CHIANG MAIHey everybody, sorry it’s been a while, things got busy here-but I don’t want to leave this as one of DDF’s unfinished TR’s (AHEM, Rots5!!!!!!
) ….. So, Thursday 4:30 PM found us landing in Chiang Mai airport. We did not have to go through customs as we were coming from Phuket and quickly found our bags and headed out the main exit to catch a taxi to the Le Meridien Chiang Mai. We went to the metered taxi desk and requested a big car so that we would not have to squish and prepaid the heavy price of 200 THB ($6 US) to get to the hotel (about a 20 min drive from the airport) (btw, small cars cost only 150 THB to the LM CM).
Sign in Our taxi (we had already booked with Israel 999 tours though)
Now, I know everyone on the forums says to book the Le Meridien with platinum status for 3300 points per night and then get an upgrade to a suite-but I could not arrange that in time and I only have gold status so I instead booked the suite over the phone using full points at 6,000 SPG points a night (online they only show points options for standard and deluxe rooms-but on the phone you can get points options for the suites as well) which is really a joke for a suite that is the size of a small apartment. After checking in and being shown to our room we requested our crib for the baby from the front desk. It was already about 6:00 PM and we were pretty hungry, but we like making sure the room is all set up for the baby right when we get back before going out so that we can just put him straight in to sleep when getting back later. Usually this takes about 3 minutes-but here we were in for a surprise!! After waiting about a half hour I called the front desk again to ask what was going on with the crib and why it was taking so long, the front desk agent told me that housekeeping was on the way as we speak to bring the crib. Two minutes later there was a knock on the door, I open it and in walks a housekeeping fellow with no crib in sight. He proceeds to walk over to the couch in the bedroom and removes one of the cushions and to our amazement/horror he puts it down on the floor in the living room, covers it with a sheet and tells us that the crib is ready!!!
We did not know whether to laugh or cry?!? This was a first!!!And to say the least we were not very pleased with this arrangement of a crib for our 2 year old who will not go to sleep unless he is deep within the confines of a real crib- if not –he would just dance around the room all night long ( and Benadryl wont help him either-see above!!).
So I call down to the front desk and the agent informs me that the hotel is out of cribs at the moment so this would have to do. I told him that that was a ridiculous suggestion of a crib for a 2 year old and requested to speak with a manager. He informed that the general manager was away on business (do general managers really exist or are they always really out on business?!?!?! Anyway…) and he was the front desk manager and was in charge at the moment. I told him that if we did not receive a normal crib within the next half hour –we were going to check out and head over to the Shangri La. He tells me that within the half hour he will figure something out. Around a half hour later he himself comes knocking on our door together with the housekeeping guy again and tells me how he is really sorry but the hotel is really busy now and they only have 5 cribs in the hotel and that we were first in line to get one tomorrow when someone checks out with one-but for tonight he will have to sleep on the couch cushion. We were totally horrified-I then opened an email correspondence that I had on my phone with someone from the hotel which clearly stated that they confirmed a crib for us in the room and that it is really bad customer service to confirm something like that and then not to have it available for the guest when they arrive. I also asked him what kind of hotel which has a few hundred rooms only keeps 5 cribs in stock. He said that Chiang Mai is not really a child popular destination and that the hotel has a few more cribs on order but they have not yet arrived. In any event I told him that there was no way my kid would sleep on that so if he could not work something out than I would check out and go to the Shangri La (and tell all our friends about this too ). He asked for a few more minutes to work things out. We reluctantly agreed as at this time it was already about 830 PM.
After waiting another 20 minutes we were really losing it from frustration, wasting time, and being really hungry!! So we went down to the front desk and asked the manager again what was the story and he told us he called all the other hotels in Chiang Mai to borrow a crib but they also had none available. At this point I was ready to leave the hotel and stay elsewhere but my wife was really not in the mood for that so I made one phone call to the Chabad Shliach there-Rabbi Pikel (who is an absolute gem!!!!) and asked him if there might be some crib hanging around the Chabad house that we could borrow and he said that indeed there was. I gave all the info to the manager and told him that a hotel employee needed to take care of picking it up and delivering it to our room and setting it up-He reluctantly agreed and we exchanged numbers in case there was any issue.
Finally at about 9:15PM we left the hotel to walk to the Chabad house to eat a long awaited supper. The Chabad house id a good 10 minute walk from the Le Meriden but with a stroller in the Chiang Mai streets (especially around the night bazaar) it took almost 20 minutes. Your first walk anywhere in Chiang Mai always takes extra time until you figure out that there are no traffic lights for pedestrians- you just run across the street whenever you feel like it and pray that you make it to the other side in one piece-with a stroller this took a lot longer and there was a lot more praying involved. On the way we stopped at the office for Israel tours to pay for our driver for the next day that I had prebooked over the before we got there. The prebooking was really not necessary but it gave me piece of mind to know it was all worked out before we got there. The price of a driver for the next day to take us to all the attractions was 1000 THB ($30 US) and while I was about to start bargaining for the price I realized that I was trying to bargain to save $3-$5 off a guy who is Jewish and decided that at that moment going next door to get supper was WAY more important!! So we went next door to Chabad and ordered Szechuan chicken with rice and a burger. The food came out quickly and really hit the spot.
Szechuan Chicken
Burger with Vegetables side dish
During our supper, my phone rang and it was the manager of the LM on the line and he told me he has good news-he got through to one hotel in Chiang Mai that had a crib for us to borrow for the duration of our stay and we should tell our friend that we would not need his. The rest of dinner tasted even better!!
After supper we walked to the night Bazaar, which is located literally outside the door of the Le Meridien, and enjoyed walking around there for about two hours and had lots of fun with the calculator game and trying to get stuff literally for free!! The Night Bazaar is really very big and has TONS of things to bargain for –some useful and some junk- the best part is bargaining with the vendors in Hebrew as there are so many Israelis that visit there, lots of the vendors speak fluent Hebrew!!!!
The night Bazaar
The Vendor in the Night Bazaar that we bargained with for 5 minutes in fluent Hebrew!!!!
Finally, after a long day we retired back to our suite in the Le Meridien for the night. The Le Meridien is a beautiful 5 star hotel (hard to believe it exists when you look out the window of your room knowing that there is barley running water and normal toilets across the street. The rooms is massive and there is another huge living area completely separated by sliding doors from the bedroom and then there is another area that has a huge walk-in closet, a bathroom, shower, sink area (all in separate rooms), and a massive tub (it with windows overlooking Chiang Mai city). The rooms was really clean and aside from our little incident in the beginning, service was great and we really enjoyed our stay here.
Hotel Exterior
Living Area
View from the room
Bedroom area
Oversized Tub
Looking into bathrrom, shower, closet, sink, jacuzzi area
Chiang Mai-Day 2-4-coming soon......
