We visit Surin a few times every year, as this is where my wife’s family live. For the last few years, we’ve always stayed at Maneerote Hotel, as it’s close to the market and a very convenient location. A friend of ours suggested we give the White Elephant Resort a go, so we decided to spend three nights there over the New Year holiday. We were very impressed.
The stand out feature of this resort is the beautiful garden setting. All rooms at the resort face the garden, with the ground floor rooms having balcony areas where you can sit and relax. What I noticed as soon as we arrived was the abundance of birds. You can hear them chattering away all day, and this really adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the place.
The Garden
The photos of the garden speak for themselves. There is seating scattered around the garden, with the breakfast area being at the far end. It is so lovely to wake up and walk through the garden to get a tea of coffee. In fact, tea and coffee are available for free all day. Just help yourself.
The Rooms
The room area is a decent size, being large enough for a double bed, wardrobe, sofa and a small fridge. Free bottled water is provided in the rooms every day. The large double bed was really comfortable, as were the pillows. The quiet setting away from the traffic also made for a few nights of very restful sleep. It’s a totally different experience from sleeping at our Bangkok condo where we can hear traffic noise almost 24-7.
The room also had a TV. We didn’t use it, so I don’t know whether it had any English channels or not.
The aircon worked well, although we didn’t need to use it too often, as we stayed during one of the coolest times of the year.
The bathroom had a large and separate shower area. There is hot and cold water, with the water pressure being very good. It isn’t always like that in Thailand. Soap was provided, but no shower gel, show caps or similar.
Wifi
The resort has free wifi which worked well the whole time we were there. When I tested the speed it showed as 5.85 Mbps download and 13.49 Mbps upload. That was more than adequate for our needs.
Breakfast Room
We had breakfast either in the town or at my wife’s parents’ house, but if you want breakfast at the resort it’s priced at 200 baht ($6) per person. You can also get free tea and coffee at the breakfast room all day.
We will definitely be staying there again in the future. It’s very rare in most towns in Thailand to have such a peaceful and beautiful place to stay. We highly recommended it.
For three nights we paid a total of 1,950 baht (around $60). That’s a real bargain at only $20 a night.
White Elephant Resort Details
Location: Amphur Muang Road 2/1-3, Surin, 32000
Telephone: 044-530-705
Website: whiteelephantresort.com
The White Elephant Resort is 2.3 km from the trains station and easy to get to by tuk tuk. If you arrive by either train or bus, you’ll see plenty of tuk tuks outside both stations. It should cost around 60-80 baht ($2-3).