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Luang Prabang International Airport

Sayo River

Luang Prabang

It’s a lovely building, my superior room upstairs was good value for money and I was able to relax on the balcony overlooking (through palm trees) the river. 
But....the staff were not particularly friendly, the main guy especially so.  In fact, I’d label him as rude and disinterested.  It did tarnish what could have been a very restful stay.

Lovely but....

The day before we arrived we received a confirmation from the owner for "2 upstairs superior double room at Sayo River" that we had previously booked.  To our surprise and disappointment, the hotel taxi dropped us at the Sayo Naga saying our River rooms were not available and he was told to take us to the Naga. 

The owner was quick to reply when we did a booking inquiry and made a reservation but we received no reply when we asked for an explanation of why our booking was changed without our knowledge. No explanation, no apology.  

The taxi driver and Naga staff were very friendly and helpful and tried to resolve the problem with the owner.

Beware - unannounced reservation change.

This guesthouse is great, I opted for the one with free breakfast and everytime I walk around Luang Prabang to Mt Phousi, old quarter, wats and just relax by the river.  I could always come back for free coffee which saves me a lot of money instead of drinking coffee and buying breakfast elsewhere!  At 5:15am I just walk on the small alley and it takes me directly to Sakalline Road where the morning ceremony for alms-giving takes place.  After the main road I walk back the same alley and there's a small road where the monks pass by and old ladies giving more alms.  This guesthouse albeit in front of Mekong river rocks and remains peaceful during night!

Close proximity to alms giving ceremony

Great location and a great view, IF you have an upstairs room. Be aware that all rooms upstairs are not created equal and there is a wild variance in size and decor. It's clean and serviceable, but the pricing seems to be whimsical. Will I go back, sure, but I will book online.

Great view, but....

Clean,  large room.  Plenty of hot water and strong shower.  Cleaned daily including fresh towels.  Water available,  just ask.  Included breakfast simple but good.  Reception Staff helpful and friendly.  I was here for 14 days and no complaints.

Good value accommodation. 

In the interests of fairness I will caveat this review by saying that Sayo River is in a fairly good location, the room we stayed in was a good size and the breakfast included in the rate was fine. It is expensive for what you get and there were some niggles- our room was not cleaned in the 3 days we were there, hot water ran out quickly, there were holes in the mosquito nets and the bedding had some stains. We also weren't given the promised two bottles of water each day.

However I can't rate this guest house any higher than 2 stars due to the dishonest and unprofessional staff. We were persuaded to book a trip to Kuang Si waterfalls through Sayo (they were very persistent) and when we told them we wanted to spend all day there and would find a driver willing to do so we were told this wouldn't be a problem- we were also told booking independently can be a problem as drivers typically only want to stay there for 2 hours. The price was 20,000 kip for a whole day. Needless to say as soon as we arrived at Kuang Si our tuk tuk driver insisted we could only stay for 2 hours and we spent a considerable time arguing with him before he begrudgingly agreed to let us stay for 4 hours- not the whole day we had been promised. It was clear the driver was only concerned in getting more passengers for later in the day. This ruined our trip as we were so anxious about getting back on time and felt very rushed.

We were extremely disappointed and spoke to Sayo when we returned at 2pm and instead of apologising, the staff member who booked our driver made out that we were in the wrong and that we had had a whole day out! We were extremely disappointed that Sayo had not delivered what was promised and that they then went on to deny our earlier conversation.

In short, I would not recommend this guest house based on the attitude of the staff and cleaning issues in the room.

Sayo River

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