Calm & Relaxing
The Khum Phaya Resort really is a lovely place to stay and instils a sense of calm while you're within it's grounds! It's a cool oasis within a hot city so it always felt great leaving down-town behind and heading back along the Super Highway to this tranquil hotel.
The rooms are lovely and well kept, reception staff very sweet and helpful, the breakfast is sufficient though not lavish.
The hotel offers a complimentary daily transportation service to various places around Chiang Mai such as the Sunday Walking Market and other downtown areas since the hotel location is quite far from everything. If you need to leave the hotel to explore the city you have 3 main options : 1-ask reception to call a cab which will cost about 200 BHT. 2 -Take a 10 minute walk to the mini mall where the Carrefour supermarket is to catch a tuktuk / taxi where the price can be negotiated or 3 - stick to the complimentary transportation timetable. We were there for 4 nights and used a combination of all options. The location is not a big issue as long as you are prepared for it. You cannot walk out of the hotel to take a stroll and expect to come across any eating or drinking spots nearby .....there are none!!
One day we opted to have lunch in the hotel restaurant and ordered a noodle dish with prawns. The dish was gorgeously presented though the 6 large prawns were uncooked. We ate the rest and obviously left the prawns or we would have been sick for days. When the plates were being cleared away I told the waiter to inform the chef that we were forced to leave the prawns because they were uncooked. Either due to the language barrier or lack of training to deal with a complaint, the waiter smiled, said "so sorry" and whisked the raw prawns away. There was no further address of the situation while we were still in the restaurant or any acknowledgement from management from the feedback form which I left with the reception about being presented with a plate full of raw seafood.