Giri Guest House — Hotel in Pokhara

Despite we can´t give an opinion of the rooms, the treatment given by their staff, owner of the hotel as well, at their travel agency is deserving this detailed opinion.||We booked with them a van to drop us at a location to start the Poon Hill trek and be picked up few days later at another location. When we realized we weren’t coming back at the end to the original location we called them and pointed to them extremely detailed (to avoid misunderstandings) that we were changing the discussed location (just 30 min distance from the original one). ||Apparently there wasn’t´any problem, but we called them again to reconfirm the morning of the pick up date. Again no problem and they even gave us the drivers phone number. ||(we are 100% sure they understood our message)||But when we arrived to the location and call them again started the ¨show. ||In really bad matters (to try to intimidate us in a last minute position we suppose) the owner and his brother started saying that the driver was waiting for us at the other position and we had to pay them 1500 Npr more, to what we replied that we gave enough money in advance, due an advance payment to go to Kathmandu with them afterwards, to cover this 2 first rides taking in consideration this extra and we could short out this amount when we´ll complete the whole payment to Kathmandu the following day.||But they didn’t accepted that, they were demanding that we should pay the driver directly or if not they will not pick us up.||After a long discussion we accepted and along the waiting different drivers call us, then is when we realized fully that what they were doing is looking for a driver at that point, there wasn’t any driver sent from them from Pokhara, they were just looking for any driver by the area to do a job that they supposed to have organized to not make us waste our time this way. And of course, the reason why they were so insistent in us paying 1500 Npr to the driver is to cover the price for the whole ride to our final destination, this way they could keep the full amount given to them.||We decided after a while to hop into a local bus and do it by our self. ||A good example of bad service and matters to try to rip us off. We were expecting to pay due the change of location but the way to do it and violent matter of the staff was out of proportion. Be aware of this...

I stayed with a group of friends at Giri Guesthouse. Its a great guesthouse, rooms and sheets are clean and if you are lucky and get one of the rooms on the end you will have a beautiful view of the Annapurna mountains! Some rooms have couches and chairs for relaxing, as well there is a lovely garden downstairs to enjoy. The room rate was very reasonable for such an unbeatable location and kind staff. It felt like home after coming back so many times on our trip. ||There is a laundry service 10 metres from the guesthouse, with the lakeside restaurants and walkway super close 1 minute walk as well. ||||By far the best thing about staying at Giri is that Khim and his staff are excellent at booking trekking, transport, providing advice on where to stay elsewhere in Nepal. A true one stop shop! Ask Khim the best place in Pokhara for authentic dhal bhat and he will be able to draw you a little map. We also enjoyed a fabulous trek to Panchase on Khims recommendation, staying at Happy Heart Hotel (definitely do this if you have time). ||||Visited a gem of a guesthouse in Sarangkot for beautiful views (called Bhangjhang village) away from the crowds at the viewpoint (again Khims recommendation). We also arranged a great trekking guide Dhir and porter Him for our trip to Annapurna Base Camp through Giri Guesthouse, as well as a jeep to transport us to all these places. ||||Khim also has a friend Bhim who owns a bus company which was excellent for going backwards and forwards to Kathmandu, as well as others to go to Chitwan National Park etc. Khim and Giri Guesthouse made our trip to Nepal extra special - we are dying...

Don't ever stay in this guest house. They provide extremely poor survice. I'm staying here right now with my family, they don't have water heater (they will claim they have hot water but) once you stay here you are forced to shower with cold water, your whole body will freeze that kinda cold. They don't have room heater. They will charge you more money compared to outside for a cup of tea and they will not give you on your time, they will give you when they will feel like it, definitely not in the early morning(if you have some pokhra tour plan) you will receive your bed tea at 9am, when they are well rested then the morning starts here. even after reading this if you wanna stay here, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in some restaurant not in this guest house, there food is garbage and once they serve you the food forget that they will ask if you wanna something else and they will charge you more then 3/4 star restaurant for it. Best of luck if you wanna stay here hope...