Tree House Chachoengsao

Rooms and decor

The Standard Double goes for about $18 a night, which makes it the cheapest room of all 10 hotels in this roundup. It is roughly 18 square metres, with a bed plus room for an extra one, linens that are a little worn but freshly washed, and older air-con that still cools the room well enough. You get a 24-inch TV with digital channels and a small bathroom with a plain shower — the hot water takes a moment to come through, but it comes. No bathtub, no minibar of luxuries, nothing extra. Everything you actually need to sleep well is here, and the building itself is a homey three-storey block with a big tree out front, which is where the name comes from.

Food and amenities

The thing that makes Tree House worth more than its price is the in-house restaurant, open 6am to 10pm. The menu leans into Chachoengsao home cooking you'd struggle to find in Bangkok: snakehead-fish coconut soup, river-prawn sour curry, stir-fried catfish, and khanom jeen with fermented-fish sauce, all roughly $2 to $5 a plate. Guests describe coming back from morning prayers at the temple and eating breakfast right here — condensed-milk coffee for about $1, prawn rice porridge for around $2. It's village-stall pricing and village-stall flavour, and honestly it beats the breakfast at some 3-star hotels. There's also free Wi-Fi, on-site parking and a front desk, but the kitchen is the headline.

Location and getting there

Tree House sits about 800 metres from Wat Sothon — an easy 10-minute walk or a 2-minute drive. Reviewers talk about strolling over at dawn, past market stalls just setting up, with locals saying hello, then wandering back through Ban Mai market to buy fresh tan-palm cakes and pandan piak-poon for under a dollar a pack. The 9.0 location score, one of the highest in the group, reflects exactly this — almost everything in the old town is within walking distance. By car it's roughly an 80-minute drive from Suvarnabhumi Airport, making it an easy first or last stop on a Bangkok trip.

Things to know before booking

This is a plain, older guesthouse, not a boutique stay. There is no pool, so it's a place to sleep and eat rather than to relax by the water. Rooms show their age — older air-con, a basic shower with slightly slow hot water, no bathtub — and the design is dated next to the newer hotels in town. If modern styling matters to you, you'll be happier paying double somewhere higher up the list. Come for the price, the kitchen and the temple walk, and you'll get exactly what you signed up for.

Our take

Tree House Chachoengsao is an honest choice for solo travellers and temple visitors on a tight budget, in the $17 to $40 a night range. The price is low, but the quality isn't cut to the bone — the in-house kitchen alone gives the stay a bit of character most budget rooms lack. It earns its 8.5/10 on value and location, and it's a fine pick for anyone who isn't shy about a homey, no-frills base near Wat Sothon.