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Guesthouse Review: Check Mate Guest House, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia

September 20, 2015 By James Clark

Check Mate Guest House, Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

Guesthouse Name: Check Mate Guest House
Address: 8, Jalan Rembia Off Jalan Tengkat Tong Shin, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

[Edit: this place was terrible and it has since closed down. This review is left as an archive.]

I stayed at the Check Mate Guest House in Kuala Lumpur. I booked online for the rate of $12.75 USD and picked it for its location off Bukit Bintang, which is a popular area for hotels.

For cheap guesthouses in KL I usually stay in the Chinatown area. I have found that the cheap places in Bukit Bintang to be more run-down and it is better to pick something mid-range. Staying at this guesthouse confirmed that theory.

I checked in and the room I was allocated was mouldy smelling. I turned the lights on and they kept flicking on and off. Then I couldn’t turn them on at all. Occasionally the lights would flick on again. After the person on duty agreed that the wiring was on its way out, I was allocated to another room.

My new room was less mouldy but without a window.

Double room

It looked like a spare room that hadn’t been used for a while. I went into the bathroom and there were cigarette butts in the toilet. I flushed and the cistern didn’t refill.

Bathroom

After working out what was going on I found that the tap to the toilet was turned off. I turned the tap back on only to find that the reason it was turned off was because the sink had no tap. Every time I needed to fill the cistern I had to turn the tap on and watch the sink turn into a water fountain.

Broken bathroom

There was wifi in the room and the usual KL guesthouse breakfast of toast and coffee. There is an amazing Indian restaurant across the road so I went there.

I was only here a night and I had too much to do to be bothered to move. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Overall this place was too run-down to recommend. They would be better off to renovate and rebrand.

Search for more hotels in Kuala Lumpur here or read up on which area is best to stay in.

Filed Under: Accommodation Tagged With: guesthouse, kuala lumpur, malaysia

About James Clark

James Clark is the founder of Nomadic Notes. He has been a digital nomad since 2003, and Nomadic Notes features trip reports, train travel articles, and where to stay guides. He writes about transport and urban development at Future Southeast Asia. Subscribe to the weekly travel newsletter.

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James Clark from Nomadic Notes

Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

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