After a rough 10 hour public bus trip from Bagan to Mandalay we were keen to avoid a budget hotel & spend a little bit more for some R&R. The Emerald Land Inn is a decent enough hotel that certainly tries hard to meet tourist standards since they were charging an arm & a leg. Without a reservation we decided to have a crack at getting a room, we turned up & negotiated for a $60 Deluxe room which was the price on the DirectRooms website down to $45 USD which was great. Staff spoke good english & were very accommodating.
The hotel's grounds were quite nice & lush with a decent pool & very fancy dinning area. Our room had high ceilings, a separate vanity area & shower-tub. We had aircon & a ceiling fan, the furnishings were of a pretty good standard & there was free wireless but only within the vicinity of the reception area but expect pre-historic dial-up speed.
Some negatives: On the pamphlet it states that the hotel offers free airport transfers, this was not the case anymore due to a new airport about 1 hr away, they organised a taxi for us which cost $13 USD. The hotel no longer has any satellite TV but after a bit of arm-twisting they offered us a DVD player with Sigourney Weaver's Aliens, wicked! The hotel was in a residential area & located somewhat near the royal palace but still not near enough to walk, it is just a matter of walking the few minutes to the main road to hail down a bicycle taxi. Our room rate did include breakfast which was ok but not buffet & the bread seemed a little stale.
For those politically & socially inclined, im not sure if this was a government-run hotel, i doubt it as it wasnt very near the city centre but I would guess they pay taxes & kick-backs to the junta for having the permission to list themselves on the internet for foreign guests.
- Emerald Land Hotel Mandalay
