H-Residence - Satorn soi 11, yek 4, Bangkok

[Pen-fifteen]

The hotel that I normally use in Bangkok has had an on-going price creep for the last couple of years, so I decided to look
around and see what else is available in my preferred price range.  The first accommodation that came to my attention was the H-Residence, so I decided to see what the place has to offer.

 

How do you get there? Taxi is the most obvious means, but not all taxi-drivers know how to find the place, so be prepared.  The address says soi 11, but it also includes "yek 4", which is actually a sub-soi of soi 11.  To get to the hotel, the most convenient approach to the soi is by travelling west along Tanon Satorn Tai, which is from the Rama 4 end, travelling towards the bridge over the Chao Praya.  Soi 11 is roughly half-way between Chong Nonsi and Surasak stations on the BTS, and there is a K-bank on the corner of Satorn and the soi.  Travel about a kilometre along the soi, and you will see a 7-eleven on the left with a primary school on the other side of the soi.  Immediately after the primary school is where you can find "yek 4".  Turn right into yek 4, and you will notice that it is too narrow for 2 cars to pass, except in a few places where there are driveways or other vehicular passage.  If it's any wider, you're probably in the primary school.
 

Yek 4 appears to have a blind end until you get to the west end, where it turns right [back towards Satorn road].  Just follow the yek for about another 100 metres, and there's H-Residence on the left.
 

OK, so now you're at the hotel, what next?  Check-in!
 

There's extensive use of glass on the ground floor, so you can locate the reception desk easily, just negotiate the 2 sets of glass doors and you're there.
 

The first detail that I noticed was that while the character who checked me in was obviously a male, he used the female polite particle when he greeted me [s'wut-dee kuh].  If you're homophobic, be advised.
 

I arrived about 10:30 AM, and was told that I would have to wait until about 1:00 PM for my room to be ready.  This wasn't a problem for me as I was arriving from within Thailand and didn't mind waiting for a properly cleaned and prepared room.  However, someone arriving from a long inter-continental journey might get a bit distressed at that sort of news.  For me, it was an opportunity to get the flight voucher for the next day's flight to Udon Thani printed, so I asked about printing documents, and that's where I got the good news and the bad news.
 

The good news is that there are computers in the lobby, and they are free to use for guests.  The bad news is that these computers in the lobby are not connected to any printer.
 

"No ploplem;" says Mr kuh, "you e-mail document to hotel address, we plint for you."
 

Now, I don't know about anyone else's attitude to that sort of arrangement, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of passing a copy of my personal documents to some other entity for printing, however, I had little choice if I wanted the document printed.
 

More good news, the print was free.  Later in my stay, I ventured to use the hotel's free wifi, and discovered that it had no immediate limitation on data.  I was able to use it for torrents!  In my experience, something not available at many other hotels.

The room:
I stayed at H-Residence twice, so I got 2 different rooms, and they were different.  However, they both had their problems.
 

Bathroom:
The bathroom floor is lower than the floor or the sleeping area, and the shower cubicle is recessed lower than the bathroom floor.  This is just as well, because there are problems.  The shower head is held up by a wall fitting; sadly, this wall fitting is not adjustable.  It sprays water across the cubicle [and onto said cubicle's door] at a height best suited for someone who is 195cm or taller [that's >6'6" for any US readers].  Since I do not fit into that height category, I needed to handle the shower head and personally point it in an appropriate direction to wash and rinse myself.  It's worth noting at this point that it didn't matter how or where the shower head was pointed, water leaked out of the shower recess under the cubicle's glass door and pooled between the cubicle and the bathroom door.

The toilet:
It looks flash, but it is imperfect.  It seems to be designed to catch solid deposits before they drop into the water in the bowl.  This means skid marks that don't flush away.  Also, the expectation that paper will not be dropped into the bowl and flushed [normal in Thailand] seems to be absent.  There is no notice requesting this, and there is no water-spray nozzle adjacent to the bowl for cleaning one's nether regions.  Thus, one could be led to believe that it is OK to flush paper, or one can use the shower-head for the purpose, with the attendant risk of depositing any undesirable particles on the bathroom floor [to be stepped in at a later time].

Room lay-out:
This seems to be a bit hit-and-miss.  The design/lay-out of the first room I had did not suit me, but the second room did.

All of the room's power outlets are 2-plugs, and all are linked to the room key-card slot, except for the power point where the refrigerator is plugged.  When you first enter the room, all is in darkness, and the air-con is off.  To turn on the lights, the air-con, and the power points, you have to slide the key-card into a slot next to the entry door.  When you leave the room, you need the key-card to get back in, so take it out of the slot next to the door and the power all goes off after about a 10-seconds delay.  Except for the power to the refrigerator.

I like to leave my computer and EDD on when I am out of the room, so the spare plug-hole at the refrigerator's power point is where I want to plug in my power board.  In the first room, I could not safely do this as I do not want to trip over power leads and bring expensive electrical equipment crashing to the floor.  In the second room it was fine; I could do this without any power leads across anywhere that a person could walk.  I also got my Monday-morning torrent downloaded and seeded back in very good time.

Comfort:
The beds were OK, as was the bedding.  However, the air-con unit in the first room blew cold air directly at the pillows on the bed, making sleep a fleeting affair.  The air-con in the second room blew the air to the side of the bed, so I slept very well.  The chair for the desk, while not brilliant for comfort, was acceptable, but the desk itself was a little high for keyboard use.

Location:
To put it bluntly, not convenient.  There is the hotel's coffee-shop, but after a coffee there on the first morning, I reasoned that if the rest of what was on offer at the coffee shop was of the same standard as the coffee, then I wasn't interested.

Because of a leg problem, I don't like walking too far.  I discovered that a passing taxi is a scarce commodity at the H-Residence, and the walk to Satorn road is a long one.  My favoured option is to walk back along yek 4 to soi 11 [about 300 metres] and flag a cab there.

It's worth mentioning that the contents of the 7-eleven near the junction of soi 11 and yek 4 seem to be geared towards the primary-school children at the school across the road, so don't expect too much of that particular establishment.

Overall:
Would I stay there again?  Well, yes, but the deciding factor for me is the FREE wifi with data transfer.  If the data transfer is blocked, or I find another hotel with a better location and data wifi, I'll go elsewhere/there.  All within the same price range, of course.

Photos:
Sorry, I don't have the photo degrade software.
 

All are pics of the second room; I didn't know that I would be writing this review, so no pics of the first room.

 

Looking into the bathroom:

 

The room from the 4 corners:

 

From the refrigerator alcove to the computer desk:

 

If anyone has any queries, just ask; I'll give the answer if I know it.

 

PenXV