Yangon City Hotels

Hotels are mushrooming and what all of them have in common?

Quite unrealistic prices relative to what a visitor gets in exchange, they obviously follow the philosophy, we starved almost 50 years now all money must come back within 5. Pls. use the hotel booking widget at lower left. The company we use is booking.com and according to my experience they have the widest selection of hotels in the city.

Currently are not enough accommodations but by searching around a bit off the center there they still are. Try to have a look in the Windermere District (check the map) north east of the Shwedagon Pagoda there are plenty of budget hotels and guesthouses run by families who charge reasonable prices, you wont find this places in the internet.

A general manager of a other hotel once told me the Kandawgyi  is probably the most beautiful in the city considering the style, building materials, interior decoration and location and he was right. The place had changed owners a few years ago and it doesn't have the drive as before but is still a good stay in Yangon. 

To keep one fact in mind is since there is no public transport check carefully where the location is. In the last few years the traffic become a real pain and it wont do good to sit in the taxi the half day and pay another $ 10,- or 20,-  every day, so better stay in the center only.

In general your holidays must not be expensive. 

Avoid the Asia Plaza Hotel right in the center you get a room for about $ 100,-. A few years ago the same was $ 30,- but it's still the same not very good stuff.

Central Hotel (owned by the military) is just beside the Trader hotel and charges $ 80,-, (in 2011 they charged $ 30,-) another budget hotel is the Queens Park Hotel, a bit rotten but around $50,- there is no much choice, was $ 25,- before. 

Probably the most interesting place in this area is the Bogyoke Market which is just in front, that is the best oriental bazaar in the whole country full with all treasures the country has.

The Shangri-La Sule former Trader Hotel is the biggest in town.

At the Sule Shangri-La they charge from around $ 200,- upwards, currently they are building 2 more hotels / Apparment buildings under the Shrangri-La brand and some apartment and office buildings at Kandawgyi Lake, that are prime spots, they know how to handle this. Why Sule Shangri-La? Because it is at Sule Pagoda Road which is about 10 minutes walk down the road.

Basically there are 3 variants, first are the city accommodations as indicated before, second are the smaller privately owned hotels off the center and third are apartments. City center hotels for every taste and budget are available. 

The most expensive is the Strand.

Strand Hotel Yangon

During British colonial times this one together with the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok were the best ones in the East. The problem with this hotel is the location, its Strand Road just along the port where most of the day a awful caravan of extremely stinking trucks are doing their job, the hotel.

The Queens Park Hotel is a budget hotel in downtown, so is the panorama and the city. About 30 minutes drive from downtown to the north is Inya Lake Hotel, a good hotel with a great location on the lake. The biggest problem is to get a taxi because it's real far off.

At the same road but closer to the center is one of the other bigger ones, the Sedona Hotel Yangon and MiCasa apartment. When you book a hotel (2015) check the location first because due to the current boom time the traffic situation is already even worst than in Bangkok or Manila it's really difficult to get in and out of the center in reasonable time.

A other thing related to this, if you are off the very city center you need a taxi.

Although all this is quite cheap it will add $ 10 to 20 per day to your costs. A typical price for a trip is about $ 2-, for an half hour ride, the situation at the airport is, to downtown around $ 10,-. There is a way to do it for half of this, just walk out of the airport to the main road and take one there it goes for around $ 5,-. needs negotiation and be stubborn.