New hotel in Techiman

Charles Addo, proprietor of the Addo Plaza Hotel in Techiman, writes:

I had three tourists/guests for an overnight stay at my hotel yesterday from Belgium. They just left to a nearby waterfall, and were so pleased with the standard and environment of the hotel that they strongly urged me to get in touch with you t let you know about it. Please find the link to my website here: http://www.addoplazahotel.getafricaonline.com/

 

Detailed accommodation and trip report

Thanks to Nitharshan Srikanthapalan for the wonderfully detailed report below:

Here’s some info from the trip I’ve just had in Ghana (1st – 27th March). Mainly involving prices although I think others have already provided a bit of an update on that front anyway…

FYI I rated each hotel out of 7 (likeart scale) so will provide those ratings as well:

1. Afrikiko’s (just outside Akosombo):
$75/85 single/dbl B&B
An adequate room, pool needed chlorine and lots of it – it was not at all clean. The setting was stunning and the food was very good.
Rating: 4

2. Bob Coffie (formerly Freedom Hotel in Ho):
70 cedis for a twin room (with huge beds) B&B
Room, pool and food all good. Setting was ok – it’s central, walkable from the market/lorry-park. We found the staff very friendly and with a sense of humour.
Rating: 6

If you’re staying elsewhere then using the pool at Bob Coffie is pretty pricey (compared to other hotels in Ghana) at a whopping 10 cedis.

We stopped in at Chances on the way – we found it lacking character and the staff seemed miserable and unhelpful. It had a corporate feel to it and we weren’t keen. It was 90 cedis for a twin.
Also, VIP hotel was nowhere near completion and looked like construction had stopped.

3. Tafi Atome Guest House
20 cedis per person (in a twin room) including breaksfast, dinner and the guided tour
No longer bucket showers – they have a poly-tank providing running (cold) water and flush toilets (although the flush wasn’t working so we had to throw buckets of water down them after, ahem, doing our business).
The room had a ceiling fan (that’s not mentioned in the guide).
Rating: 4 (although it was great value for money)

4. Wli Water Heights (near the falls):
45 cedis for a twin room with bathroom. (B&B)
35 cedis for a twin room with shared bathroom. (B&B)
Phone number had changed: 020 938 7176
Room was nice, there’s no pool, the setting was nice and the staff (particularly the owner) were very friendly. Food was outstanding.
Rating: 6

Big Food Safari Lodge has opened nearby. We didn’t get to see it but there are signs advertising it all over the place. The number is 020 788 2334. It’s worth noting that phone signal in the Wli area is pretty horrendous (I think there’s one network which had an ok signal there – which wasn’t MTN) so if you’re going to call them to book, do it in advance of leaving Hohoe.

5. Galaxy Lodge (in Hohoe):
50 cedis for a twin
The room had AC, a fridge and DSTV but we were disappointed with it:
bathroom door didn’t close, the towels were not what I’d call clean, neither were the sheets – one of which had holes and there was a dead cockroach under one of the beds. Breakfast was not included here but the quality of the breakfast that we ordered was reasonable.
We didn’t have dinner there.
Rating: 2

6. Tsarley Korpey (Ada Foah)
$180 for a family room (B&B)
$110 for a double room (B&B)
Everything about this hotel was excellent apart from the value for money (which was mediocre at best). Rating: 4

If, like us, you are two people who don’t fancy sharing a double bed for whatever reason then Ada Foah is a tricky place to be – we didn’t find anywhere with a twin room apart from Garden Club which we weren’t very impressed with.

For info in Ada Foah, Brightest Spot’s prices are now: 35 cedis for a single, 45 cedis for a double.

And there’s also a newish-looking place not mentioned in the book (it was called something like Emizile) which we liked the look of when we went in to have a look at the rooms and they are charging 60 cedis for a double room.

7. Mole National Park:
18 cedis for a dorm room
70 cedis for a dbl/twin room (plus 18 cedis if you want an extra mattress in there)
Dorm room was reasonable (space to sleep 8 on four bunks although they also threw an extra mattress in there), twin room was lovely.
Obviously the setting (looking over the watering hole) is excellent especially if, like us, you got to see eight elephants go in and have a nice long sit in the watering hole just after we got back from a walking safari where we’d got very close to the same aforementioned eight elephants.
Pool was very clean and good.
Value for money was good too given the location (and their monopoly on accomodation) although breakfast was not included.
Only down side was that the running water wasn’t working for one of our two days that we were there.
Rating: 5

8. Premier Palace (Techiman):
35 cedis for a single, 60 cedis for a double (B&B)
Rooms: good (although the single was a little odourous)
Setting is poor
Food was very good and we felt it was good value for money.
Rating: 7

9. Noks (Kumasi):
45/65/75 cedis single/dbl/exec. suite (B&B – sort of, see below!)
Rooms were good
Setting was reasonable (in a quiet suburb which appealed to us)
Food: Breakfast was good but slow. We didn’t eat dinner there
Value for money: Pretty decent but rather disappointingly they claimed that only one breakfast is included per room so if you’re two people sharing a double room and both of you want breakfast then one would have to pay. Bonkers.
Rating: 5

10: African Rainbow (Busua):
125/135/180/25 single/dbl/family/mattress (added to a room) (B&B)
Thinking back, I think these were the prices of the rooms with AC and they had some slightly cheaper rooms without. The AC is very unreliable because of the whole town’s electricity issues. The AC only works if there is no ‘light-off’ AND the backup generator is on (while neighbouring Busua Beach Resort don’t have that issue as they have more than one generator).
Room was good, setting was excellent (given the balcony that each room has and the excellent, breezy, roof-top bar). Food was superb and the value for money was reasonable (and would be good if the electricity wasn’t an issue). They also had free wifi available in the bar area.
Rating: 6

The prices at Busua Beach Resort next door were:
$175/185/50/25 single/dbl/budget/extra mattress.
A non-resident guest can pay 5 cedis to use the pool (hence our decision to stay at African Rainbow). 5 cedis to use the pool was a bargain.

11. Coconut Grove Bridge House (Elmina):
55/65/75 single/dbl/tpl (B&B)
Room was good and the setting is convenient in that it’s central but also you can smell the fish because you’re right next to the town. It’s busy and bustling which might be good or bad depending on your point of view. The food was very good – particularly their signature dish (which was very coconuty)
Value for Money was good bordering on excellent given the alternatives in the area and especially because use of the Coconut Grove Beach Resort facilities (e.g. the lovely, clean, big pool) is included.
Other info:
Elmina Bay Resort were charging: $135/195/15 for dbl/suite/mattress
Eshu in Cape Coast has closed.

Other info you might be interested in is that there was construction occurring at Step-in Gallery when I went there and was duly not open. It was not clear if this was temporary or not – I couldn’t close enough to nose inside and see if any art was displayed.

It’s worth noting that some of the big cities e.g. Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi etc have “Ford stations” where you can pick up what is essentially a comfortable, new version of a tro-tro for longish journeys in relative comfort (they have AC) and safety (although they also drive pretty fast). Price is slightly more than the same journey by tro-tro.

And finally, as a traveller, I felt it would have been useful to have more Forex Bureaus marked on your maps. For someone travelling cash (which is how you’ll get the best rate), these are the most economical places to get your cedis.

Christine’s updates

Hi, I am working as a volunteer near Ashanti Bekwai, and have a few updates for your book. I have found it very useful so far.
In Kumasi, Vic Baboo’s is a very popular place for foreigners to meet, but be ready for extremely slow service and higher prices than similar places in town. For a better meal and much friendlier service, try the Sanbra hotel.
The Bomfobiri Wildlife Sanctuary suffered a large fire some time ago. This means that you are highly unlikely to see any animals there – only burnt savannah.
If you visit the Boabeng monkey sanctuary (which is wonderful) to get back to Techiman flag any trotros that go past Boabeng. If they are going in the wrong direction you can reserve a seat when it comes back. This way they won’t pass you already full.
In Kumasi there is an excellent internet cafe next to the main post office. There are many computers and wireless options. The cost is 90p per 30 minutes.
In Ntonso, David runs a very interesting tour showing how Adinkra cloth is made, and also of his local community. He has a selection of cloth for sale and will also make cloth with your own designs. The tour in Adamwomase is also excellent for Kente cloth. In Bonwire you will be shown a loom and then ushered into a very dark shop.
In Ejisu I chartered a taxi to take me to the shrines. The one in Besease was very friendly indeed but the second one (Edenwease?) was very different. The lady wanted C30 to enter and was very unfriendly. At Besease I paid only C5. I was shown a shrine as part of the community tour from Adamwomase.
Christine

Techiman Premier Palace Hotel

Techiman Premier Palace Hotel is an ABSOLUTE NO GO. This is where we arrived, our three kids spent the night on the floor as the spare matress was taken, the key for the laundry room where the spare blankets were kept with someone who wasn’t around, no manager avail, the food was taking forever (at some point I took our son to see the cook just to find out that there was no kitchen at all!) and then the bill when we got it the next morning was totally inflated. The three students travelling with us had even worse issues with their bill on which most items were double the price.

Map corrections

P240 Shai Hills – the Main Gate is shown as slightly north of the road coming from Doryumu but is actually slightly to the south.

P340 Techiman – it is a bit confusing to show the hotel icon for Agyeiwaa Hotel next to the Total garage when the hotel is down a turning on the other side of the main road. If you move the icon next to the name of the hotel, it will be clearer.

P382 Navrongo – the road to the CEDEC Guesthouse & the church is shown on the wrong side of the main road. They are down a turning to the right (a tar road) when coming from town, not on the left as on the map.

Karen Parker

Eating Out in Techiman

Techiman-  Do NOT, do NOT, do NOT! go to “Boomers”. Overpriced (GhC6) for not very nice food and the waiter didn’t even tell us all of our options (they had menus, but only had a limited selection). The most continental dish they had was Spaghetti Bolognese — everything else was some form of Ghanaian dish, also GhC6 each.  You are much better off going to a chop bar or The Garden Bar at Agyeiwaa for continental meals which was much better, cooler, although it had slightly slow service.

-Krista & Rick S.

Kumasi & Techiman updates

In central Kumasi, Adum is intensely crowded during the day, but the streets are horribly quiet after dark: it seems that nobody lives there. I stayed for a week at the Sanbra Hotel (actually in Asomfo Road, just off Prempreh II) on your recommendation, and it was a good price for reasonably good facilities. For people who don’t insist on staying in the centre, the Nurom Hotel in Suame (not Nnrom as your guide has it) is cheaper and very good: it has recently been renovated, and looks very impressive now. It was GHS 20 for a single room when I stayed there recently (that’s without a/c, but they have rooms with a/c as well). Telephone 051 24000. Unfortunately the hat museum, which is mentioned in your guide, is closed at the moment while the top floor is renovated. The owner tells me that his father collected “approximately 3,864 hats”!

The restaurant at the Sanbra Hotel is pretty good, and has pizza and other “continental” dishes. It’s certainly better than Vic Baboo’s cafe, which I tried twice, but found horribly stuffy and hot (with air conditioners and fans going but only pointing at a couple of tables), a crowd of staff reluctant to leave the TV to talk to customers, and very mediocre food.

I found the internet connection at the UNIC internet cafe to be impossibly slow, but E.A. Ackram (about half-way down Prempreh II Avenue, on the western side of the road) was excellent.

The colony of fruitbats beside the zoo in Kumasi is quite impressive. There’s also a bat colony (which is perhaps even bigger) opposite 37 station in Accra.

In Techiman, the Premier Palace Hotel is indeed very comfortable: the most comfort I’ve had for 30 cedis, and with a pretty good restaurant. Yes, staff tend to be surly until you get to know them, but I’ve found that to be the same everywhere I’ve stayed in Ghana.

Your map of Techiman is misleading: Boomers Bar is right at the beginning of the Sunyani road, close to the roundabout, but Milly’s is a good 1 or 2 km down the road, well outside the town. The two hotels are a few hundred yards after Milly’s.

I’d recommend people to visit the Tano Sacred Grove. They haven’t been getting many visitors lately, but the guides are keen and give a good tour, and it’s a spectacular and peaceful place. However, the price is much higher than you mentioned: it was 6.50 cedis per person (for non-Ghanaians) when I visited in September. I think the price for students or volunteers was 5 cedis.

Tanoboase is only a few miles from Techiman so there’s really no need to stay there, and the guides at the Tano Sacred Grove project were surprised that I asked. Unfortunately the guesthouse attached to the project is closed at the moment. However, I did stay at Kristo Boase monastery nearby, as you recommended. The monks are very welcoming, and it’s a very relaxed, comfortable and peaceful place. They eat excellent (mostly vegetarian) food. As long as you can get used to eating in silence and sleeping without a fan, you can be very comfortable there. Apparently they do offer accommodation to women as well as men.

In Adanwomase, the tours are very good, as you say. The tour now coss 5 cedis for non-Ghanaian nationals – I think that the price for students and volunteers is 4.50. It would be helpful to point out that the trotro for Adanwomase goes from line G at Kejetia bus station: I spent some time in the station trying to find the right bus, because few people had heard of Adanwomase.

Info from Rob Fuller