Khon Kaen really does have the grottiest budget hotels I’ve seen in my five months in Thailand! After looking at two very tatty hotels and one nice (a little dear for me), I’d almost ran out of budget options in my guidebook when I saw a simple sign "guesthouse 100B per day" pointing down a narrow alley opposite the Roma Hotel on Thanon Klang Meaung. This led to a cluttered courtyard in which there was a long, single-storey building divided into six rooms. The room I looked at was huge with a double bed, fan, two wardrobes, a cabinet, shelves, and a WC. Although the shower was bucket-style, this represented a bargain for 100B a day. One problem; it was already occupied! Well, it was until Madela moved out all the clothes belonging to the now previous tenant! It turned out that all the rooms are occupied by Thai families or friends of Madela’s on the understanding that they make room for any paying guests that show up. The young girl I displaced bunked in with her friend three doors down! Madela was a very nice lady despite our Thai/English communication problems.
On my second day, I returned to my room to find it cleaned, the bedsheets changed and six bottles of water left for me. Two days later, I again came back to this and any clothes left laying around had been washed as well! When I needed petrol for my camping stove, Madela leapt onto her motorbike to get it for me, and there was a constant supply of tea bought to me in a good old-fashioned tea-pot!
While certainly not your run-of-the-mill guesthouse, this was one of the friendliest and most comfortable I’ve stayed at in a long time.