Guest house Riverside — Hotel in Karakol City

A few weeks before traveling from Alaska and Georgia (USA) to Kyrgyzstan to visit our daughter/sister who is serving in the Peace Corps, we looked for lodging for a three-day stay in Karakol. After seeing all of the great reviews for this place, I sent a reservation inquiry via email but got no response after a few days. I then sent a WhatsApp message and still got no response. Finally, I had my daughter in Kyrgyzstan call Riverside. She spoke to the wife/owner who said that the guesthouse had rooms available for us. The wife/owner made clear that we had a reservation, and said, "I will remember." ||||When we arrived we were met by the husband/owner who had no record of us and said the place was full. He tried to explain that his wife was in Bishkek for a couple of days. He then got her on the phone and passed it to my daughter, who reminded her of their conversation. She then immediately asked to speak to her husband. After a few more minutes of conversation, the husband/owner explained that the rooms we had requested were already occupied, and there was nothing he could do. Bottom line: we were assured that we had a reservation, but there were no rooms available for us upon our arrival. Completely unacceptable by any metric.||||The silver lining is that, with the Riverside owner's assistance, were able to find rooms in a nearby B&B (Happy Guest Bed and Breakfast), which was wonderful and probably a much better experience that we would have had at Riverside. But that doesn't excuse the completely unprofessional and unacceptable handling of our...

We spent 4 nights at this guesthouse as a base for day treks in the surrounding mountains. We opted for a double room with its own bathroom and it was a good size and a comfortable place to come back to each evening.||||Andre was pretty much always on hand to answer our queries about walking routes, book taxis etc and he always took care to speak to the taxis drivers when they arrived to ensure that they knew exactly where to take us, (given that we couldn't speak the language!).||||The provided breakfast was good and substantial enough to set us up for the day. There was also a hot water urn for tea and coffee available all day. The shared kitchen was a real benefit to us as it enabled us to prepare vegetarian meals ourselves as well as make packed lunches to take up the hills. The only slight downside of the kitchen was that there were often quite a few flies around - I suspect this was partly a result of people leaving half eaten food on plates without washing up.||||The guesthouse is about 20 minutes walk from the centre of town and the bazaar, (which had lots of fresh fruit & veg when we were there). There was also a small shop just a few minutes down the road that had basic tinned goods and beer, so we didn't need to carry those home from the centre. We ended up walking into town to go shopping and then getting a taxi back as it was only about 70 som.||||I would recommend this guesthouse to anyone going to stay in Karakol and we'd stay there again next...

Riverside guesthouse located near to Riserside Park, Karakol. The guesthouse is like a warm family feeling. The room is clean. They provide you shampoo and shower gel with hot shower. You can choose to have breakfast and dinner from the host by reasonable extra cost. Of course you can cook your own meal in the kitchen. The guesthouse also provide you laundry machine. You may choose to camp outside the house during summer. There is just 30 meters away to a convenience store and pharmacy from the guesthouse. Once you familiar the place/ village, you may easily get access to the Karakol center by using the path/ trail by crossing the Riverside Park. Beside accommodation, the host can arrange local tour such as horse riding, hiking and other local tour...