Thamada Hotel
5 Signal Pagoda Road,Yangon
Tel: (951) 243639-43 / Fax: (951) 245001 / info@thamadahotel.com

We stayed in the Thamada Hotel a total of 4 nights; 3 upon arrival into Myanmar and 1-night in order to make a flight connection at the end of our trip.  Thamada is a business class (or 2-star) hotel.  Considering the prices for hotels in Rangoon these days, it is a reasonable value for a location near the city center.  We didn’t make the walk but the hotel is described as being within walking distance of Bogyoke Market (aka Scott Market) and close by to the train station.

There is a small parking lot in front of the hotel with taxis waiting 24-hours a day.  The taxi fare for transfer to the airport was 8,000 Khat.

The staff was very friendly and reasonably helpful.

While the property is definitely in need of some maintenance, the bathrooms appeared to have been renovated and were reasonably clean.  The tub/shower was rather high from the floor and some care needed to be exercised when getting out of it onto a wet tile floor.  The beds were moderately hard but about what we expect in Southeast Asia hotels of this class.

The rooms were of decent size and included a small refrigerator.   Our view was a sea of metal roof tops in the neighborhood.  Some of the window glazing had cracked and popped loose and some of the windows didn’t make a tight seal when locked so there was some outside noise coming through. Since we were there during the rainy season, this also meant that even with A/C, it always felt a little damp in the room.

All electric connections in the rooms were “British” style.

At check-in, we were told there was a charge for in-room Wi-Fi but we were given a password and not charged for the service.  Internet speed was average for Myanmar (in other words; on the slow side) and only one device could be connected at a time with the password we were given.

There is also free Wi-Fi at the 365 Café, the hotel restaurant.  Having a 24-hour restaurant available in the building was a convenience.  You can read a more detailed review of the restaurant towards the bottom of our Yangon Restaurant page.

Our biggest complaint of The Thamada was the air conditioning.  The temperature control did not work in any of the rooms we had there.  The A/C was either off or on and when it was on, it was extremely COLD.  As soon as we checked in we went to the front desk and asked if someone could come to the room and show us how the temperature control worked but were told no one was available.  We asked if they could send maintenance to make sure it was working properly but were told there was no one who could do that either.  The front desk suggested they could provide us with additional blankets so that is how we dealt with the problem.

On both floors that we stayed on in our 2-visits, we noticed water dripping from the hallway ceiling.  Since it was raining, our first thought was that it was a roof leak but when we realized it only leaked in the hallway and not the rooms and coupled with the fact that we weren’t even on the top floor, we reasoned that air conditioning ductwork ran in the ceiling down the very cold hallway and there was such a difference in temperature (between the ice cold ductwork and the moist air) the dripping was in fact condensation.

Our stay at the Thamada was OK but I think we would probably give a different hotel a try on our next visit to Yangon.

photos provided by Thamada Hotel