The Hotel @ Tharabar Gate

the lemongrass mojitos

Our stay here didn’t get off to a very good start. We had been in contact with the hotel to arrange for them to send a taxi to meet us at the airport. Our flight was the last one in that evening, there was no taxi there for us & we were left in the car park with the airport closed down and our phone not working so we couldn’t contact anyone. As we only have a debit card, we’d contacted the hotel before we arrived to ask how we could settle our bill & the reply was either cash or credit card, when we asked specifically about a debit card we were told no, only credit cards. We paid our bill in cash on arrival, leaving us short of cash. The ATM outside the hotel wasn’t working so we were unable to access any more cash. At the end of our stay we asked if we could pay our restaurant bill with a debit card & were told, of course, no problem. The biggest problem was not one that would usually occur, no more than once per year, as the local pagoda was having a festival, right outside the hotel, that went on for several nights. In the room was a printed notice advising that there may be a little noise from the chanting as part of the festival……and 2 pairs of ear plugs. The chanting wasn’t a problem, it couldn’t be heard over the very loud booming bass noise that went on until 3am the first night and until 2 am the second night. When we complained to the manager we were offered a different room which was of no use as the noise could be heard in all the hotel rooms. We were then offered a move to the sister hotel but as were being picked up at 5.30 am the next morning we really didn’t want to be getting up even earlier than necessary & having to rely on the hotel to get us back in time to be picked up, especially given the earlier dismal failure with transport arrangements. We felt that this was dealt with very poorly by the hotel management.