Orchids Guest House

The location is great, about a five-minute walk from the center and Clock Tower, with plenty of restaurants and coffee shops nearby. The rooms are comfortable, with a fan and AC, windows that open for fresh air, mosquito nets, and beds that aren’t as hard as many Thai mattresses. I liked the pillows too. The bathroom is dated and has nowhere to put toiletries, but it was clean. There are no fridges or coffee in the rooms, though you can get those from reception, along with free bananas. You can choose to have the room cleaned daily or not. Wi-Fi worked pretty well while I was working, with some lag at times. The real problem was the noise. We stayed four nights and got woken up every night between 2 and 4am by loud Thai voices. I couldn’t tell whether it was staff or neighbours, but it happened each night. Staff were also talking loudly in a ground-floor room until 3-4am. The reception is right beside the guest rooms, so you hear every conversation as people come and go. Scooters park by the room doors and make a lot of noise when they leave, with a terrible echo between the rooms. It’s loud early in the morning and late in the evening, even though the rest of the day is fairly quiet. If you sleep early or like to sleep in, this place won’t work for you. The ground-floor rooms are only about 3 meters apart, so there’s no real privacy. It has a bit of a hostel feel.