By Peter Myers
The latest in l+t’s regular forays into what’s chaud, cool, chic and downright sexy in Phuket & Khao Lak’s resort and villa scene. Le Méridien Khao Lak Beach & Spa Resort: Intimate Abandoment, Space, Individuality Khao Lak, the region’s ‘most undisturbed coastline’ – apart from one infamous blip – is a fast-developing national park flanked by cloud-covered mountains on one side and vast stretches of wide beach on the other, and is proving a hit with 30-something couples, young families, and honeymooners, all happy to be well away from Phuket’s hedonism. A stay at sprawling Méridien Khao Lak should be attempted from the comfort of one of their nine beachside pool villas. Why? They’re incredibly reasonably priced (from USD 149 in the low season), and this way you can have your cake and eat it. Eat, drink and work-out in public areas (and drift through the resorts mammoth twisty-turny pool – its myriad sunbeds never run out), but enjoy a self-enclosed, indoor-outdoor space to return to for private pool plunging, over-sized stone bath bathing, under-sala yogic manoeuvring, somnolent hammocking, and running from your own back garden to your own slice of empty beach and near-deserted sea (a few paces away, you can join everyone else baking a few degrees bronzer at the main pool/beach area). A pontoon raft floats enticingly a few metres out to sea. Forty-two-inch plasma screen televisions will keep those needing to be entertained entertained, and wireless broadband internet connection will keep you connected to creditors and in-laws. The villas are currently being outfitted by a new sound and mood lighting system, upping the ambience ante. Indulge in one of Le Spa’s eight private villas – or, better still, summon a therapist to your villa’s outdoor pavilion, (although you’d be missing out on the Spa’s steamroom and wider range of treatments). Not an especial spa fan, preferring more energetic pursuits, I was nevertheless moved by the signature Le Méridien Massage: two therapists working in tandem to rub oil into four parts of the body at once. The property offers a choice of five restaurants, all with al fresco dining: one beachside, one poolside and one spa-side, serving exquisite Thai cuisine, while the Mediterranean-influenced menu of the former two eateries have got the resort-fare equation just right. A nightclub/grill, named The Kuk Kak Bar & Grill, has recently opened on the grounds, suiting those who like to let their hair down while on holiday: In a gazebo overlooking the lake, a Korean and Japanese menu is on offer, while Tex Mex and Indian bites are served inside. You will eat well at Le Méridien. Activities are very much on the agenda here: windsurfing off the resort’s 11km beachfront; jaunts on the catamaran; kayaking; mountain biking; tennis; the list goes on. Parents can drop their little ones off at the well-run Penguin Club, safe in the knowledge that they will be kept amused for as long as it takes to do any of the above activities. Australian General Manager Greg Anderson is a big fan of the resort he has been overseeing for a year now, telling me that, “This property is truly unlike any other in that it provides upscale solace and tranquillity without interfering in the natural beauty of the area… the pace is decidedly slow… and there is so much space – room to contemplate and room to explore.” From January through April rates from USD 150 (rooms) and USD 325 (villas); breakfast included. Visit lemeridien.com/khaolak. Phuket Pavilions: Keep it Very, Very Private Pavilions is a fashionable serviced villa environment which opened only twelve months hence on a hillside overlooking Ban Tao Bay (famed for the Laguna complex – whose villa development knows no bounds). The 21 one-bedroom villas here all have infinity swimming pools and sun decks with unfettered views of the Andaman Sea. There are also nine three-bedroom villas, all sold to private owners – mainly Hong Kong-based expats – some of which can be rented out by the resort. High walls on both sides of each villa ensure 98% privacy. Swim as nature intended you to, this is no-tan-line living. No kids are allowed in the short-stay villas – not as homage to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s child-less kingdom; it’s a steep fall from the private pools. With a well-stocked maxi-bar and inspiring in-villa dining, food and spa come to your room; have a robe handy, as waiters, spa therapists, and an array of housekeepers, engineers (who explain WiFi, and where the light switches are located), choose-your-DVDs-for-tonight man etc. make intrusive (but highly appreciated) appearances at your abode of nude luxe living. Select from an eclectic range of pampering procedures when the spa girls come calling. Payot products are used. I opted for the Detoxifying Body Wrap, which aims to “reduce the appearance of cellulite, water retention and ‘orange peel skin’”. After a thorough scrub (homemade: grounded coconut blended with turmeric and rice), one’s lymphatic circulation is stimulated with Green Stone Mineral Clay and malachite extract. Turn green and bake in the semi-precious clay by the pool. This is also iPod living. A mini-pod with dedicated playlists suits the mood: Sunset Mix; Poolside Mix; Make-Out Mix; Late-night Mix… they’ve got it all. Groovy tunes are also rolled out at panoramically-appointed, alfresco 360 bar – the MD here must be rather young at heart, we thought, and he was. Scott Gorsuch doesn’t have much need for his PhD in Psychology anymore, and his photography and archaeology interests are also not too much in demand. However, the lifestyle-choice job which lured him from the States and a planned resort operation in Peru is proving a much-loved, all-hours occupation. A fan of hotels which offer more of a personal touch, he, like a lot of expats living and working in Asia now, originally came for a holiday. Many years earlier, while working for National Geographic on a trek through Peru, Gorsuch struck up a friendship with another member of the trekking team, Hong Kong-based corporate lawyer Gordon Oldham. They remained in touch. Oldham was already entrenched in the Asian property investment market. “Gordon told me about the land he had acquired for the Phuket Pavilions… and two drinks later we basically had a deal,” says Gorsuch. “At that meeting we just got on the same wavelength immediately about the ideas and the vision we shared for a resort of this type.” Six months after that meeting, Gorsuch was onsite in Phuket to supervise the resort’s development. He tries to meet every guest upon check-in – often the only time he will see them, thanks to the exceeding privacy of the place – although sundowner cocktails at 360 are popular with guests blinking from their days of in-villa dwelling. Wolf down the tapas on offer here, and work your way through the extensive range of international vodkas, or even a refreshing Pimms and lemonade. A pleasant bunch of villa-vacationers and Phuket regulars are normally on hand to chew the mustard. Villas are often rented by those wanting a self-contained party. Australians are particular fans of short breaks to Pavilions, as are Korean honeymooners – but you won’t see the latter betwixt check-in and check-out. With Pavilions properties now firmly established in Phuket and Bali, Gorsuch will now be overseeing the development of a similar project in Krabi. Rates from USD 400. Visit phuketpavilions.com. Tropical Thai Village Living at The Village Resort & Spa Down on quiet, ‘older-couple’-centric Karon Beach on Phuket’s south coast, famed for having the island’s softest sand, lies a family-run (read: warm, personal) property of two distinct parts. On one side is the six-year-old Chino Portuguese-style Front Village Hotel, and on the other is the small, quirky all-villa boutique resort The Village Resort & Spa, which has just celebrated its first birthday. The unique aspect of this property is the honeymoon-tastic Pool-Access Villas (no under-twelves please). These three-section rooms recall a Japanese ryokan, with sliding doors leading to walk-in wardrobe, bathroom, and bedroom (mattress on plinth). A sizeable living area with comfy daybed overlooks the pool – and one can literally bound from one’s deck-chaired verandah into the long and winding pool which snakes around the resort. This waterway system occasionally reveals a swim-up bar (Happy Hour, 5.30pm), a water-fountain bed and a ‘mountain Jacuzzi’ towering above the pool. The bizarre pool, compounded with the cupola-style architecture symbolic of Southern Thai Islamic designs, makes for a resort markedly different from the generic Ramadas and Best Westerns nearby. One cupola houses the Thai restaurant – top-class Siamese grub here, take an addict’s word for it – another covers the lobby, and a third the pool bar. What I loved about my time in The Village was the variety of smells. The scent of flowers, trees and plants, which are abundant, flanking every path, every boardwalk, every villa – I hadn’t experienced such olfactory stimulation in months. The banana and lilawadee tree gardens can best be experienced from the Tropical Villas, steps away from the pool, with more sizeable bathrooms. Facilities-wise, The Royal Spa provides a more than reasonable array of treatments, and their signature Royal Experience Massage is 60 minutes of oily pleasure. An outdoor pavilion is conducive for a traditional Thai massage. For those like me who can’t live without it, complimentary LAN broadband access in the lobby provides a quick inbox fix. Foodies will enjoy the bi-weekly excursions to a local market followed by a cooking class, but any number of beachy activities can be arranged, as can wedding parties, on the beach or at the resort itself. But romance is hard to avoid in the evenings here: scull up to the pool bar after sunset, the well-lit pool glowing around you under the dark, all-encompassing vegetation. Rates from USD 300 at The Village Resort & Spa and USD 125 at Front Village Hotel. Visit thevillageresortandspa.com. Tin Mining with a Resort Lining at Indigo Pearl Calling a resort ‘unique’ tends to be the preserve of marketing blurbs and most turn out to be rather homogenous. An exception to this rule is Indigo Pearl Resort, and this was apparent several weeks before the resort opened, when I visited the Nai Yang Beach-tucked property. Long before becoming a holiday destination, Phuket’s industry was tin mining, an industrial heritage now consigned to history. The Thai-Chinese Na Ranong family were one of the first to make a success of mining here. Wichit Na Ranong, known locally as ‘Mr Tourism’, has overseen the USD 21 million transformation of his 18-year old resort Pearl Village, which itself sat on the site of his family’s century-old tin mine. Internal walls were bulldozed and every two original rooms became one new room (a huge bathroom takes up most of one room’s space). Australian GM Anthony Ross, formerly of Sentosa Resort & Spa, Singapore and Azur Lodge, Queenstown, has helped create an engaging, ‘big-boutique’ resort experience, different to any other on Phuket. But it is renowned interior and landscape designer/architect Bill Bensley who provided the design vision, fusing heritage with postmodern architecture, and fans of his work will recognise his style – the industrial-chic concrete walls; the ‘driftwood finish’ wood beams; the eclectic resort decoration and landscaping (gigantic boulders which create a mini-estuary beside a coliseum garden and outdoor amphitheatre; moveable chairs in a swimming pool); the absence of in-room internal doors (except some oversized industrial doors); Indian antiques used whenever possible (like the blue bottle chandelier in the blackened teak pavilion Thai restaurant); a lobby-side library of 1,500 white-sleeved books. Indigo Pearl has named one of their suites after Bensley – he earned it! Phuket-based installation designer John Underwood’s handprints are also omnipresent: every in-room and public-area décor object is creative and quirky, fitting in with the tin-mine theme: the bucket bins, the rusted metal shower fittings, the heavy hand-tool-style toilet roll holders, the metal-veneer vanity surfaces, the black standalone baths.Hand-crafted cutlery – a different design for each food outlet – hails from northern Thailand, while guestrooms and ‘Plantation Villas’ sport funky bright rugs and soft furnishings hailing from Bangkok-based Beyond Living’s Ms Pleonchan, whose designs are a big hit in the Thai capital. In-room artwork is mesmerising. Ross’s job is to match the design innovations with service excellence and wow-factor facilities. There are certainly some innovative ideas here. In a lobby-side antiques shop, Keralan antiques and resort décor items can be purchased. Guests are encouraged to stay a while, sip on a cognac, while items of interest are brought to them. Facilities-wise, find three swimming pools (one ‘snakeskin’-style with a glass-bead floor – another Bensley foible), a cooking school (Moo’s Kitchen, named after the owner’s daughter), tennis courts, a fun-looking children’s club, a glass-fronted fitness and meditation pavilion, a diving school and a formidable, man’s-man snooker hall (one gorgeous old snooker table and two pool tables), with a bar serving whiskies from around the world. The spa’s array of therapies is beyond adequate – the Fatigue Away massage I tried, a mixture of stretching and sports massage, with lemongrass oil, was tremendously effective, the therapist displaying intense levels of empathy. Food can be consumed in a seemingly endless series of eateries, including The Tin Mine, a grand, all-day-buffet set up with metal inlay flooring – a flutist sets an enchanting tone during dinner – and The Rivet Grill. At second-floor, tapas-tastic Rebar, the flutist doubles as a saxophonist in a sax/bongo/guitar/DJ combo. Don’t leave Indigo without exploring the local area. Nai Yang is a superb, spacious jogging beach, and boasts magically-lit sunsets and fab seafood options. In nearby Thalang, wander the frenetic morning market, get a roadside haircut by 60-year-old Mr Kua Sodchern in the shop he’s shaved, cut and clipped in for 40 years (you can’t miss the ‘Good Morning Thailand’ sign outside) and drive back to the resort past acres of rubber tree plantations. Rates from USD 135. Visit indigopearl.com. Arahmas, Step by Step First step: book into a Pool-Access Room or a Pool Villa at Arahmas. The former spills out, via a sizeable balcony, into a 3,000 sq.-metre pool, which forms a huge U-shape around almost the entirety of the low-level garden resort, bulging in the middle in a dazzling public area near the beach. The Pool Villas front the resort, along a grassy bank on the beachfront. Splash around in your plunge pool, lounge in the courtyard, drawl in your hammock, or summon a therapist to your spa pavilion, with nothing between you and the sea except a long stretch of sand. Inside, a copy of this publication is sure to greet you! Second step: Nai Yang Beach is the perfect length for a good 30-minute sunset jog (or a more leisurely walk), past fishing boats moored for the night, up to the beach bars and seafood eateries of Nai Yang’s centre, then back, passed Arahmas, to the near-complete Hyatt Regency. Most likely you will have the beach to yourself. Third step: Here goes, this writer thought upon entering Montra Spa and asking for a ‘Sporting Hour’ massage (‘best for those who prefer strong massages’), yet another signature spa experience. Young and charming Ms Da, only two years on the job, treated my body as if it were her own, instinctively knowing where to un-knot, where to focus her healing hands. Between motions, she would drag her fingers nonchalantly along me, adding exponentially to my wellness factor, a true healer! Afterwards I wished to prolong the relaxation, so opted for a herbal steam. I came out of there a new man. Back to the rooms. Find wooden floors and furniture – almost plantation style. Beds are huge and divinely comfortable. WiFi is purchasable, at nearly USD 20 for 24 hours – a little steep, but there’s a DVD player and a library of DVDs and CDs which you can have brought to your room on demand. Bathrooms are a few sexy steps above functional – the egg-shaped baths are another wow. Fourth Step: Snacks and grill-tastic bites taken by the pool, overlooking the beach, or, if buffets are more your thing, up in second-floor, in-door out-door Ambrosia serves both Thai and ‘nouveau French cuisine’. By the time you read this, downstairs Garden Terrace will be complete. Two years old, Thai-owned Arahmas is especially popular with regional honeymooners: “They just love the pool-access rooms; the Koreans demand them every time”, Rooms Division Manager Pheerasit Kanthiwang informed me, beaming. Sure enough, we found several happy clumps of Koreans basking around the crazily huge pool, some shooting the hoops which hang on a couple of walk-bridges above the water. Stepping out: It’s literally a hop, skip and jump to the airport – 10 minutes by our count. Rates from approx. USD 300 (Pool Villas) and USD 150 (Pool-Access Rooms). Visit arahmas.com.
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Issue 38: Jul / Aug 2010
