Odd name for a hotel with no views at all, some rooms didn't even have windows! My room did, but looked out on to a wall. My room was basic, very small and very dated with lots of dark wood and a green fridge, the bathroom was in need of a lot of renovation and had a strange arrangement where the water from the sink drained onto the bathroom floor before then going down the drain.
But on a plus side, it was clean, smelled lovely from the oil burners everywhere, and the staff, even though their English was quite limited (but then, so was our Burmese....) welcoming and helpful. You can get laundry done really cheaply there too. The major plus of this place is it's sister hotel, the Hotel by the Red Canal, (three to four times the price) where you can use the facilities including a small pool, and attend their free cocktail hour at 6pm. Makes it much better value. The other plus is that unlike virtually everywhere else in Burma, the Hotel by the Red Canal will take credit cards, at a 15% surcharge and you can pay your Mandalay View Inn bill that way. A life saver when you thought that the dollars you brought were in good condition, only to find when you get there that they are not pristine enough for Myanmar, so become useless and suddenly you are on an enforced budget. You can also book and pay for domestic flights (at a 27% surcharge) on your card via the hotel, but again a lifesaver if your dollars are running low. The domestic flights are quite cheap anyway so it's not such a huge amount.
Location of the hotel was good, near the palace and not too far from Mandalay Hill. We hired a little blue Mazda Tuk tuk from outside the hotel for a couple of days to ferry us around, it worked out good value and put something back into the local economy. Overall, not sure this is the best budget place to stay in Mandalay but its connection to the Hotel by the Red Canal was a financial lifesaver to us. See my blog gill35.blogspot.com for more insights into Mandalay and the rest of Myanmar (Jan/feb 2012 posts)
