ACCOMMODATION

When it comes to choosing accommodation, we tried to bear in mind its impact on the environment and the local community. We tried to avoid accommodation that used vast amount of resources like water and energy. For example, avoiding big complexes with water features and big gardens in areas where water is scarce or hotels using lots of energy, for example through air-conditioned lobbies and rooms, even more so in areas where electricity is rare - which could often mean this would all be powered by huge noisy and polluting generators during power cuts.
We tried also to consider the space the hotel was built on - bigger complexes and resorts begged the question 'what was the land before? A nice forest? Someone's field?' and we were rather concerned about the the impact they were having on the neighbourhood, the environment and other smaller, less energy-greedy hotels in the area.
As a general rule, we followed the following hierarchie of accommodation, from the lowest impact to the highest impact accommodation:

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Homestay (no additional land required) > Guesthouses (less land, often attached to existing houses) > small hotels and motels (purpose built) > resorts/complexes (heavy use of land and resources, oftendestroying the landscape too).

We also tried to look out for the following when choosing a room:
- choose fan instead of air-conditioning (fans consume 10 times less electricity than AC)
- choose a room with good ventilation, ideally facing north as it will be cooler
- avoid top floor rooms (they are warmer, lower floor are protected from the sun by the ones above)
- prefer natural lighting and cooling
- ask the owner if they have renewable energy sources.

We have a preference for guesthouses and homestays as they are much more friendly and you get to live with and meet local poeple, which is so nice! The houses are often designed with local materials and better suited to the climate too.