This guesthouse is located on the south end of town.
The place is of wood construction on an embankment, so there are three levels to the facility with rooms stuffed into it in varied arrangements.
We got a room with a great view of the Mekong River. There was the room proper, an attached bathroom with shower stall and Western toilet, and a large balcony with the view. The wall between the room and the balcony was really a large folding door thing, which allowed everything to open up into one big space. The place was generally clean, although it wasn’t top end construction, and the size of the room plus the height of the ceiling (I figure seven and a half feet) made the room seem like a box when you closed things up for the night.
So, it was a mixed bag…but for 350 baht a night with good wi-fi connections, it seemed like a good place to spend three full days writing and processing photos before heading into Laos. I could see myself sitting on the balcony, watching the Mekong, drinking endless beers, and writing the travelogue of the century; while Jen lounged on the lounge chair and did that photo processing thing…in her skimpies, of course.
This fantasy was made possible by the quiet we first experienced at the hotel. It looked like we were the only guests.
Nice…
But the fantasy was shattered that night when other folks showed up to eat in the restaurant on the upper floor, and we could hear everything…and I mean everything. It was like living under a dance floor during a dance marathon. Sound carried like crazy. Even after the restaurant closed down, we could hear noise carry from other rooms throughout the night. We barely got any sleep, and that was only by drowning out the noise by playing rerun movies on the computer.
Look…the lady who runs this place is very nice. She speaks a fair amount of English, which is helpful. She even let’s you use her bicycles. So, if you are the only guest at the hotel, it’s probably a great deal. But, otherwise, it fails to meet one of my basic criteria: that it’s quiet enough to get a decent night’s sleep.
I wanted to like the Baanrimtaling Hotel, but wouldn’t stay there again, and can’t recommend it.