Thapae Boutique House

During our stay, we moved hotels, just to try something new, and found ourselves at the Thapae Boutique House.  

This is an older establishment, with a fantastically friendly staff, three extremely cute and friendly cats, and a pleasant semi-outdoor dining area.   

Breakfast was part of the deal here, comprising toast, eggs, fruit, coffee and juice.  We enjoyed our breakfasts  here.

However, we were on the ground floor of the building, the first floor of which appeared to be inhabited by a herd of elephants.  We didn't actually see the herd in question, but the frequent stomping overhead (and especially when people walked up the stairs) pointed either to the herd of elephants, or to extremely poor sound-proofing, or both. 

The bed in our room was very large - perhaps a super-king size bed and looked inviting - but it was actually as hard as granite (perhaps the elephants had been stomping on it?).

To be fair, we did try to arrange another room, and the staff were apologetic and tried to be helpful.  However. the hotel was fully booked and no other rooms were available.  Overall, we gave Thapae Boutique House a score of 5/10.

At the time of our visit in February 2015, there was also a building site next door, and a lot of noise from associated construction.

Mrs Herbivore personally choose this hotel because she read some review on tripadvisor that talk about the cat here. 

She was curious about the cats' story, and the lady that worked in reception told her that the hotel management adopted the cats when they were kittens.  They were sick and had been dumped at the elephant shelter.

Now the three "mouseketeers" look happy and healthy with a lot of love and attention around, especially from Mrs Herbivore.

So, the verdict: did we prefer a comfortable bed and stringent rules of Lamphu House or the friendly staff and the cats of Thapae?  They were different experiences - but broadly in the same price range.  On balance, Mr Herbivore would go for Lamphu House and the swimming pool, while Mrs Herbivore would go for Thapae Boutique House, if they changed the hard bed :)

Lamphu House Chiang Mai Review

During our visit to Chiang Mai, we stayed at the Lamphu House, near to the Wat Chedi Luang, the Sunday Street Market, and the Thais That Bind restaurant. We chose to stay here because Mrs Herbivore had stayed at the Lamphu House in Bangkok on another trip. 

The hotel was clean, relatively new, and pretty basic, but we thought it was good value.  What we liked: the pool (although the water was a bit chilly after the sun had left the pool area), our sunny balcony, the comfortable bed and the great location - walking distance toWat Chedi Luang and an easy stroll to Thapae Gate.

We were also interested to meet the two extremely cute dogs who lived across the road and who greeted us with wagging tails every morning,

If you like the quiet part of Chiang Mai and walking distance around the temple, we recomend staying around the old city. 

What we didn't like: well, the staff didn't seem overly friendly, the hotel linen was on the well-used and threadbare side, and there was a long list of rules (mainly about how we couldn't leave marks on the sheets).  

We also thought it was a bit odd that we had to pay a cash deposit to get the key to our room - but the pros outweighed the cons, and we would absolutely stay here again.  

Room advice : Choose the room with pool view in the 2nd floor or 3rd floor. Our score: 8/10.