Price: $12 per night (or $6 per bed) plus $.75 for wood to heat water for hot showers, included a private bath and breakfast. Pyin oo Lyin was once a British hill station where many of the English built grand houses that are now operated as guesthouses, oftentimes by the government. On the evening that we stayed here, we had the entire mansion to ourselves. According to the guest registry, only two other parties had stayed here in the last two weeks.

Price: $30 per night, included a private bath and breakfast. This hotel was made famous by Paul Theroux who once stayed here and wrote about it in The Great Railway Bazaar. The grandiose old place made almost entirely of teak wood, was worth the splurge for one night but we were a bit too disappointed in the lonely government-run atmosphere (and lousy breakfast) to justify spending more than one night here.