Sathu Hotel

The worst experience I had in Thailand during my whole trip. To start, when I first came to the hotel to ask for rooms, they told me that they only had the luxury room available for two nights and that the Superior room was unavailable. When I asked to see the room, the person at the counter said it wasn't ready yet. He asked for 2,500 baht for the room, and within 3 minutes of paying, he said the room was ready. When I asked how it was suddenly ready, he said it was "special for you." When I got into the room, I was shocked. The room was barely 10 square meters and looked terrible. It was so small that the sink was actually in the room, not in the shower room, which was made out of plastic walls. Unfortunately, I needed to extend my stay for another night because my flight was delayed, and I had no power to move elsewhere. FYI, for that price you would normally get a large room in a good hotel. The room was in such bad condition that you wouldn't want to stay there. Before I left, I asked him to order me a cab, and he said that because it was early morning, the charge would be 300 baht. This seemed fishy, so when I woke up, I checked the Grab app and saw options ranging from 80 to 160 baht, including regular taxis. When I asked him why he said it was 300 baht, he replied that he had ordered it, and avoided answering to the point. It became clear that he wanted to collect a cut from the cash he asked me to pay the taxi, something he double-checked I would do. I confronted him, asking why he falsely wanted to overcharged me. He repeated the same ******* answer as when I first checked in and asked how the room was suddenly ready. Seeing my anger, he canceled the taxi. I ordered a Grab taxi for 160 baht (which would have been 85 baht during the day). Don't stay there !

Sathu Hotel is a lovely boutique hotel that is quiet, peaceful and is ideally placed in the Chiang Mai gate area. There are plenty of bars and restaurants about and the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar is just a 20 min walk away. The staff are great and the hotel is well run and always seems immaculate. The hotel offers a great and reasonably priced laundry service. (I dropped my laundry off in the morning and it came back in the afternoon.) The hotel has details of many activities that are available but the one thing I wanted to do was go to a Thai cooking class to learn to cook Khao Soi ( a famous Chiang Mai curried noodle dish). I was given information about two recommended schools and having reviewed their brochures I picked one. The hotel immediately checked availability for my selected date and booked the course for me.

Helpful and friendly staff. Well equipped rooms even though they are small. Nice decor. Excellent breakfast although more coffee would be nice. Similar to most of Thailand, there are a lot of hidden half steps to trip on. Usually in the bathroom. I saw many guests trip on the poolside steps.