Hotel Name: Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi 

City: Chiang Mai

Star rating:5

JW Rating: Everything off in the Colonial Suites, but not in the villas!

(Shoes on, socks on, socks off, everything off)

This hotel is truly an amazing property. On a 60-acre plot 15 minutes outside Chiang Mai the Mandarin Oriental really offers it’s own Thai experience without you ever having to leave the resort. While I understand the sentiment of this, I’m not sure I like it. It’s a beautiful property, but by bringing all the art, crafts and even rice fields to them, I felt that it all lost a little bit of the reality. Their rice paddies stretch out below the pool so as you lounge on your deck chair you can watch a buffalo and farmers plant, tend and harvest the rice depending on the season. Then you can wander back to your villa past the Traditional Craft stations and see how local pieces are made. While this looks and sounds amazing, I feel that it takes a lot of the authenticity out of it…it’s like going to Disneyland and saying you’ve seen California! With that said, the gym, the spa, the restaurants, are each housed in their own stunning architectural wonder and you do drive around the property in awe – there’s a lot of architectural and design eye candy!

As for the rooms, I love the Colonial Suites; they overlook the pool or the gardens and are colonial charm at its best. They are the type of rooms I love…an open invitation to get naked and enjoy the opulence. On the other hand, the villas that the Oriental touts as its best rooms, I find not as well designed. They are two story buildings with a bedroom upstairs and a living room downstairs. This sounds great except the stairs to connect the two levels are outside! This means when I wake up in the morning and want to go and make some coffee I have to go out on the stairway (in view of other villas, etc), walk downstairs, go into that room, make the coffee, go back outside and upstairs. No way! If I’m on vacation in a place like this I want to be in my pajamas until 10am, and my pajamas aren’t decent for outside stairs.

I understand why this hotel has the reputation it does, everything you need is right there and the property is expansive and the buildings are incredibly unique, it’s the Mandarin Oriental Shangri La, but I just feel for the money it doesn’t have the right room design that I look for and I’m scared that guests staying here would have everything out their front door, but might miss the real Northern Thailand.

Insiders tip: They have five smaller villas that have bedrooms upstairs and an open air sitting room downstairs. They are located around the vegetable gardens and I loved their simple charm and I felt the design felt authentic, and also more practical so I would stick with one of these or the Colonial Suite.

*All photos are from the Mandarin Oriental website … Read more »