InterContinental Khao Yai Resort Review

Bensley took his cue from the reign of King Rama V, when Thailand's railways began and this region became the gateway to the north-east. He went further than most designers would and invented a stationmaster, Somsak, a local train conductor who had collected railway memorabilia since boyhood, then dressed the buildings with his imagined collection, down to a 1920s map of every station in Thailand, two and a half by three metres, in a corridor of the Pak Chong Guesthouse. That could have been whimsy. What keeps it honest is that the carriages are real. The resort gathered old railway cars from around the country, cars that, it says, ran on the lines of north-eastern Thailand more than a century ago, and turned them into 19 suites and villas and into the homes of Poirot, the Papillon bar, the spa and the kids' club. The rails in the gardens are rusted, and on a walk around the grounds you keep finding a carriage at the end of the line. A resort built so completely around one idea also needs its people to make it feel like a hotel rather than a stage set, and the team here is a large part of why we recommend it. Throughout our stay, the service was polished and never felt scripted.

Our Heritage Railcar Junior Suite was a restored carriage of 47 square metres, one of twelve, standing on its own among the trees. It was superb, and it is what you make the drive for. A carriage is long and narrow, and the conversion turns that into an advantage: the bedroom is at one end, the lounge at the other and the dressing area between them, so the suite works like a small apartment laid out in a line, with the garden at every window. The best of it is outside, on a covered terrace towards the lake and at the bathtub that stands in the open beside the carriage. Unusually for a suite, it is also open to pets: the Junior Suite takes up to two cats or dogs. The resort has rooms in its main buildings too, designed with the feel of a carriage. Take a carriage. The six Heritage Railcar Suites, of 109 to 116 square metres, add outdoor living space, and four of them a plunge pool of their own; the single Heritage Railcar Pool Suite, two bedrooms over 223 square metres in two buildings, is the one for a family.

Bensley laid the gardens out around five lakes with K Manit, his client's father, and describes the result as a forest that looks as if it has been there for decades. The trees bear him out, and in September, in the rainy season, everything was deep green. Swans live on the lakes, white and black, and timber boardwalks and paths link the guesthouses at the water's edge to the carriages under the trees. We swam in the main pool, beside Somying's Kitchen. Back on Track Spa occupies a carriage of its own, with four single treatment rooms and organic products from Siam Botanicals, a Thai brand, and Planet Trekkers runs the kids' club from another. The park is the other half of the stay. Khao Yai was Thailand's first national park, and with the protected forests around it forms the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; its entrance is 20 to 30 minutes from the resort. We explored it with a guide, and again on a night safari after dark. Between the carriages and the park, two nights here make a full trip.

Poirot is where a stage set would have given itself away, and it is the best argument that this one does not. The restaurant is a restored dining car in the garden, reached along a path of old railway sleepers, and it opens for European dinners only. Our dinner was outstanding: book it for the cooking as much as for the carriage. Somying's Kitchen, the all-day restaurant by the main pool, is styled as a station canteen and cooks Thai and international dishes. Breakfast there was just as accomplished, a generous spread in which everything we tried was full of flavour, and lunch was every bit as good. Between meals, we took tea and coffee in the Tea Carriage, the daytime café in a restored car overlooking Swan Lake. Papillon, a jazz speakeasy in a carriage of its own, takes over in the evening, and the Terminus Bar serves drinks by the pool.

Two nights answered the question we arrived with. Bensley's railway story is told with real carriages and a real dining car, and behind it is a hotel that works: a suite we had no reservations about, restaurants that were excellent and a team that made the place feel personal. The limits are those of a short break. Khao Yai is two and a half to three hours from Bangkok by car, or four to five hours by train from Krung Thep Aphiwat to Pak Chong, with the resort's car for the last stretch, and the Junior Suite has no pool of its own. Two or three nights is the right length, and it remains one of the best places to stay in Khao Yai.