travelled there as a couple in late january - it was a great and very unique experience staying at the Bambooloo.
The place is basically a (nice!) garden in a quiet area of Chiang Mai city, with a open-air reception/cafe-area and a few wooden huts (the rooms).
It is pretty much unique in that it is so much open-air, i liked that very much - however consider well which time you go there and the wheather.at the time - i guess it can be a bit nerve-racking when you are there and its raining for most of the time.

the host-family and staff are very nice and friendly and for the most part helpful - it was however difficult in the evening to arrange a tuk-tuk or taxi at the place, we tried for about half an hour waiting in the cafe/reception-area to no avail. its location is simply to much in a small cul-de-sac sideroad no Tuk-Tuk would be driving by.....

room itself was great - very very unique and nicely decorated, everything very clean.
the temperate was just perfect at the time we stayed there - for the heat of the summer they have fans in the rooms.
big nice bathroom with a big bath-tub and seperate shower.

location is close the airport in the northwestern corner of the city. the distance to the city center is still walkable - to the nightmarket you need a Tuk-Tuk.....
note: its in a small cul-de-sac sideroad of another sideroad - quite hard to find for taxi-drivers. when we arrived in Chiang Mai airport, the driver had no idea where it was and had to asked a couple neighbors to point him in the direction of the Baanbooloo.

Also one needs to be aware that -- as this is a mostly open-air place - there are mosquitos, especially in the evening there are lots of them - so bring your mosquito-repellent, and wear long sleeves if it isnot too hot.

all in all: this is a very nice, friendly and unique yet a bit pricy (relatively) B&B. Not the right thing for everybody, but i enjoyed it very much.

some friends & i traveled to chiang mai in january 2012 and we stayed at baanbooloo for a total of 9 nights. we loved it here, and would highly recommend it to anyone traveling to chiang mai. it is an especially great place for groups/families but there were also couples & solo travelers staying there as well.

communication over email is with adisak, who is the very friendly and knowledgeable owner who lives in london. he was actually in chiang mai while we were there which was great. the baanbooloo website is a bit busy but all of the necessary info is on there. we stayed in the mae lieng & nong noi rooms and all 5 adults & 1 kid were comfortable. there really weren't any problems with the rooms. our non-ensuite bathroom did have some bugs but that's to be expected with a semi-open air bathroom (don't worry, lots of privacy).

all day-to-day issues are handled expertly by orn who runs baanbooloo with the help of her brother and some other fantastic people. breakfasts were great. they were quite variable (eggs/toast/fruit everyday, sometimes sticky rice, pork skewers, fried chicken, buns filled with pork) but always delicious. i think orn would be very open to ideas if you knew you wanted certain things but not others. her brother makes great cappucinos which should not be missed!

the website details all sorts of other things that baanbooloo will help you with. there are market tours, city tours, cooking classes, free airport transfers, free activity booking, and if you stay enough nights, they'll even cook a lovely thai dinner for you. these were really thoughtful touches that made our stay very special.

true, staying at baanbooloo is not cheap but overall i still think it was well worth it. oh, 2 last things. free wifi was great. there was one day where it went out but this was a network-wide thing and had nothing to do with baanbooloo itself. also, there is no pool. there is a lovely garden but if you want to sit out in a bathing suit by a pool with a frothy drink, you can walk down the street to the de lanna hotel which has day passes (including a free drink) for 200 baht.

We stayed in BaanBooLoo for 10 nights in Jan on a family holiday, what a great spot, we were travelling with our 16 month old baby and were understandably a bit anxious!! The gang at baanBooLoo did everything they could to make our trip as smooth as possible, we had a lovely relaxing time and cant wait to go back some day:)

My friend and I were looking for a cooking class in Chiang Mai. We both know how to cook Thai food, so we were interested in something more than just the basic lessons. ... “Mum's Secrets”
( http://www.dotcookthai.com/index.htm ) sounded exactly like what we wanted. The night before the class, we would arrive back from a trek and since we saw on the website that there is also a guest house connected with the cooking class ( http://www.baanbooloo.com/rooms.htm ), we decided to check out the place beforehand to see if we wanted to go back to the 3sis hotel ( http://www.3sisbedandbreakfast.com/Vacationlodge/lodge.html ) were we were staying and were very happy with or try “BaanBooLoo”, the guest house associated with “dotcookthai”.

We could not quite find BaanBooLoo on our map but set off anyway. We got really close to the place, but in the end did not quite manage to find it, so we stopped off at a little corner store and asked the lady there to please call BaanBooLoo for directions. We were told to wait in the shop. Somebody from BaanBooLoo was going to pick us up. It turned out be Ohn, the manager of the guesthouse and cooking instructor for Mum's Secrets. She came looking for us with her brother - on the back of his bike - in the pouring rain - and walked us to the guesthouse, where we were given a warm welcome, juice, and a tour of the place. The tree house we wanted to stay in, unfortunately, was not available, but because we really liked Ohn, the other people there, the house, and the general relaxed atmosphere, we decided to stay there anyway and booked a smaller room instead.

The evening we got back from the trek, dirty, exhausted and hungry, Ohn was there to welcome us “home”, offered drinks, and showed us to the tree house we had wanted originally. She was holding it for us after the people who had reserved it canceled. She made us a quick delicious dinner - on the house – and for dessert, we had some of her complimentary snacks and tea/coffee which are available 24 hours.

The next morning, we had some wonderful noodle soup for breakfast. Ohn will serve toast and jam on request – but why bother if you can eat her delicious food instead?! After breakfast, we set off for the market, where she showed us around and explained the types of fruit and vegetables that we would use for our all- day cooking class. The previous night, my friend and I had chosen the dishes we wanted to cook – with a little bit of input from Ohn. Apparently we had chosen two dishes that were too similar and Ohn gave us our first lesson in how to put together a proper Thai meal, one that should include all four tastes: sour, sweet, spicy, and salty.

We spent the morning cooking our lunch – both Ohn and her ex- brother-in-law(???), who is a chef in a 4 star restaurant, were helping, teaching, testing, and sharing their (and Ohn's mother's) secrets. The lunch – soup and a snack - delicious! We rested for a while before tackling dinner. The afternoon went very quickly. We were busy the whole time – very much a hands-on experience. Ohn and the brother-in-law demonstrated but then it was up to us to do the actual cooking.

Staying at BaanBooLoo the day of the cooking lesson turned out to be perfect. We had a relaxed breakfast, could freshen-up and rest in our tree house after lunch, had drinks before dinner (in between having made the preparations for dinner (all that chopping and dicing, gutting of fish, carving vegetables into flowers, birds and rabbits...) and cooking it. We finished the preparations around 5 pm and ate dinner at about 7 pm. It was all so delicious and certainly very different from the usual fare.

Different from many other cooking classes, we did have to take notes. Ohn does not have a cookbook with her recipes; however, she did email us the recipes that we made with her later on. I supposed that is because we did not simply follow recipes but cooked by tasting, adding, adjusting until the dish was perfect.

Ohn was around most of the time – chatting, asking us questions, sharing her life with us – the two days we were there felt like staying with family and friends - very easy, comfortable, and relaxed – yet at the same time, Ohn was always very professional and efficient. We especially appreciated the fact that many of the extras (snacks, coffee, tea, drinks plus some other services) were not charged for separately but rather “included” in the somewhat higher than average price for the rooms. This fact made it such a pleasure to stay there – a home away from home - and of course Ohn, who makes this place and goes far beyond what can reasonably be expected!


All of these experiences alone would get BaanBooLoo a 5 star rating, but Ohn also gave us a discount (there was a bit of noisy construction going on while we were cooking), she had her mom clean our clothes (no charge), and to top it all off, the morning of the day we were leaving on the night train to go back to Bangkok, Ohn called the ticket office for us to make the arrangements and then rode her bike to the train station (about a 20 minute ride each way !) to pick them up for us.

What an amazing and memorable experience. Thanks Ohn!