After looking at their website and doing...
After looking at their website and doing a lot of research, I ended up staying at this hotel two weeks ago because of the lovely pictures. Never judge a place by pictures alone. Unfortunately, what the website fails to mention is that the place is STILL in it's early stage of reconstruction. There wasn't a restaurant, there wasn't a pool, there are no bicycle rentals or even paths to bike on, and they do not have a fully functioning staff. After our stay, I found out that it used to be an old motel and "tourist info" center before it was bought by the new owners and remodeled.
The first part of trip there was nice. We were kindly picked up from the airport and driven to the hotel by a very nice man who works there. As he parked the van into our hotel's parking lot, I automatically felt fooled. In front of us was a mass of heap of construction garbage, rubble, and dirt, with loads of older men & women working there tails of. When we checked-in to the informal "lobby," the "receptionist desk" didn't even now we had a reservation and wanted us to pay the fee for the van and the hotel. When I showed her my voucher and receipt she looked a little skeptical. After telling her repeatedly that I refuse to pay the bill again, she apprehensively agreed. This incident was the only problem we had with the staff.
After actually going through the debris, dirt, construction site & across a wooden bridge that looked as if it had seen better days, we got to the area where the website pictures were actually taken. Surprisingly, the room was really cute, despite the outdated TV & matching bunny ears, and the very dirty bathtub (it looked like someone took very dirty water and showered the tub with it, leaving light brown water marks).
After only getting a few hours of sleep that night, we took a nap but was unable to sleep due to the amount of noise that surrounded us (it ended up starting again at 8 am the following morning), probably because the room doesn't have very good insulation. That night, after a long day in the heat, my husband was the first to take a shower but found that the water pressure was low, and worst of all, there was NO hot water. I ended up taking an even colder shower. Since it was late, we decided not to bug the "staff."
I also wanted to add that even though the location looks prime on the map, you do have to walk about 15-20 mins into the old city, unless you are lucky enough to find a "tuk-tuk" cruising by in the afternoon. At night we walked backed from the old city to the hotel and found it kinda scary because all of the homeless dogs wandering around & hollowing at you.
I think that after all the construction is done and they remodel the main entrance and have a fully functioning hotel with staff, it could be a really nice place.
