Bankok’s Jewels
The elephant dreams started two weeks before I departed for Thailand; trumpeting jungle stampedes, fanciful river crossings and elephant-headed men. So when I arrived in the frenetic metropolis of Bangkok, pink taxis and tuk-tuks making their way past designer malls and street side feasts and life-sized billboards of the beloved king, the exquisitely crafted white chocolate elephant that awaited me in my room at the Mandarin Oriental seemed a harbinger from my unconscious. Deliriously jet-lagged, I hopped on the hotel’s mahogany long-tailed boat and crossed the Chao Phraya river to the restored, century-old teak property that houses The Oriental Spa, where 90 minutes of pure bliss included lemongrass tea, a foot cleansing ritual and a jetlag massage with cypress oil and menthol that temporarily woke me up for the evening’s feast. Lord Jim’s, with its 50-foot aquarium and a sorbet amuse bouche steaming with dry ice, began to spin dreamlike amidst the marigold and jasmine and orchid centerpieces, the Bangkok skyline twinkling through floor-to-ceiling glass windows as waiters walked by with three baked Fin de Claire oysters and towers of seafood.
The oldest hotel in Thailand, the Mandarin Oriental’s elegantly upholstered rooms full of Thai silk expand through the guest rooms, transforming to white-washed rattan and Siamese umbrellas as you approach the author’s wing, whose ground floor is a traditional afternoon tea lounge. But with only a day to explore Bangkok, after a grand breakfast buffet at the hotel’s Riverside Terrace, we were off on another long-tailed boat to explore the flower festooned Grand Palace, where my elephant journey would begin.
Considered the most sacred site in Thailand, the Grand Palace was established in 1782 by King Rama I and consists of a royal residence, throne hall, government offices and the renowned Temple of the Emerald Buddha among other attractions. Scattered about the golden stupas are mythical beings from the Ramayama and other great Hindu and Buddhist epics, and statues of elephants, including the famous white elephants acquired during the reigns of the various kings of Thailand. The legend of the royal white elephant of Thailand is upheld in the deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs of the kingdom, where Queen Maya (the mother of Buddha) on the eve of giving birth to him, has a dream that she is presented with a lotus flower, the symbol for both purity and knowledge, by a large white elephant with six tusks. In Thailand, the white elephant (which is actually more of a pinkish brown) is sacred and presented to the king as a symbol of fertility and success (the current king owns 10).
Monks in saffron robes with enchanting smiles light alms amongst the many temples and statues of the Buddha: reclining, sitting, standing buddhas for every day of the week representing different postures and passages to enlightenment. Behind the Temple of the Emerald Buddha is Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, which houses a 152-long reclining Buddha covered in gold leaf. Drop coins with wishes into 108 bronze bowls and know that you’re helping preserve a remarkable space.
After a visit to a colorful city market, one of many in the days to come where we cannot go without the juice of a fresh young Thai coconut, we attend a cooking demonstration at the Mandarin Oriental’s Sala Rim Naam chef’s table with Executive Thai Chef Vichit Mukura, who prepares a menu based on hand-picked selections of the day. The artistically carved fruit and vegetables serve as a backdrop for a meal of fried fish, grilled blue river prawn, chicken in coconut soup, steamed curry fish mousse with scallops and tamarind lamb. His coconut sticky rice with mango has the whole table moaning.
A Camp for Elephants (and their admirers) in Chaing Rai
In the morning we fly north to Chaing Rai, where at the Golden Triangle bordering Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle hovers above the Mekong River. In our wooden long-tailed boat we pass rice fields and tribal villages set into the hillsides until we see the 15 large tents on stilts anchored above the treeline. Up a set of elegant wooden steps and beyond the golden gong, I finally receive what I came here for – a group of hungry and gentle Thai elephants, their mahouts (trainers) beside them, awaiting to be fed bananas and cucumbers from our willing group. After we offer the fruits and vegetables with glee to the eager trunks of the gentle beasts, we are escorted through the camp, where designer Bill Bensley’s décor, inspired from northern Thailand’s hill-tribe villages, as well as camps he visited in Botswana, is reminiscent of 19th-century adventure expeditions. The spacious tents are filled with explorer-themed antiques, hurricane lamps, an outdoor rain shower, mosquito netting, leather and hardwood bush chairs, paddle fans, a hardwood desk and handcrafted items from local artisans. A signature Four Seasons bed takes up one side of the tent while an old-fashioned, two-person hand-hammered copper tub sits centrally in the room, which looks out to the outdoor deck and haunting vistas below.
The camp holds no more than 30 guests at a time for all-inclusive two-to-four night stays that include round-trip airport transfer, meals, house wines and spirits, elephant trekking and a spa treatment.
Sundowners are served at the Burma Bar, a relaxing time when guests can enjoy a drink together during sunset and share the day’s journeys. Dinner may be a barbecue under the stars, dinner by campfire or a five-course formal meal with set Thai or international menus at the main restaurant, Nong Yao, a thatched-roof, open-air pavilion overlooking the riverbank that offers gourmet Thai, Laotian, Burmese and Western cuisine. It is here that I become obsessed with the curative pandan leaf, popular in southeast Asia for wrapping foods like fish or shrimp, but also used as a paste with citrus and pine overtones in desserts and drinks and as a tea to relieve just about any ailment. One of the morning’s breakfast offerings – Green Triangle, an elixir made with pandan leaf, galangal, lemongrass and honey, infuses the morning with magic, and it only gets better from here.
After the elephants show up to be fed bananas, I wander across a long suspension bridge through the lush jungle to my tent and change into the supplied traditional denim mahout training uniform. We first learn the rules of how to behave around elephants, basic vocal commands in Thai that mean “go” and “stop,” then how to get on and off safely. There are no saddles or chairs on these animals; we learn to sit on their massive necks and hook our knees behind their ears, which they use to support their passengers (or not, mine just flapped his ears a lot, which I was told meant he was happy). We then began our exploration of the Thai jungle.
The elephants are part of a group that found refuge at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, of which the camp is the founding member. Food, vet and incidental bills (about $1,000 a month) plus wages and benefits for the mahouts are covered through the work of the foundation. The elephants now live in the 160 acres of forest with an endless supply of bananas and sugar cane (though they are attached to long chains at night). Many of them were working the tourist strips of Thailand, performing and begging on streets or working as loggers before they were rescued. Now they roam the grasslands, are picked up in the morning by their mahouts for bathing and tooth brushing, chow down on sugar cane, bananas, watermelon and pineapple, and then head up to the guest area for trekking.
The mahouts’ wives have started their own silkwood farm where they harvest, spin and weave raw silk into beautiful handmade silk scarves, shawls and stoles, which are sold at the Camp Boutique. Here, where I visit before dinner, I can not resist elephants hand-painted onto stones and intricately carved onto the heads of chopsticks.
We trek through the hillsides for about an hour, enjoying the vistas that look out to Laos and Burma, before climbing downhill to a pool where the elephants bath and drink water from hoses with us still astride, then return the spray on unsuspecting mahout trainees who squeal as they are drenched.
After holding on with your knees for a couple of hours, you will appreciate a Mahout Recovery Treatment at the spa, in an open-air sala with a spa bed, bathtub and shower on a wooden deck overlooking the jungle. Sore muscles are relaxed with large poultices filled with camphor, lime and lemongrass used to massage the body and placed under the legs to release lactic acid while your body is gently kneaded and restored with a curative massage. Sitting in the tub looking over this property, I find myself stunned by the beauty and wildness of this hillside.
The next morning, we take a traditional boat along the Mae Khong River accompanied by our camp guide, then transfer to the Golden Triangle viewpoint and to the market by local mini-bus, and then take a tuk-tuk to the temple and old city of Chiang Sean. At the market, there are fruits and vegetables I’ve never imagined could exist, rows and rows of chiles, every part and size of fish, fried roaches and other insects, which the more daring among us taste, coconut meat, milk, powder, varieties of spices and flower garlands and offerings carefully sewn together on strings.
From here we take another bus to visit the Doi Tung Development Project, a remarkable endeavor initiated 40 years ago by Her Royal Highness Princess Srinagarindra, the late Princess Mother of Thailand and carried out by her son, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, to eradicate opium cultivation in the heart of the Golden Triangle by using sustainable alternative livelihood development. The project shifted the community from one of drug addiction, human trafficking, poverty and lack of education to one of skilled artisans, agriculturalists and service providers who live sustainable lives. The project, initiated in 1988, has created regular incomes for some 11,000 people of six ethnic minorities who have reforested the area with coffee and macadamia as well as “sustenance” forests with lush watersheds. Today there is post harvest care, a roasting facility, macadamia nut processing and packing, horticulture, landscape design, mulberry paper goods, handicrafts, ceramics, fine fabric and clothing.
Because the Princess Mother realized that education was critical in the reduction of opium cultivation and illegal drug use, she also created the Hall of Opium and its exhibitions, which utilize “edutainment” to raise people’s awareness about illegal drugs. Today, the Hall of Opium exhibition and information center is part of the Golden Triangle Park and one of the world’s foremost research and information centers on opium, opiates and other narcotics.
Back at the Tented Camp, we have a private candlelit dinner and traditional Thai lantern ceremony, where Poo Nim Phad Prik Thai Dam (wok fried soft shell crab with black pepper corn sauce) and Gang Phed Ped Yang (duck red curry with Phulae pineapple) fill our bellies, and the jungle rattles with thunder and lightning before a tropical storm.
I fall asleep to huge pelting drops of rain and awaken at sunrise to a Technicolor sky.
Reserved for the finest in Krabi
Bidding farewell to the Camp and our new elephant friends is heartbreaking, but we have to catch a flight south to Krabi to visit the first of The Ritz Carlton’s new concept Reserves at the remote Phulay Bay on the Andaman Sea. We literally walk on water upon arrival, across flat stones to the sound of the traditional Thai gong from the temple inspired lobby, where a calming elixir of lemongrass and ginger tea is offered by my own personal butler who escorts me to my luxurious villa and remains at my service for the duration of my stay. Let me rephrase that – the villa is more than luxurious, more like a palace in Dubai with a double-king sized bed large enough to sleep a family of six. The magenta silk robe is so beautiful I have to buy it, along with antique opium pots and other crafts from the property’s lavish boutique. The grounds are so labyrinthine it’s best to call ahead for your butler to take you in a golf cart to the beach, pools, restaurant, and spa. But you can get lost in your own villa. From the bedroom, huge hand painted wooden doors open to a giant soaking tub, which looks out to an ornate outdoor tub, a rain shower and a private infinity pool. The villas sit amidst lush gardens and serpentine moats, all of which lead to the sea.
At the pool, attendants will crack open coconuts for you if you choose to stay on property, but there are islands to visit, as well as the first destination spa in Thailand managed by ESPA.
The modern spa contains a vitality pool, aromatherapy steam rooms, saunas, a wellness studio, spacious relaxation areas and a spa café. Here I receive an ESPA Essential Massage, a traditional Thai yoga massage using a combination of acupressure movements and stretching techniques on a Thai massage mat that leaves a lot of new energy flowing throughout my body. A new four-day wellness retreat, “Paradise in Balance,” is available for those seeking the opportunity to recharge and rejuvenate and includes a morning meditation walk with a Thai Buddhist monk, raw Thai cooking classes, Thai herbal infusion rituals and full-moon beach yoga.
After a sunset cocktail at Chomtawan Bar where we are kissed by Koko, the resort’s baby elephant, we’re off to a family-style dinner at Sri Trang, where our meal includes banana blossom crispy pork, Thai pomelo salad with dried shrimp and herbs, Tom Ka-ti Mieng Goong (a local spinach soup with prawns in coconut milk), green curry chicken, steamed Andaman sea bass with spicy lime sauce, and mango with black and white sticky rice with coconut sorbet.
I try to walk off the meal but get lost. Thankfully, my butler finds me and drives me by golf cart back to my villa. After enjoying a dip in my private pool, I can’t decide whether to sleep horizontally or vertically in the giant bed. I fall asleep thinking about Leonardo DiCaprio, because the next day we are visiting Ao Maya, where in 1999, he filmed The Beach.
In the morning, yoga mats are set up on the beach for a class to start the day before a hearty poolside breakfast buffet at Jampoon.
About an hour’s boat ride from Phulay Bay is one of the Andaman Sea’s most famous islands, where we snorkel and swim in the stripes of emerald green and turquoise waters of the Phang-Nga Marine National Park. Breathtakingly beautiful, these submerged prehistoric peaks were once part of a chain of mountains before the elements transformed them into peaked karst islands with carved-out caves and walls that are a rock climber’s dream. At Ko Phi-Phi Leh, the smaller of the two Phi-Phi islands, active coral reefs are full of colorful marine life and stunning lagoons – Pilah on the east coast and Ao Maya on the west. On our way back, we pass the northeastern tip of the island, Viking Cave, where collectors of swifts’ nests offer tobacco, incense and alcohol to the spirits of the cave before climbing bamboo scaffolding to gather the nests.
After a gourmet picnic at the tourist-infested white sand beaches of Hong Island, we return to the tranquility of Phulay Bay in time for a raw food cooking class with executive chef Gaeten Biesuz and learn how to make some of the Thai delicacies we have enjoyed during our stay. The Reserve’s raw bar introduces a revolutionary culinary concept with a light and healthy menu of specially prepared delights with the emphasis on organic, freshly grown and prepared raw produce. Freshly made juices, mocktails and herbal teas are served with their therapeutic and nutritional properties stated. Options for Purification detox and weight loss programs are available upon request.
The northern part of the Krabi province boasts more dramatic topography and mysterious caves accessible by kayaks from Sea Kayak Krabi. The Tham Lod cave has a dramatic tunnel through a karst full of stalactites and stalagmites, which is accessed through a curtain of jungle vines. Our group was a little paddle challenged and laughed our way into the chaos of vines and rocks, exhausted by the time we reached the end of the journey, where we were met with much-appreciated watermelon slices cut into hearts.
We are greeted back at Phulay Bay by a barbecue buffet suited for a royal court on the beach, and participate in a dramatic lantern ceremony. I light mine and make a wish that almost dives into the sea, but with the encouragement of a large group, the lantern skims the surface and finally lifts off into the night sky.
“That one,” says one onlooker, “will have its struggles, but it
will prevail.”
Dung coffee and other fineries in Phuket
On my way to Phuket, I stop in historic Old Town to fill my extra suitcase with more trinkets. My guide takes me to a store called Kid Dee (a.k.a. Think Positive) crammed full of Asian art imported from India and Indonesia and I find some Thai-made beach hats, hanging chains of glass orbs and locally made jewelry, and then on the side of the road, we stop to admire a row of unpainted small spirit houses. The hand-carved, teak wood, dollhouse-like houses, found in various sizes in homes and businesses across Thailand and its neighboring countries, are homes for the property’s guardian spirits that live in rivers, trees and nature. Often consecrated by a Brahman priest, they are fed daily offerings of water and rice, flower garlands and hand-carved fruit and toy animals made from wood, clay or plastic.
But what I’m really searching for is Black Ivory coffee, which I find at my next stop, Phuket’s Paresa (“heaven of all heavens” in Sanskrit), located on Millionaire’s Mile in Kamala Bay. International standards of luxury and hedonism are alive and well here and this 49-suite hillside resort with sweeping views of the Andaman Sea is one of the limited five-star hotels (The Four Seasons Tented Camp and Phulay Bay are also among them) in southeast Asia that serve the world’s most expensive and rare coffee. Elephants from the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, which receives eight percent of the proceeds, eat Thai Arabica beans picked at high altitudes, deposit the cherries in their dung, where it is then picked out by mahouts and their wives, sun dried and roasted. It sells for $420 an ounce, with only 10,500 ounces produced annually. At Paresa, it’s brewed in a machine whose design dates back to 1840s France and is served to us like steaming gold. It tastes like elephant poop to me, but the rest of our group is impressed by the rich flavor and aroma.
Poompong Patpongpanit, the owner of this innovative property, sits with us as we try the coffee, as well as our own just-cooked meals of Pad Thai and yum goong created in the bayfront cooking school space where chef Ryan Arboleda culls ingredients from nearby markets and his own hydroponic garden on property to teach the art of Thai cooking. The cooking school, like the rest of this tony property, looks out to the sea. Drawing from southern Thai architecture and design, where detail is found in the intricately painted golden angels inlaid in black wood, a gold mosaic tile patio, rich timber finishes produced from locally hewn and sustainable Thai forests, a fiber optic infinity pool that juts out over the mountain, spacious villas, many with their own private pools and outdoor showers, and two restaurants, one Thai (Talung), and one Italian (Diavolo), that share one large space that encompasses a sea-view deck built around banyan trees, Paresa is not a property you want to leave.
But adventure calls. Our guide takes us to Wat Chalong, Phuket’s most important Buddhist temple and the biggest and most ornate of Phuket’s 29 Buddhist monasteries. We also visit the Big Buddha, a huge marble Buddha that sits on top of the Nakkerd Hills between Chalong and Kata and at 147 feet high, is easily seen from most of the province. The lofty site offers the best 360-degree views of the island and on a clear day, is worth the magnificent view of an area almost fully recovered after being decimated by the 2004 tsunami.
Back at Paresa, dining itself becomes an adventure with Recipe by Luca, which is open on Friday and Saturday nights with Executive Chef Luca Mancini cooking up inspiring, six-course degustation menus each night. Diavolo, the main restaurant, serves a generous a la carte breakfast followed by Italian delicacies at lunch and dinner. Guests enjoy 270-degree ocean views while sampling some of the finest wines from around the globe, and it is here that I discover pandan leaf custard. My excitement about this lime green concoction does not go unnoticed by the staff. When I check out, they have packed up a giant vat of the creamy dessert and I manage to make it through customs without it completely exploding in my suitcase.
Talung Thai, Paresa’s signature restaurant, serves authentic Thai cuisine offering unique dishes with a southern Thai influence. Both restaurants are set high on the cliff top, shaded by the canopies of majestic banyan trees. Sunsets can be enjoyed from the daybeds and sofas that adorn the balcony.
The Spa by Paresa offers ancient Thai healing treatments utilizing natural luxury Thai ingredients and products by Panpuri to purify your senses, such as jasmine, sandalwood, ylang ylang and lemongrass.
In the morning, we set off for yet another island hopping and snorkeling excursion to Phuket’s Phang Nga Bay’s famous beaches and coves, as well as a visit to Patpongpanit’s Zazada Beach Club, one of the hottest on Phuket. Located at the north end of Surin Beach, past rows and rows of beachside Thai massage tents, the club has sun lounges for hire on the beach, a deep wine red pool, and food and cocktails.
As I depart for my trip back to California, Patpongpanit, a character in his own right, bids me farewell with the traditional Thai greeting, the prayer-like palms together in a gesture known as a wai. I say sa-wat-dee ka with the biggest smile I can muster, because in Thailand, you can be sure you will receive an even bigger one back.
go there :: mandarinoriental.com/bangkok :: fourseasons.com/goldentriangle
:: phulay-bay.com :: paresaresorts.com :: helpingelephants.org :: doitung.org
