There's more to Thailand than Bangkok and beaches. Carolynne Dear heads north to the forests of Khao Yai for a stay at one of the country's most idiosyncratic hotels
Staying on the right side of the tracks at InterContinental Khao Yai
A couple of hours outside of Bangkok and the concrete finally begins to give way to green hills, fruit farms and jungle. And as the grey abates, so do the stresses of a three-hour-delayed flight from Hong Kong. Another half-hour and we’re pulling up at InterContinental Khao Yai, a recently-opened lakeside resort in Thailand’s verdant Nakhon Ratchasima province and a stone’s throw from the country’s oldest national park.
It’s a fair distance from the capital and for many visitors, a slightly unusual direction to be heading given most tourists make a beeline south for Thailand’s beaches when they tire of Bangkok’s pacy city life.
The area’s pull is Khao Yai, the country’s third largest national park, with dramatic scenery and myriad hiking, rafting and wildlife spotting opportunities. The park is home to around 350 rare and endangered species and during my short visit I encountered wild elephants as well as monkeys, deer, birds and clouds of shimmering butterflies.
But these days an additional reason, or perhaps the reason, for making the journey north is the stunning InterContinental property itself.
Opened in 2022, InterContinental Khao Yai Resort is designed by Bangkok-based architect Bill Bensley who has drawn on the local area’s history as a gateway for rail transportation and taken inspiration from the 19th century Pak Chong station nearby to create this unusual, idiosyncratic resort where upcycled vintage train carriages serve as hotel suite accommodation.
To cover the three-hour journey from Bangkok, a plush hotel car is offered for airport pick-ups, but if you want to fully embrace the railway vibe, it’s possible to catch a train from Bangkok’s Don Mueang station to Pak Chong.
Stepping out of the hotel Merc on arrival, I’m ushered into the ticket booth-styled reception and invited to ring the large brass bell hanging outside to mark my arrival.
Children can head off to kids' club in a railway carriage at Planet Trekkers
A golf buggy transports me to my suite, a smart lakeside railcar with all mod cons. There are 27 train carriages dotted across the 100-acre property, the accommodation picturesquely set around five lakes and amongst more than 30,000 trees. My suite features a cute lounge area with sofa, a neatly accommodated bathroom with separate loo and shower and a snowy white bed in the snug bedroom. Outside is a jungle-fringed balcony with a desk and couch and a luxurious roll top tub under the trees. Some train villas come with a private pool and kids will be enchanted with the railcar Bunk Rooms.
Bensley admits that upgrading what were abandoned train carriages into hotel suites has made for uniquely sized guest rooms. The train carriages were unearthed from all over Thailand. Some were found, abandoned in a field for more than half a century, ficus trees taking root on the roofs and twisting their way into the carriages. Others were obtained at public auction.
“The Presidential carriage is the strangest proportioned suite anywhere in the world,” he explains. “It’s two 33m carriages placed back-to-back, so it’s 66m long and two-and-a-half metres wide. The ends are the bedrooms but everything else is a walkthrough space.”
My own suite is narrow but cosy. The confines of the carriage have been incredibly well thought-out, with plenty of storage and hanging space and a comfortable lounge area with a coffee table, useful for pre-dinner drinks when the mosquitoes start to nibble outside at dusk. The balcony is spacious and the alfresco tub a decadent touch.
Relax at the resort's lake-view pool
My days begin with a bike ride around the largest of the lakes, soaking up the serenity before heading to Somying’s Kitchen, the all-day, canteen-style restaurant, for a filling breakfast. The help-yourself buffet table is a generous spread of enticing dishes, from Thai hot and cold options to western bacon, eggs, waffles, pancakes, breads and granolas, and pretty much everything in between. Hot a la carte options, including custom-prepared omelettes and eggs benedict, are also available. Children will particularly enjoy toasting their breakfast rolls over the mini countertop charcoal barbecues. For the rest of the day, the local chef serves an inviting menu of northern-Thai influenced dishes, including spicy curries and plant-based and larb salads.
If you’re travelling as a family, there’s lots to entertain children at the resort. The biggest drawcard is of course staying in a ‘train hotel’ (great show-and-tell material for when they’re back at school). The kids’ club, Planet Trekkers, is also located in a railway carriage and is an Aladdin’s Cave of Lego, games, books and toys. Outside, the club has its own little garden and a rabbit house. The kids’ club organises a heap of fun activities, such as lakeside treasure hunts, model painting and Thai dancing classes. And of course there are the lovely lakes with swans to see and fish to feed. The spa also offers a dinky treatment menu for youngsters.
Kids will love sleeping in a 'bunk room' carriage
On my second night I’m invited to join general manager Sandy Liw for dinner at Poirot, the French fine dining rail carriage. We enjoy cocktails in Papillon, an interconnecting rail car that has been beautifully decked out as a jazz bar, and then head over to Poirot for our meal. The weather is so lovely and cool at this time of year that we opt to eat on the lake-view terrace, enjoying oysters and Iberico pork as the fairy lights twinkle in the trees.
Liw tells me that the hotel has been enormously popular with Bangkok-based weekenders looking to escape the city hustle. Its distance from the capital makes it ideal for a long weekend mini-break. For those travelling from overseas, it’s a tantalising addition to a Bangkok break, offering the opportunity to experience something a little different from Thailand.
The following day I’m booked in for a tour of Khao Yai National Park. The first stop, lying in the protected lee of Khao Yai's rolling hills, is the GranMonte vineyard. I’m shown around by Mimi Lohitnavy who heads up the marketing team at the family-run business. Lohitnavy’s parents bought the 12-acre vineyard in the 1990s and her sister, Nikki, went on to study oenology and viticulture at the University of Adelaide, becoming Thailand’s first (and only) fully-qualified winemaker. After much hard work and trial and error adapting vines to the tropical climate, the award-winning vineyard now produces syrah (their bestseller), cabernet sauvignon, grenache, chenin blanc, viognier, verdelho and sauvignon blanc, with bubbly offerings including a very good cremant and a sparkling rose. Stop for lunch or a tour and tasting.
Khao Yai National Park itself covers more than 2,000km sq, but in the limited time available, my guided tour took in waterfalls, dramatic views from clifftop precipices, chattering gangs of macaque monkeys, pretty sambar deer and (the highlight of the day) a wild elephant who came lumbering through the picnic area we’d stopped at mid-afternoon for a drink.
Back at the resort, there’s plenty to keep me busy on my last day. I have a swim in the resort's pretty pool, enjoy a massage at the Back on Track spa and indulge with afternoon tea at the Tea Carriage.
InterContinental Khao Yai is an absolute joy and I fly back to Hong Kong relaxed and refreshed.
Asia Family Traveller was a guest of InterContinental Khao Yai Resort, flying from Hong Kong to Bangkok with Thai Airways.
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