Five Elements Hostel Reviews

The room is very big and comfortable, very nice staff, but the common area is not friendly to nonsmokers. nice food.

Excellent hotel, great value for money, on of the top 3 hostels in our several months of travels

A great hostel with kind and friendly staff. I booked a bus ticket to Lijiang through the hostel. Was collected from the hostel and taken to the bus which was very helpful for someone who does not speak chinese.

The reception girl was great, the best we've seen in china helps with everything. The Internet was slow and the morning coffe isn't free as we were told.

Really liked this place. Great breakfast müsli, not many waiguoren (yes I am one), and the staff (one of which speaks excellent English) are extremely helpful (an hour an a half of ordering train tickets onwards to Emeishan). Just to be nice, they let me rent a bike for free, and just to be nice, they have golden retriver just hanging around in the lounge. Overall, also very quiet, clean, and not affected by the masses inside the old city. Recommended.

Nice place to stay, perfect location to explore Dali! Good and friendly staff, helped us with tours and booking incredible cheap flight tickets. (DO THE HIKE!!) Only negative aspect: there is no free laundry anymore, they will charge 25 RMB / 10 RMB if you do it yourself.

Awesome hostel with really friendly and helpful staff. Best hostel I've stayed in so far and I've been backpacking for many years. Enjoyed my stay very much and can highly recommend this hostel to everyone.

Just a great place...rooms clean, staff helpful, giant bathroom...go.

just outside of the wall's old city is in a very good situation. The rooms a big enough, the staff very friendly, and you can eat there for a good money. Besides you can see good movies in a big screen, and play piano (if you know), while having a cold and cheap beer.

Awesome place. Clean, cheap, delicious food. Great spot to hang out. Staff was super helpful booking train tickets. Best hostel I've been to in China.

The staff was extremely helpful, gave good advice and information, and was friendly and fun. Also, they spoke almost perfect English and some where fluent in Japanese as well. Place is near the center of the old town, but on the other side of the main road, which is good if you like some quite at the end of the day. The room was clean and nice, and the shower had nice hot water 24h, and laundry facilities where just fine.

I just want to commend on Venessa's friendly, helpful and positive attitude. She's made our stay and organising our trip much easier, and her English is excellent.

Nice hostel, excellent staff and very cosy common area. Toilets are clean and there is hot water, western toilet on the 2nd floor. I liked that they organize various activities like dumplings cooking class, movie nights etc. Food is great (best fried eggs on my trip so far!) The only downside was that for most of my stay I was the only non-Chinese person staying and it felt a bit lonely, but I guess that's not hostel's fault and such things happen when off-season.

A nice, basic hostel with good atmosphere and nice rates.

Really friendly staff. I got there at 8 AM after taking an overnight train and they let me into my room right away. They provide both a body and hand towel, as well as toilet paper, soap, body wash, and shampoo in the shared bath/shower room. Rooms aren't heated, so it was a little cool, but the electric blanket more than made up for it. The room was spacious and was nicely decorated. The puppy and cats are also really friendly. Wifi works well enough.

A bright, clean spot in an excellent location. The staff were exceedingly friendly and gracious. The granola with homemade yogurt and local honey was delicious! Not much in the way of a backpacker social scene, but the rooms are nicer than next-door Jade Emu, which has all the backpacker scene you're looking for.

I really spent a good time in this place (actually stayed two more days than originaly planned). Friendly staff and very nice, large and well-decorated common room (cheap beers, sofas and even a not-so-new-but-ok pool table : good place to hang out). Maybe some small details could be upgraded in the dorms : there were no locks on the lockers and not every bed had a shelf to put down things like phone, keys etc. Overall a really good option though to enjoy Dali and its close area.

Nice hostel and friendly employees. However, I made the mistake to arrive around 06 am at the hostel. I expected the hostel to open early, but this was not the case. I had to wait until 08 am and it was very cold outside. So don't make the same mistake as me, arrive after 08 am.

Very helpful and friendly staff and good food. Would stay again.

Stayed there for one night, mixed 4 bed dorm but with no one but us. All in all ok, staff was helpuful with booking bus tickets and leading there. Only thing was missing at this cold weather was a electric blanket...