Z9 Resort Review

The drive up from Bangkok is part of the stay, and a beautiful one. The road runs west to Kanchanaburi and then north into the hills along the Khwae Yai, and the river is worth stopping for, above the town and again below the dam. Allow about three and a half hours from Suvarnabhumi. There is no boat transfer. You leave the car at the top of the bank, go down a long flight of steps and walk out along a timber jetty to the villas, luggage included. With the reservoir low at the end of the dry season, the walk out was longer than it will be after the rains. It is the moment the place explains itself: the road and the car park belong to the hills, and everything you have come for is on the lake. From the bank the villas read as one shape repeated, a row of shingled vaults on black floats, roped to the walkway and to each other. Dersyn planned them for natural ventilation, and the resort treats its wastewater in a closed circuit before anything returns to the lake.

An Escape North is 50 square metres, with a living area beside the bed, and it is built around one decision: nothing stands between the bed and the lake. The front is sliding glass, the deck runs out over the water to a ladder, and the reservoir lies at the foot of the bed with the hills beyond. The villa moves a little, as a raft will. It was quiet, with nothing built on the far shore, the view over the lake is as good from the pillow as from the deck, and it is a very peaceful place to sleep. Inside, the finishes are plain by design, the same board, steel, concrete and timber as the outside. What you pay for is the position. Zmone, the resort's only restaurant, sits on the bank, and its terrace looks down over the roofs of the villas to the lake. Breakfast for two is included, Thai and Western, and dinner is à la carte. The food was fine and no more, and there is nothing else within reach on foot, so come for the lake, not the cooking.

The water is what you do at Z9. The resort sits in a bay of the reservoir behind a floating barrier, and inside it the lake lies flat. Kayaks and paddleboards are included and kept at the activity pontoon off the walkway; the jet ski, wake surfing and a boat trip are hired by the hour. We took out the kayak, the paddleboard and the jet ski, and they show you two different places. The kayak and the board show you the resort, at the height of the decks, along the row of villas and out to the barrier. The jet ski shows you the reservoir, which opens beyond the barrier into a lake with arms running away between the hills, far bigger than the view from the villa suggests. You can also swim from your own deck, with the life jackets the resort provides. There is no communal pool and no spa, and on a lake like this neither is missed. The resort looks its best at dusk. The vaults light up from inside along the walkway, the hills go black and the sky holds its blue for a while after the sun has gone. The walkway is the place to be when it happens.

Erawan National Park is 23 kilometres away, back past the dam, and it is the excursion to build the stay around. The falls run in seven tiers up a jungle valley, from one milky turquoise pool to the next under the trees, and we climbed all the way to the top. Go early, before the heat and the crowds. On the drive back to Bangkok, stop in the rice fields south of Kanchanaburi. From Meena Café a timber boardwalk runs out across the paddies towards Wat Tham Suea, the Tiger Cave Temple, on its limestone hill, with the pagoda of Wat Tham Khao Noi beside it, and in June the rice was at its brightest green.

Z9 is not a shiny luxury resort, and it has no need to be. It is a small, simple place on a beautiful lake, built by architects who put the water first, and its pleasures are the ones it was designed for: a quiet villa that moves on the water, a kayak or a board from the pontoon, the hills going dark around the lake. The meals are ordinary and the rooms are plain. We left delighted all the same, because the setting carries everything else. For a few days of Kanchanaburi's nature at its most peaceful, it is the stay we would choose.