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Thai Gold
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By: Hilary Doling, Issue 34 – Winter 2008
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(Bangkok, Koh Samui and Chiang Mai – Thailand)
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FROM THE GLITTER OF ITS GRAND PALACE TO THE HILL TRIBE JEWELLERY AND SOFT, ISLAND SAND THAILAND GLOWS GOLDEN.
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Lotus buds and incense sticks held between our praying fingers, we walk three times around the stupa which rises in tiers from the centre of the complex like a glorious golden wedding cake. It is a busy time in the temple and devout worshippers give each other the odd secular shove as they jostle to light their incense sticks and place them in front of Lord Buddha. The air is sweet with scent and thick with curls of blue smoke. Two hundred and ninety steps (count them and weep) up the steep mountainside, the Phrathat Doi Suthep temple presides over the green mountains and the city of Chiang Mai far below.
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It is only one of the many temples that dot this ancient royal city. Although the pink city walls are now in partial ruin, and light industry and commerce are as important as chanting, Chiang Mai still retains its ancient charms. Most of the handicraft you see in Bangkok comes from around here and the cavernous Night Bazaar in the centre of the city is piled high with lacquer boxes, silver and specially-aged ‘antiques’. (A couple of the more expensive shops on the top floor do sell the real thing.) One day we also visit the Bo Sang umbrella village on the edge of the city where hundreds of parasols as delicate as flower blooms line the roads.
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The Four Seasons Chiang Mai is now 12 years old and it was the first five star resort in the area. Other ritzier, larger resorts have been built since, but none retain the charm or the tranquility of the Four Seasons. Over the years the jungle has wound its way around the stilted rooms until they are almost a natural part of the landscape. Five stars and farming sit side by side; from our elevated pavilion we look down on fields of rice. The rice is harvested and used, and local bullocks are also kept on the property. One of the hotel pools juts out into the fields, and cultures collide where the pool floats like a sapphire ship in a sea of green. In the morning, yoga takes place in an open-air pavilion at the end of the rice paddies and at night romantic dinners can be arranged in the ancient rice barn, lit by paper lanterns. One evening there is a wedding at the hotel and we sit in the barn and watch the tradition khom loy lanterns float up into the inky sky.
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Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai is one of the few hotels to have a custom built cooking school, an airy open pavilion with separate work stations, brass pots and shelves lined with jars of spices. Each session starts with a traditional blessing at the wooden spirit house: it is a ritual that has real meaning for the staff at the Four Seasons. The cooking school is built in the heart of the resort and the spirit house stands in the most sacred space: wander up here in the quiet between classes and you’ll see everyone from gardeners to the GM lighting incense and bringing offerings for the gods. Peer into the shrine and it looks almost like a dolls house with tiny china fruit, chairs and tables all brought as gifts to make the gods of the house more comfortable. I pray that for once I won’t over cook anything – since normally my Asia culinary skills bring new meaning to the term ‘sticky rice’.
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I needn’t have worried. The airy wooden pavilion, with its brass cooking pots and jars of spices, is the perfect place to learn Thai cooking. We mix minced chicken, mint and shallots for Laab Gai and creamy coconut milk and fruit for desert, and even though my sculptured fruit looks more like Chiang Mai’s ruined walls than the delicate zigzag pattern executed by Chef Pitak, it tastes pretty good. I can’t believe that the delicious Thai food I eat in the shady pagoda with a view of the mountains and landscaped gardens is actually my own. I resolve to grow my own herbs and grind my own spices from now on.
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It is tempting not to venture outside the cosseted walls of the hotel but the Chiang Mai region has a lot to offer: jungle trekking, rafting, tribal villages and lush orchid farms. One day we take an elephant trek into the jungle; if the camel is the ship of the desert, then the elephant is definitely the QM2 of the jungle. My huge 40-year old matriarch, Pong (a name which raises a titter from the children on the elephant behind) sways around the narrow hillside paths with surprisingly nimble steps. A vision of the dancing elephants in Fantasia, ballerina feet delicate beneath their bulk, flits across my mind. Those who want to spend more time with the jumbos can stay at Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle further into the jungle and learn to be a trainee Mahout.
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Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai can arrange an excursion to Mai Hong Son, a short flight away, to see some of the Northern Hill tribes. Traditionally for the hill tribes there were no borders, the Akha come from the Burma, the Hmong from Yunnan, the Paduang are native to what is now called Thailand and even speak a form of Thai called Thai yai. It is this tribe that has attracted the most interest because of their habit of beautifying women with a series of brass rings that appear to elongate the neck, but actually squash down the collarbone. You can tell from the grace of their movements even with their heavily ringed necks that the old women have worn their rings for many years but many of the young women look awkward and there is the nagging suspicion that it is tourism that keeps the necks of the young girls ringed and the money flowing in.
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From the golden temples of the north we fly to the golden beaches of Samui. The island has a reputation as a party place with full moon gatherings on the beaches, endless cafés and a whole host of hotels, but at Four Seasons Samui hidden away at the island’s northern tip you’ll find a secluded, serene setting.
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We enter Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui and find ourselves standing on a platform as high as an eagle’s aerie, while the resort cascades down the hillside beneath. All we can see is the sky and the azure waters of the Gulf of Siam. Getting to our villa is an exciting switchback buggy ride down steep paths that snake like a Naga (a mythical thai serpent) through the resort. The Villas are vast, decked out in beachy blue and white, many with plunge pools as large as lap pools.
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If you choose, there is a lot to do on Koh Samui: you can visit butterfly farms, watch snakes being milked of their venom, climb to spectacular waterfalls and eat and drink until you drop, but for me the joy of the island is in and around the water. A 45-minute boat ride from the resort is the spectacular Ang Thong Marine Park with its craggy limestone outcrops and tropical fish. But why bother to board a boat when all you have to do is roll off your sun-lounger and into the warm waters of the South China Sea that lap at your newly nail-polished toes (expertly painted courtesy of the beauticians in Four Seasons’ blissful hillside spa). You may also have to move your arm to lift the cocktail that the waiter brings you from the beach bar or saunter to lunch at the Pla Pla seafood restaurant at the end of the beach. The outrageously energetic can also kayak or indulge in the normal range of water sports activities.
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All of this supposes that you’ve managed to leave your gated villa at all, and with private pool and in-villa dining on hand, some rarely bother.
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Details:
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Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok, Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui and Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai
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