With Monday the 20th declared a special holiday so Thais could vote on the new constitution, I decided to escape to Chiang Mai for a long weekend to check on some things for an up-coming addition to AsiaForVisitors.com. More on that later, but for the purposes of this trip, the Buri Gallery House seemed like a good location to base myself.

The Buri Gallery House is a small (21 room) hotel built into a large old (50 years) wooden house. Carving even a large house into 21 rooms has resulted in something of a rabbit warren that may be confusing to guests without a good sense of direction, and even my deluxe room was not that big. The room had ‘wood’ floors and walls, and a woven bamboo ceiling. All very authentic looking, but I put ‘wood’ in quotes because I think the floor was actually a plastic laminate. The thin floors and walls means that you can also hear a lot more of what goes on in the hallway or the next room than you would expect in a hotel.

All the wood doesn’t help light up the room either, especially since the only windows are two small frosted panes set in the door to the balcony. The small balcony faces directly into the wall of an apartment building, so even if it were cooler outside, opening the doors was not a very appealing thought.

On the plus side, the room did have a large television with a DVD player, and an internet connected PC free to use. The downside on the TV was that only a couple of the 30-plus channels were in English.

The bathroom was roomy enough, although the ceiling was low enough for me to have to watch my head. There was only a shower provided, with no tub. In addition, the shower had a manually operated water heater, the kind common enough in Thai homes but westerners may not know how to work it.

I suspect that the Buri Gallery House might appeal to ‘flashpackers’ - those people who used to backpack in their younger days but are now older and established enough to want a bit more from their accommodations. The location, just outside Wat Phra Singh in the old city, is not bad, although well away from the center of things - except on Sundays, when the walking street market is right outside the front door.