The real deal!

Hold on! Hold on! I almost forgot! If you are in Chiang Mai, and your pockets burst with green, please stay in Dahara Dhevi (from Mandarin Oriental). Here is...
It was an early early morning... cloudy in my head. We woke up to go to an organized excursion in Chiang Rai- the north most part of Thailand. We were promised amazing trails, live water and smelly springs, beautiful views and fun fun fun..My body was refusing everything, we were incredibly tired and cranky.. all this was planned because of my lovely curiousity hungry stubbornness  to see the whole world in two days and obviously kill yourself.. My hubby's wish just to go to spa and relax was somehow denied earlier a day before, so you can figure how exited he was!
So here we were in a stuffy bus with another 10 co-trippers. Our wondering eyes browsed around , when we suddenly understood that our guide doesn't speak much English.. at this point we were half an hour into the trip. The further the better, the co-trippers, as we notice were of a golden age. One of them coughed into my back.. The other one snored..loudly.. Some talked even louder..
"Stop the bus!!" I yelled, "my husband doesn't feel well!!" or was it me that didn't feel well? (we informed everybody it was upset stomach and minor poisoning)- everybody looked pitifully and somewhat scared for us. 10 minutes later 1 hour into the ride we found our self's out of the bus on a thin road in the midst of green mountains. No one life creature around.
Oh I wish i still had the photos! what a beauty was it around us!! Maybe i will still find them somewhere..
Finally about 20 min into our hopeless waiting there was a van.. it stopped ...
How would I make it the most clear... tit was about 6 ft wide.. there was 3 long benches, along the sides and in the middle...it was full with people, 50% of which were high school girls about 11 -13 years old.
They looked at us, as at the most exotic animals.. I think the girls really liked Donny..
So these really really good people (God bless them!) , rearranged themselves to give us 2 seats!! I don't even know right now how all that happened , but there was no space to flatten our feet on the floor of the van.
As it turned out, all the girls were educated and spoke a good English, they explained to us where are we going and where  we should get out. They were very shy and timid at the same time, looked at Donny, smiled, laughed an in the end made tons of pictures of him!! We did as well and again I need to find them somewhere...
 So to make this long story short, after getting out of this cramped situation, we hurried up to Dahara Dhevi. We didn't care about anything besides getting to paradise and spoiling ourselves. WELL, WE GOT IT!

Dheva Spa-entrance

Dheva spa reception -waiting for thai massage

one of this can be your bungalow, and you will also learn to cultivate rice..

 It was starting to get dark, but we refused leave and decided to stay for a dinner! Who will ban us from a fabulous living?

in a meanwhile we saw a traditional dance at Le Grand Lanna and had few appetizers (but look at the carpet!!!)

TIP: street food tastes exactly the same -costs less..

up to the restaurant!

Farang Ses - a French restaurant, which is located in a magnificent Lanna style building overlooking paddy fields and tall coconut palms. Its vaulted wooden interior is resplendent with sculpted chandeliers and enormous teak pillars clad in sheets of beaten copper relief.

Finaly! a good piece of meet and lobster bisque. This is probably the best restaurant in Northern Thailand.

Dhara Dhevi-Mandarin Oriental
51/4 Chiang Mai - Sankampaeng Road Moo 1 T. Tasala A. Muang
Chiang Mai 50000, Thailand
+66 (53) 888 929  mocnx-reservations@mohg.com