With the entry of Airbnb and many hostels, hotels are feeling the pinch with falling room rates. So what they do? Well, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going! In my recent trip to Taiwan, specifically in Tainan and Kaohsiung, I stayed at 2 hotels which fit the bill. They are not your run of the mill hotels. Take a look.

Smokey Joe’s Apartment Hotel (冒煙的喬_就是公寓旅店)

Address: No. 91, Wufu 4th Road, Yancheng, 80344 Kaohsiung (高雄市鹽埕區五福四路91號)

Walk into the hotel lobby and you are greeted by lots of colour from the colourful sign to lights to just about everything else. The colour makes everything cheerful. The helpful and friendly staff complete the package during check-in.

The centre piece of the lobby is a gleaming car. It is polished everyday, as many people can’t resist touching it. 🙂

Having seen the lobby you would expect much from the rooms, where you are going to spend much of your time in right? Well, Joe doesn’t disappoint.

The attention to details go down to even the bath soap. Check out the different graphics on each bottle!

Wifi is free in the entire hotel and it was pretty fast, which is much appreciated, because mobile connectivity in my room was spotty. You would however, have to switch connections when you leave an area and enter another. A small inconvenience, which did not trouble me at all. At this point, I would like to mention that it’s very easy to get connected in Taiwan. All 4G prepaid plans are sold with unlimited data. They are a tad pricey, but you can surf to your heart’s content without worrying about busting any data cap. Other than inside hotel rooms, I never had any bad data connection anywhere in Taiwan. Kudos to the telcos in Taiwan!

In my next post, I will talk about another hotel that I had stayed in, in Tainan. On this trip, I have had the opportunity to stay in very different types of hotels. Do stay tuned! This trip to Taiwan was made possible by the good grace of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Department of Commerce of Taiwan. On the topic of accommodation, I believe they deliberately put me in different types of establishments, so that I would be exposed to the myriad of options available to visitors to Taiwan. Also, while I was in Kaohsiung, I visited the Chef Teng Restaurant, a wonderful family owned establishment whose aim is to bring comfort and enjoyment to their customers through food.