Grand Empire Hotel — Hotel in Nyaung-U District

We did not stay in this hotel but rented bikes from them and had a horrible experience.||We wanted to rent mountain bikes to catch the sunrise, and asked them if we could come early morning (circa 5am) to rent them. When we wanted to try them the night before, the guy told us 'no need, you can try them tomorrow morning'. We should have known better. At 5am, we discovered that they had purposefully disconnected the gears on all their bikes!! Like actually cut off the gear cord, rendering all the bikes completely useless. On top of that the mountain bikes were terrible quality (one of the pedals fell off about 1km down the road). We almost missed the sunrise because the chains kept coming off on the way and the pedal falling off made it hard to pedal at all...||When we called them to get them replaced or fixed, they took almost 1 hour to come (wasting the cool hours of the morning for us to visit Bagan), the guy didn't apologise, acting pretty rudely towards us, and didn't even come with tools or replacement bikes. He then told us to wait longer, so he could go get tools to fix our bikes, at which point we started voicing our discontent. He then suggested giving us his e-bike for a higher price (than other places) - not even suggesting a discount out of courtesy. We demanded our money back and vowed to warn anyone else not to use...

Nothing really good to say about this hotel. My room smelt of wet dog. I asked to change and was told no other rooms were ready for me. My neighbour who had booked for 5 days changed room as hers also had a bad smell. I took to burning incense in the room which helped a little.||I was also overcharged by the front desk for s e-bike which are the most common form of transport to get to Bagan temples. I and others were charged 8000 when the common rate was 5000 or 6000 on the street.||At night time the manager decided to start a petrol generator outside my room at gone midnight. He did stop the noise when asked but I just cannot think what his original thinking was.||When leaving the hotel I found that my sneakers had been made wet overnight. They were outside my door and I can only think that the entrance to the room was sloshed with a bucket of water in the early hours without taking care of my shoes. They are now wet in|My suitcase on a 10 hour bus journey... I don't k own how they will hold up.||I complained on checkout (i had alerted the staff previously to each problem as they occurred). They gave me a 25% discount after some argument but really it wasn't worth it for a smelly dirty room with poor service. ||My advice.....

Arrived in Nyang Oo without a booking and discovered most places were full. We were able to get a room at Grand Empire, which might have been the first clue!||||The room (walk-in rate $45) had a very worn carpet which was pretty grubby and most surfaces (windowsills, skirting boards etc) were very dusty and dirty. The bathroom floor was very stained, the sink wasn't clean and the bedsheets felt damp. It was definitely a room where I kept my shoes on!||||Breakfast in the restaurant next door was cold (the weather was chilly and the food heaters weren't hot) apart from the Myanmar option of 'mohinga' (fish noodle soup) which was tasty.||||Odd experience, as the room really didn't live up to the expectation that the welcome drink, the friendly staff and the complimentary toiletries and refreshments suggested.||||We only stayed one night and then found another place which was cheaper, much cleaner and had...