Himalayan Ghar Hotel and Apartment — Hotel in Kathmandu Metropolitan City

Pros. / Cons Location. We'll located and at the end of a dead-end, so quieter. / On the outer edge of Thamel. Still here dogs barking at night.

Room: Big and pretty.clean with mini bar and good AC / no soundproofing with the main stairway or outside. Can hear vibrations in neighboring rooms and doves cooing outside! No blinds in bathroom leaving you exposed to many neighbors eyes. Had to use a bathrobe to cover window. Shower pressure is weak and temperature varies A LOT during the shower. Also, no shelf in the shower to put soap or shampoo. Have to shower with door open and use the toilet as a shelf. Minibar temperature is set to room temperature. The safe wasn't closing once the code was entered at first. We mentioned it and it was fixed within minutes. The room feels pretty runned- down. There's a random hole in the wall. Pretty strong moth ball smell in the room and sheets small of bleach.

Breakfast: Included in the price of our stay. Included bacon (rare in KTM) and customized eggs, Limited but decent selection. Nice rooftop setup / everything that was supposed to be warm was cold. Tables were all quite dirty.

Service: Friendly staff who attend well to the guests needs, responsive and adaptable. Room cleaning is very well done. / We picked this hotel for their advertised laundry service on site (a rare find in KTM as mentioned by hotels.com) but they have the same itemized laundry service as every other hotel (expensive). We managed to bring our laundry down the street (200m away) for a 100 NRP/kg) which did an ok job. The airport transfer they offer is expensive compared to the pre-paid taxis, being a little over 1.5x the cost to and from the airport. When I mentioned this, they were nice enough to offer us a discounted rate, still more than the taxi but ok.

The manager: Nice, friendly, smiley and serviceable / after offering us a discounted rate for an airport transfer mentioned above, he asked us to give them a nice review with a 10-on-10 score before we leave. I'm not a fan of this and this might be the source for their high ratings, but they were probably bought. When the time came to bring us to the airport the next day, the manager was no longer there but the driver who was present at the moment of the arrangement decided that that there was too much traffic and that they would book us an alternative taxi. I told him that we had an arrangement but he didn't seem to understand (maybe a language barrier or pretending that the was one). The then acting manager, Adjit asked us what was wrong and I explained to him that they should honor their commitment. He then tried to the driver which then told another employee to drive us. Adjit asked for a good review at this point.

Property Equipped with a generator for frequent power outages. Internet is good (except on the roof top) and fast /. Seems like when power shortage happens, certain breakers pop, leaving you unable to charge devices in the room. When mentioned, they come back to life a little after but this happened only 1x out of about 5-6 outages in 2 days. A bit overpriced when compared to a nicer hotel we stayed at a week ago just...

Pros. / Cons|Location. We'll located and at the end of a dead-end, so quieter. / On the outer edge of Thamel. Still here dogs barking at night. ||Room: |Big and pretty.clean with mini bar and good AC / no soundproofing with the main stairway or outside. Can hear vibrations in neighboring rooms and doves cooing outside! No blinds in bathroom leaving you exposed to many neighbors eyes. Had to use a bathrobe to cover window. Shower pressure is weak and temperature varies A LOT during the shower. Also, no shelf in the shower to put soap or shampoo. Have to shower with door open and use the toilet as a shelf. Minibar temperature is set to room temperature. The safe wasn't closing once the code was entered at first. We mentioned it and it was fixed within minutes. The room feels pretty runned- down. There's a random hole in the wall. Pretty strong moth ball smell in the room and sheets small of bleach.||Breakfast: |Included in the price of our stay. Included bacon (rare in KTM) and customized eggs, Limited but decent selection. Nice rooftop setup / everything that was supposed to be warm was cold. Tables were all quite dirty. |||Service: |Friendly staff who attend well to the guests needs, responsive and adaptable. Room cleaning is very well done. / We picked this hotel for their advertised laundry service on site (a rare find in KTM as mentioned by hotels.com) but they have the same itemized laundry service as every other hotel (expensive). We managed to bring our laundry down the street (200m away) for a 100 NRP/kg) which did an ok job. The airport transfer they offer is expensive compared to the pre-paid taxis, being a little over 1.5x the cost to and from the airport. When I mentioned this, they were nice enough to offer us a discounted rate, still more than the taxi but ok. ||The manager: |Nice, friendly, smiley and serviceable / after offering us a discounted rate for an airport transfer mentioned above, he asked us to give them a nice review with a 10-on-10 score before we leave. I'm not a fan of this and this might be the source for their high ratings, but they were probably bought. When the time came to bring us to the airport the next day, the manager was no longer there but the driver who was present at the moment of the arrangement decided that that there was too much traffic and that they would book us an alternative taxi. I told him that we had an arrangement but he didn't seem to understand (maybe a language barrier or pretending that the was one). The then acting manager, Adjit asked us what was wrong and I explained to him that they should honor their commitment. He then tried to the driver which then told another employee to drive us. Adjit asked for a good review at this point.||Property|Equipped with a generator for frequent power outages. Internet is good (except on the roof top) and fast /. Seems like when power shortage happens, certain breakers pop, leaving you unable to charge devices in the room. When mentioned, they come back to life a little after but this happened only 1x out of about 5-6 outages in 2 days. A bit overpriced when compared to a nicer hotel we stayed at a week ago...

f you're coming to Kathmandu come to stay at Himalayan Ghar. The place, location, and team are just incredible and made our stay. Starting with the place. The photos dont do the size of the place justice. Two of us stayed here for four weeks, and we live in Airbnbs basically full time, and the size of apartment was wonderful. The furnishings were of a really high quality and there are loads of little details that really transcended this from a rental apartment to something that feels more like a home. The beds are so comfortable, sofas too, and to have a proper desk and chair was brilliant. Particularly for when I needed to do some work it was a welcome addition vs a dining room table and chair listed as a 'workplace'. This totally ignores the briliant rooftop terrance. Covid meant the cafe wasn't open but that just meant it was brilliant, quiet place to relax and just over the city and the hills and mountains. Plus as a birdwatcher some fantastic spotting to be had. The location is wonderful. You're tucked down a little access road so that means no traffic going past or wider noise. But you're only 400m from Northern Thamel, if that. You've got a great little shop just across the road for any essentials (80m), a brilliant coffee bar in Coffee Ghar just on the doorstep, have the lemon drizzle cake (130m), wonderful restaurants on the doorsteps - have the croissant with egg and bacon at Himalayan Arabica Beans (200m). Plus laundry services across the road for 100 rupees per kg for next day pick-up. Then you're only a few minutes from the main streets of Thamel and we used a great gym at Thamel Physical Fitness - just shy 10 mins walk and like 3,000 rupees for the month. Finally the staff. Bijay and the team made our stay. Nothing was too much to ask for and they offered cleaning of the room every couple of days as we were a long stay which was so kind. We felt welcome from day one, helped by the complimentary airport pick-up and they even put us on the top floor for the views which they didnt have to do at all. Such was their kindess I forgot something in the room while we where checking in for our flight to leave Nepal and Bijay drove like half an hour to the airport from their home to bring it to us. Plus they helped us organise excursions and got us a big discounts vs quoted prices at agents. We've spent eight months on the road so far in two continents in over 10 properties. I can not say enough that Himalayan Ghar, even ignoring the wonderful price, was just the best of the bunch. Book it before someones...