ben but I believe was called Mustafa) offered to take my postcards to the post office for me - I agreed with some reservation, and surprise surprise my postcards never made it home.

If you're careful about what you agree to, this is a perfectly OK place to stay for a few nights. It's best to book (and pay) in advance though - when we added an extra night, we ended up paying a lot more for it than we'd paid through the website initially.

Unique Quality: The balcony in the communal lounge does have a good view over Talaat Harb square - great for watching the crazy world go by!