Hotel Review: Thailand: Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi, Chiang Mai

With its ancient "skyline" of spires, stepped towers and intricately carved stupas, the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi is not a 5-star hotel. Spreading out over 52 acres, the 123-unit Dhara Dhevi is a bustling, self-contained town – part Burmese, part Buddhist, part ancient Thai – that keeps guests in awe and in need of the ubiquitous chauffeured golf carts that zip across the complex. Here you can find days' worth of entertainment given an astounding array of distinct villages, an over-the-top spa, four stellar restaurants, cooking school, cultural center, library with 4000 books, convention center, amphitheatre, outdoor field for concerts and shopping centers brimming with jewelry and gifts.

Set on the outskirts of rapidly modernizing Chiang Mai, spectacular Dhara Dhevi is also a museum, being a tribute to the Lanna history of Northern Thailand, Burma, and Laos, once united in a mighty kingdom: you can peek at the past around nearly every corner in this complex – finding it in the elaborate hand-carved wood designs, the farming villages where cottages perch on stilts, the rice paddies where water buffalo laze, the moats that meander past cottages, the grain barns where villagers teach traditional arts – and the vision of this exotic region's past becomes clearer with cultural tours and classes ranging from Thai dance to Thai vegetable carving.

Designed by architects from the University of Chiang Mai who travelled through the old Lanna kingdom for inspiration, Dhara Dhevi first knocks your socks off by its dizzying possibilities of accommodations. Do you want your own separate housing filled fancy sumptuous splendour of murals and gold gilded walls reminiscent of Burma's Colonial period? Then the luxe Mandalay Suites are the answer. Or perhaps you fancy a wood-wrapped traditional Thai complex of steep pitched roofs and columned elegance peering onto rice paddies? Then try the Royal Villa – actually a four-villa compound with private pools, Jacuzzis, saunas, and plenty of gorgeously-designed space to work or play. Do you long for a sedate and spacious teak "cottage suite" with angled high-ceiling of woven wood, separate downstairs living room, and wrap-around terrace with tub under the stars? Then a deluxe villa along the moat would suit perfectly. Then again, you could house all the branches of your family tree in an old-fashioned Thai village on stilts surrounding vegetable gardens. But if you've come to try out the world-class therapies – where spa tables and therapy rooms are part of the layout, the lavish spa suites might best suit your needs. The latest offering: the spacious high-ceilinged Colonial Suites, unveiled in November with the opening of the dazzling new lobby that is a visual explosion of towers befitting the grandest of Asian palaces. From the colored glass chandeliers above to the artfully-displayed floor tiles below, the details – and the roomy balconies – are one reason the Colonial Suites are the hotel's most popular option.

Finding your style of room is only the first choice. Then you must select from the mind-boggling array of spa treatments – the ancient ritual of knocking wooden tubes on bones to Ayurvedic therapies and everything in between. You might as well just close your eyes and point: every option is a fine one in this stunning world-class spa, which offers the most sumptuous spa experience in town against a backdrop of heart-stopping architecture. But even after you've decided on spa treatment, and that day's activity – umbrella painting, Thai cooking, Thai boxing, Thai dance, yoga, or meditation, perhaps? – still one more choice looms before you: which restaurant to try. Don't miss the dim sum lunch special at the lovely Fujian – a feast of the finest that can go on for hours – and make sure to try out the beautifully presented Thai food at La Grand Lanna, where every night they put on a dance, but then again the French cuisine at Farang Ses is divine as well. Yes, Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi -- the hotel that's really a town -- requires more decisions than the typical place to rest your head. But the good news is that whatever you decide, you've made the right choice, because it's impossible to go wrong around here.