We arrived in Bueng Kan on New Year’s Eve without a hotel reservation (stupid us), so had the pleasure of touring about 10 hotels & motels, and called about another 5 (those 5 were booked). Nearly all were of poor quality. Those that were acceptable in terms of cleanliness and quality, had hard beds. When we asked a few folks if they had any softer beds, a couple hotels suggested we go to The One. Similarly, my wife read a few Thai recommendation sites that all said The One was the best hotel in town. Unfortunately for us, The One was booked New Year’s Eve, though we had a booking for the next night. We ended up at Retro77, a small place with exceptional rooms and reasonable prices – THIS turns out to be the best place in town. The next night we checked into two rooms at The One. We had high expectations. The One did *not* match our expectations. While it looked like it was probably a very nice hotel at one time, now it is average. Yes, it was better than nearly every place in town, but The One wasn’t fabulous. The bed, while softer than most, was not great. The sinks were at knee level for this Farang (even my 4’ 9” wife thought the sink was quite low). The caulking and grout around the sink and shower had black mold growing in it. The One was clearly skimping on the disposables – there was no soap for the sink, no coffee or tea in the room, and overall nothing special about the room or the place. The breakfast hall was quite nice (this is where the maintenance folks have clearly been spending their time…not in the hotel rooms) and the included breakfast was nicer than most. The front desk personnel were quite nice and quite helpful. We expected more, though, especially as the rooms each cost 1300 baht/night, which is double of any other standard motel in town (and in total more than Retro77’s suite that could handle all of us). If The One doesn’t start doing more maintenance and investing in the hotel, it will soon start to look like BK Place. BK Place is another hotel in town that used to be the best, and also has some convention space…now its quite sad and has limited visitors. Oh, yea, and the big sign out front of The One has no lights working in it…so someone arriving after dark will have a HARD time finding it. This just made the place look sad.
