Hostel horror stories

You're bound to meet 'interesting' people when you travel. It happens. People get drunk.

I used to read lots of hostel horror stories, feeling sorry for those who had the misfortune to encounter them. You read these things and they seem so completely out-of-this-world you wonder how on earth it can possibly be that things like that could ever happen to you - until, of course, it actually does.

So this is me in Salzburg, Austria, on the last night of my Italy-Slovenia-Austria trip, having so far enjoyed a pretty good one and fully intending to rest up well, head to the airport at first light and catch my flight home to Edinburgh. Sounds pretty inconsequential, right?

That is, until you have your hostel roommates turning into Spiderman.

That's right: this guy was so drunk that he climbed over other's bunk beds, crept across the windowsill, and stuck his head out from behind a curtain. I have no doubt that if I hadn't been awake and staring him down the entire time, he would've probably tried to climb into my bed.

He had just stuck his head out from behind a curtain that was right next to my bed. If I wasn't sitting up, he'd practically be sticking his face right beside mine. Sorry mate - not okay for a guy I've known for all of 6 hours.

I wound up telling him very loudly that if he didn't go the fuck to sleep right this instant, I'd be calling reception on him. At this point he Spiderman-ed it all the way back across the other bunk beds and crawled into his own bed.

Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, by the light that was streaming in through the windows I saw that he hadn't gone to sleep at all but was awake and looking at me the whole time. It wouldn't have been far off to say that I was actually almost afraid to go to sleep that night, because I had no idea what he'd try to do once I'd gone to sleep.

I think roommates are the most important part of a hostel experience; they can turn a bad hostel into a decent and even pleasant place, and in this case a bad roommate turned an amazing hostel into one where I couldn't get any proper good sleep.

I guess we've just got to keep our fingers crossed for good roommates!

What's your worst hostel horror story?