Hotel Asia Khiva

This hotel is ill-equipped for international tourists. The pluses: It has an excellent location and a good breakfast. The negatives: Hotel personnel at the front desk do not speak English. The room had a kettle, but no tea or coffee and nowhere nearby to plug it in. The room was small, with little space to open suitcases.

Located across the road from one of the town gates, this hotel was well located. There are several different blocks of rooms, and registration is done at each individual block. If it is raining, you would get quite wet going from the main building where your transport drops you off to your room in one of the other blocks. None of the doors into/out of the blocks had ramps for moving suitcases, which was not ideal. And no handrails on the steps at the entrances either. The gardens are a delight and make the walk to your room very pleasant (if it isn't raining), and the pool area looks very nice, although too cold for us to have a dip. The room was comfortable enough, and with temps dropping to zero overnight for us, warm enough. The bathroom was adequate, although there wasn't enough towel rails or shelf space for toiletry bags. The shower was over the bath and there was no grab rail to aid in getting in and out. Quite dangerous, I think. Breakfast was a bit of a bun fight, with tables not cleared quickly enough, food not topped up regularly, one small toaster for the whole room, and a warren of rooms with tables and chairs to use. We were at the hotel as part of a tour. If I was to visit Khiva again indepently, I would try a different hotel.

There was a lot about this hotel which was excellent. The bed was comfortable, the grounds beautiful, the pool area first class and the poolside food generous in portion size and very reasonable in price. I’m sure you will have gathered there was a ‘but’. But the loo in our bathroom was simply glued to the floor, or rather it had been. The first time I used it the entire thing tipped, alarmingly, sideways. A maintenance man came to fix it and simply re-glued it, that lasted until my wife used it! The holes in the base, where the fixing screws go, where simply smashed so unrepairable, they really need to fit a new bowl before someone falls over and gets their own back!