THE FAR PAVILIONS

Hitherto largely off the tourism beaten track, the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai now has two compelling reasons to visit: the opening by Le Méridien of a resort hotel, and the launch of direct flights from Macau. JON WALL reports

A FAST BOAT ride, in which your backside is just millimetres from the surface of the water, is as good a way as any to kick off the day with an adrenaline surge. And that’s exactly how I start my second morning at Le Méridien Chiang Rai Resort, where, after a rushed breakfast, I clamber aboard a long-tail boat at the hotel’s landing stage and spend the next hour skimming along the glistening surface of northern Thailand’s Mae Kok river. Skirting reed-covered sandbars and overhanging branches, jetting past villages, villas and greenery-covered monoliths that punch upwards from the riverine plain, and with a plume of muddy liquid spraying from our drive shaft, we wind our way along the waterway’s meandering course until we reach our destination, some 23km upriver from our starting point.

We’ve arrived at this Karen village to ride elephants, but such is the ammoniac, ordurous stench emanating from this herd of four-tonne behemoths that I’m almost inclined to turn around and get straight back in the boat. Instead, breathing through my mouth and with a scarf pressed to my face, I manage to endure the pong and eventually find myself seated on a primitive howdah. From my elevated perch – almost four metres from the ground – I observe the countryside lurch and sway gently past. Led by our animal’s own mahout, we sedately plod first along a tarmac road and then off along a dirt path that skirts hillsides and another Karen settlement, stopping occasionally along the way as our mount snacks on greenery, until our trek comes to an end at another village on the banks of the river.

Although in the bucolic and exotic surrounds of the Golden Triangle I sometimes feel as if I’ve slipped into another space and time entirely, the reality is that I’m little more than 1,500km west-southwest of Hong Kong, a distance that can now be covered almost in a single hop and in just a few hours with the launch of a daily Orient Thai Airlines flight between Macau and Chiang Rai. That brings residents of the Pearl River Delta within easy reach of a beautiful region of Thailand that’s not only relatively undiscovered, but, by being close to the Tropic of Cancer, also enjoys marked seasonal changes of climate. Much as in Hong Kong, summers are hot, humid and often wet, with winters pleasantly cool and dry, making this an ideal destination for outdoor pursuits ranging from trekking, mountain biking, rock climbing and, of course, elephant riding to golf on a trio of courses in and around the provincial capital.

While this most northerly part of Thailand is no stranger to upmarket tourism (Anantara and Four Seasons both operate luxury properties just a stone’s throw from the country’s borders with Burma and Laos, which lie some 70km from town), Le Méridien is the first properly international hotel to open within the city, and it’s a serious contender for several reasons. Firstly, Chiang Rai is one of the nicest cities in the country. A spacious provincial centre of more than 100,000 people, it’s dotted with handsome temples and home to a vibrant and apparently endless weekend night market that seems to draw the entire population out onto the streets after dark. The resort itself echoes the region’s predominant Lanna-era architecture and occupies a privileged stretch of riverfront. With its pagoda-style pantile roofs and gables, low-rise wings set among elegant gardens and mature rain trees, and ponds and swimming pools that, thanks to ingenious landscaping, appear to flow straight into the river when viewed from the entrance pavilion, it resembles a contemporary interpretation of a water palace.

Housing around 160 rooms and suites, the resort will never get too crowded or raucous, preserving the sophisticated air of repose that the unostentatious design and gracious grounds suggest. That mood extends to the rooms, which are decked out in soothing earth tones, with sleek modern furnishings adding an unexpected dash of cool to what is, after all, a provincial resort hotel. The chic, metropolitan ambience also extends to the resort’s two restaurants: the all-day-dining Latest Recipe, with a menu that ranges from local Thai dishes to international staples, and the river-facing Favola, whose excellent home-style Italian menu is all the more remarkable given the hotel’s relatively farflung location (for a convivial blow-out with friends, ask them in advance to rustle up their La Cucina della Mamma set dinner).

Adjacent to Favola is the Parvati Spa, in one of whose riverside side suites I sample the signature Peace Massage. The exquisite combination of light palm and fingertip pressure helps me achieve a state of blissful relaxation I’d never imagined possible.

My room is one of 30 such super-sized units in the recently opened Grand Deluxe wing. It’s actually more of a suite, with a huge bed and living space, a sizeable walk-in dressing room and a separate bathroom that opens onto the main area, from which I can step out onto my lengthy veranda and gaze in the direction of Burma, and toward hills on whose slopes lie gardens of tea and coffee. Indeed, so irresistible is this Arcadian prospect that it’s hard to remain hotel-bound for long.

Fortunately, Chiang Rai is so positioned that few attractions in the area are further than an hour’s drive away. Of these, the tripartite border of the Golden Triangle is one of the most popular, reached by an arrow-straight highway whose current widening presages an eventual road link – by way of Laos and a new bridge across the Mekong – to China’s Yunnan province. Judging from the view that greets us on our arrival at the banks of Southeast Asia’s greatest river, that’s a prospect not altogether to be relished – a kilometre or so away from us on the Laotian shore lies a new casino hotel every bit as tasteless and gaudy as anything in Macau, and clearly aimed at the same hordes of mainland punters. We ascend a little hillock to survey a lonely panorama of mist-wreathed hills and a green and empty wedge of Burma so close that even I could kick a football into it, and there stands yet another gambling resort. It’s the last thing I expect to see in this benighted domain.

More infamous, of course, is the region’s role as a major producer of opium and its derivative heroin, which is commemorated at the Hall of Opium in the Golden Triangle Park. I’d imagined a scruffy village hall filled with pipes and other junk. Instead I discover a large-scale extravaganza that tunnels into a tree-covered hillside, and deals with its subject matter with an unusual degree of intelligence and compassion.

Equally impressive, though in a curious and even sinister kind of way, is the complex of black-painted pagodas created over three decades by artist Thawan Duchanee a few kilometres north of Chiang Rai. Replete with such grotesqueries as arrays of animal bones and skins, and a work said still to be in progress, the Black House stands in stark contrast to the White Temple (or Wat Rong Khun) on the city’s southern edge. Also yet to be completed and the masterwork of another artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, this dazzling and elaborately kitsch fantasy features unfinished murals depicting the collapse of the Twin Towers, George W Bush, Superman and Ultraman, though to what end I’m still not entirely sure. Far easier to divine is the superb quality of the locally grown beans brewed at the Doi Chaang coffee shop, which is almost a reason in itself to visit this charming if admittedly sometimes quirky corner of the kingdom.

www.lemeridien.com/changrai