The Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai is one of the best holiday experiences we’ve had. It’s on AirBnB but is also on Booking.com and other hotel booking websites, but rather hard to find unless you’re searching specifically search for it. Stayed here with my Mum and Dad and Grobbler for 4 nights in early April of 2019 and if you can’t be bothered reading through my drivel and just want to know if it’s worth staying at – the answer is a big yes.
Let’s get the bad out the way about the Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai first. This is not the Mandarin Oriental, Ritz Carlton or Peninsula. If you’re used to staying at places like that and enjoy and insist on everything that staying at these types of properties entails, Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai may not be for you. It’s a Thai style stilt house with cracks on the floors and you can sometimes hear the staff downstairs, although they’re not noisy and you won’t hear them when you’re sleeping.
There’s gecko’s on the ceilings, although we never saw one inside the room. This was a bonus for Grobbler and why he loved it so much. But if you don’t little gecko’s, again this might not be for you. They only serve breakfast and lunch, so you’ll have to find something by yourself to eat at night. There’s some local restaurants within 5-10 minutes walk, but they’re not great, or you can order something from Grab, which is Thailand’s version of Uber. It’s a bit of a pain but nothing major and it wasn’t a huge deal for us. If you’re staying here for a week, it might be more of a hassle though.
If you’re going to stay at Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai, you should download Grab because a lot of taxi drivers won’t know this, and all Grab drivers we used had to find it by Google Maps. It’s not difficult, you just have to use GPS. I ordered some Thai good from Grab but I could have got that down the road. I speak a bit of Thai so you might struggle ordering if you don’t, from the local places very nearby.
Anyway, that’s basically the only negatives, and the weren’t an issue for us. We didn’t want to be right in the town, or on the river, which is where most tourists will stay. Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai is just far enough of the city to be away from the crowds but not so far as to be hassle to get to. There’s a mall nearby (Promenada) that takes about 10 minutes to get to in a car and it’s about 10-15 minutes to the Airport. Again, if you like to be where all the action is, this is not the place for you. if you want to avoid the tourists and crowds, it’s perfect.
There’s some ancient ruins nearby Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai (literally walk out the entrance and you’re there), which are interesting to have a walk around and the area is quite local. If you want to get in the mix and experience a bit of local culture, this is the place to stay. Pre-booking was easy, the host responded almost immediately in the 3 or 4 messages I sent and arranged a car to pick us from the airport (at extra charge). Definitely no complaints with the host or pre-booking process.
We got the Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai for 4 nights for about HKD5000 for two rooms which were massive. Basically we had two adjoining “houses” which were connected by a large (massive) balcony. Take a look at the pictures of Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai to get a better idea. The beds were comfy, not massive kings size beds but more than suitable for a couple. The balcony had a small table and some chairs, which were probably the only complaint I had – they were bloody uncomfortable and not really suitable for sitting in for long periods of time.
The balcony also got like a sauna (quite literally) even with fan, but that’s not really a fault of the resort. We went during late March/Early April and it was sweltering hot anywhere you go in the afternoon. Mornings were nice but by 10am you’re sweating balls. From 230-530p.m, you better stay in air conditioning. Also we happened to be there during some pretty atrocious pollution but that’s nothing to do with Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai and probably why the flights and everything else were so cheap.
Overall, the rooms were outstanding, something different to stay in, yet comfy. Despite being up in the air and kind of open, I didn’t see a single ant or insect there the entire stay. Few mosquitoes around but definitely not out of control and you’ll get those anywhere in Chiang Mai or Thailand or SE Asia or most places in the world. Again, there were a few geckos on the roof of the balcony which provide great entertainment for kids, and we had a Tok Kae (Tokay Gecko) who made some nice noises occasionally throughout the night. They don’t annoy you and nothing to be scared about. These were the highlight of the hotel for Grobbler, who thought it was the best ever hotel he’d ever stayed in, and he’s been in Maldives, Peninsula’s, Ritz Carlton’s.
The swimming pool was also awesome. Way better than the photos look, and we spent from 3-5pm there most days. There’s some shade over a couple of loungers which you will need but not shade over the pool until about 4:30p.m. That will change during the year though. For four days we didn’t see a single other person use the pool and only saw 2 other guests in the hotel the entire time we were here. This was heaven for me, who’s an anti-social donkey.
The breakfasts at Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai were good, only issue is they don’t serve it until 8a.m, so if you have little ones who’re up at 6, you should get some snacks. They serve you up some fresh delicious fruit, your choice of fried or scrambled eggs, both of which are excellent and well cooked, couple of pieces of toast, butter, jam, orange juice and coffee or tea. Not the best best breakfast in the world but pretty good and I’ve had much worse at much more expensive and fancier properties.
My main concern is posting this, because how it is now, is great, if they had bus loads of tourists staying there it’d ruin the experience. We basically had the entire place to ourselves which probably made a difference. Regardless, family holidays don’t get much better than this, friendly staff, nice food, good swimming pool, good communal area for chat, stuff to keep the kids entertained and if you’re wanting something nice and a bit of a change from typical 5 star hotels, this is definitely the place for you.
I’d have no problems recommending Lanna Rice Barn Chiang Mai to anybody and would definitely go back here again if I went to Chiang Mai. Mum and Dad also loved it. Search for Lanna Rice Barn on Airbnb or just Google it. You can also check out their Facebook page here. For more information about Chiang Mai and what to do in Chiang Mai with kids, check our Chiang Mai destination Guide. As usual you can always send us an email on our contact page or direct message us on Twitter.
