Silver Sand House Chiang Mai 

Rooms: Suite extremely spacious, all new high quality decor and furnishings. Comfortable king size bed. Our suite had two bedrooms (single bed in other) and was 1200 b/night. Kitchen sink with cold water tap. Medium sized refrigerator with freezer compartment. No microwave or toaster, dishes or flatware like spoons and forks. Large screen TV with non-Thai programming (English, Chinese, Japanese). Spacious veranda. Bathroom has separate shower stall and bathtub. Toilet has wand on wall for bidet function. Running water for tub is not very hot. Decent shower pressure and temperature. Bathroom sink has cold water tap. Small bars of soap and packets of shampoo, shower cap provided. Adequate space for toiletries. You can hear stray dogs barking but no sounds of traffic despite being a short distance away from a major throughfare and intersection. Nice views from upper floors. Area: mixed zoning, hotel is surrounded by mishmash of open lots with jungle growth, building material dump and stray dogs, some expensive looking residences, some commercial buildings (frozen food store both retail and wholesale), one building under construction. Access road is rundown, paved but has pockets of water and gravel. Street in front of hotel flooded after a heavy rain, about 4 inches? Drained after a few hours. Convenience: Access to city center: If you want to hail a cab instead of phoning one to come to the hotel, you should make your way to the 8 lane highway from the hotel. Once you get to the highway, the direction of the city center is behind and to your right. Since Thai vehicular traffic travels on the left as in the UK and Japan, it is best to turn right to walk against highway traffic, continue straight to cross intersecting road at traffic light, then make a right onto the intersecting road and hail a fixed route cab (green) along this road that will terminate at Wararot Market in about 5 minutes, cost 10 bahts. (Coming back, if you get off the fixed route taxi before it turns onto the 8 lane highway, the cost is 10 bahts, but 15 if you dismount closer to the hotel.) The sidewalk is overgrown with grass, the bricks are uneven, and the height of the sidewalk is 8 inches, so pushing a stroller is difficult on the sidewalk. Since the lane closest to the sidewalk has the occasional car parked on it, you can walk on that lane instead, but at higher risk of being hit by traffic. Getting groceries: Across the 8 lane highway is the giant Central Festival shopping mall where there are food courts, restaurants, the Central Department store, international brand clothing stores (Marks and Spencer, Uniqlo, H&M), and fast food chains (KFC, Coldstone Creamery, Dairy Queen, etc). There's a supermarket on the ground floor where you can get American and European foods like granola bars, breakfast cereal, refrigerated meats and fish, dish soap, diapers, etc. There's also a year round ice skating rink in the mall. Even though it's across the highway from the hotel and close as the crow flies, you have to go to the light to cross because there's no footpath that crosses the highway. No food service on site. Twenty minutes by car from the airport. A/C: One in every room. Efficient and quiet. wifi: password is room number dependent. Make sure to tell them how many people (devices) need to connect. One of the reviewers complained that the password was changed every day. We were there a week and the password stayed the same. safety: Halls are open air with regular stairs at either end of building, so it's comforting if you're worried about fire escape. No gas cooking utensils allowed in building, although there may be residents using them against the rules. Deadbolt. No chains. Card key entry. One card must be in slot to keep overhead lights on. No mosquitos on upper floors. disability access: elevator has space for one small wheelchair. Ramp for wheelchair or stroller from street to lobby level is narrow and steep, just some concrete mounded at the edge of the stairs. Bathroom floor is glassy and very slippery when wet. No grab bars on walls or side of tub. Two steps down to bathroom floor (step down to bathroom floor is standard for Thai hotels, it seems). May be problem for wheelchair users. cleanliness: beds made every few days. a bottle of drinking water/person provided every day. staff responsiveness: Our A/C unit water pipe had a clog, and we had a small leak from the A/C. They came and fixed it at 10 AM after we reported it at 8:30. We returned to our room later in the day and the A/C was dripping water. They came and fixed the problem within 15 minutes, cleaned up the water on the floor, and replaced the floor mat nearby with a dry one. English ability not great, but communication not impossible either. No staff is on site overnight, you have to phone them in case of overnight emergencies. In summary, we were very comfortable and I would recommend this hotel if you are comfortable with your language skills to catch a cab into the city center and back and don't mind walking to Central Festival to get breakfast foods and having meals out.