Chiang Mai

Seven Hundred Years of Lanna

The North Keeps Its Own Pace

Chiang Mai was the capital of the Lanna kingdom for two centuries before it was ever part of Siam, and the north has never quite surrendered its separateness — a different dialect, a different kitchen, a different temperament. The old city still sits inside its moat, and the mountains begin almost immediately behind it.

Luxury here is quieter than on the islands. It looks like a teak pavilion above a working rice field, a consulate restored to the year it opened, thirty-three suites made by hand in cotton and rattan. Nobody is competing for the best stretch of beach; they are competing for silence.