Yangon - Kandawgyi Palace Hotel

I'm staying at the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel. As I mentioned before, it sits right on the Royal Lake of Kandawgyi. The entire building is meant to mirror the architecture of the nearby Shwedagon Pagoda, which is does quite well. The entire building is built out of teak, which is quite impressive. When I arrived though, I was in for a bit of a treat!


When I was in Yangon, there was an Asian round of the Davis Cup tennis championship. I thought it odd that the guy at the check in desk had a name label that said "Davis Cup". How unfortunate, I thought! Then I saw the other signs, so I guessed what was going on! Luckily for me, all the teams were staying at my hotel. The ultimate dream for a tennis groupy. Unfortunately, I'm not into sport at all, so I didn't recognise any of the players at breakfast in the morning. Mind you, the competition was between Iraq, Myanmar, Brunei, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Qatar, Bangladesh and Jordan. I doubt any of those players are recognised in their home countries! The side affect, was that I was constantly asked which country I was representing. The players are obviously pretty bad if I could pass off as one of them.

The hotel pool and garden is a bit odd. The gardens closely resemble overgrown jungle, but there is a rather nice pool. It's arranged over a terrace, so there's about 5 or so separate pools, which is quite cool. Standing over them all, is a cement tyrannosaurus rex, which is just odd. It's almost life size and sits quietly in amongst the gardens. The sign next to it says it used to sit in the Botanic Gardens, which makes a bit more sense. Perhaps it's designed to ward off the giant killer ducks?


My room is OK. The hotel is starting to show its age, but the rooms are clean and tidy. I have a great view over the lake, straight onto the walkway and the Karaweik. As an added bonus, the local squirrels use my window sill as a highway, so every five minutes, a cute little squirrel bounds past, looks in the window, then runs off.

The hotel service is a bit lax and there's no room service menu, but that's a small price to pay for such a great location.