Stunning hotel design and amazingly friendly staff, definitely select a room on the lake if you can, the views are lovely during the day. There is an artificial island in front of the hotel that they light up in neon red at night - I found this an odd distraction to the otherwise very peaceful/natural scenery. On the surface, it is one of the least environmentally friendly hotels I've stayed at (e.g., all water is provided in small plastic bottles, there is not a convenient option to refill them; each time housekeeping comes through, which is multiple times a day, they turn on all of the lights in the room... and there are many). My original room had a very strong sewage odor problem and it took 3 days before they moved me to another room, which made enjoying the beautiful facilities difficult. Oddly, the restaurant on the lake is only open for dinner, when it is dark and you can't enjoy the view. Unsurprisingly, food prices were high for Myanmar (e.g., grilled cheese = $12, I think the buffet was $25; $4 was the most I paid for a meal elsewhere, including nice hotels). I booked 3 full day trips - all are transportation only (no guide), all lasted 5 hours at the most and it seemed like quite a bit more could have been added to get value from the itinerary and distances traveled (e.g., the trip to Kakku/Taunggyi drives thru Taunggyi...which adds 90mins to the trip...but didn't make any stops in the city, even though there are several sites of interest).
