The rooms described as “doubles” were all twins…
Monopolies in business are never good for the consumer, and with A Yone Oo guesthouse in Kyaukme Myanmar, this is no exception… Being the only guesthouse in Kyaukme that can accept foreigners the rooms really don’t match the price.
To be fair, there are a range of options, so they aren’t forcing you to spend $30+ just to have a roof over your head. The problem is that you get less for your money than in most other parts of Myanmar. Also, strangely, getting a room with a double bed, rather than a twin, seemed to be an alien concept to the owners.
There are a few room options, we stayed one night in the $12 budget room, a tiny twin with very thin mattresses, very thin walls, no fan and no electricity socket! Not recommended. Even for $12 we’d expect a fan… Sheets were clean though.
The $12 rooms were tiny and uncomfortable, get the $18 rooms if you can afford it.
For $12 you can expect squat toilets ONLY and the shower is basically a trough of cold water which you can bucket over yourself. We payed an extra 1000kyat ($1.10) to use the hot water showers and western toilet but because of a long power cut, there was no hot water anyway…
We also stayed in the $18 twin room. For only $6 extra you get a much larger room with proper mattresses and included use of the hot water showers (Which were a little on the dirty side, even for Myanmar) as well as breakfast, still no fan though! Some of the similar rooms seemed to have air con fitted, not sure on the extra cost of this.
They have triple rooms too (3 beds), about $25, and they’ll put a single person in the twin room for $10.
Also available were $25 rooms, which were ensuite, still twin though. Visiting Burma it has been the only country where they have no idea why a double and a twin are different rooms. If you ask for a double you will invariably be given a twin, you have to specify very clearly you want “one big bed” and even that is no certainty when you book over the phone and arrive at 5am to find they only have twin rooms left…
As for A Yone Oo guesthouse, if you want to stay in Kyaukme, which is a great and less touristy option for trekking than Hsipaw, as of May 2013 it is your only option. We reckon the $18 is the best value, if you like sleep forget the $12 room.
Triple rooms also available at about $25
We enjoyed Myanmar so much we wrote an independent travel guide about it. The up to date alternative to Lonely Planet:
CONTACT A Yone Oo Guesthouse, Kyaukme Myanmar:
+95 (0) 82 40183
Shwe Phi Oo Road, Kyaukme (about 10 minute walk to train station, 2 minute walk to central market)
Visiting Kyaukme? Read about the best attraction in the area…
