Elephants in the mist

OF ALL THE MYRIAD TOURIST DESTINATIONS IN THAILAND, the famed Golden Triangle of the far north, bordering Laos and Myanmar, is perhaps one of the most beautiful and mysterious.

- by Kirstie Clements

While the region itself has a shadowy history due to its connections to the opium trade, it is also a place of astonishing natural beauty, with its lush jungles and spectral mists, parted by the Mekong River. It is also home to Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort, a luxury retreat that puts conservation and sustainability at the forefront, delivering one of the most astonishing up-close wildlife experiences imaginable. In its own gentle way, it provides a glimmer of hope in an often destructive world.

The resort is one hour’s drive away from Chiang Rai International Airport, a 90-minute Thai Airways flight from Bangkok. There are three unique stays on offer at Anantara Golden Triangle, starting with one of the spacious rooms or suites in the two wings of the main building, and all with balconies that overlook the 65-hectare bamboo forest and gardens, landscaped by Bill Bensley. The resort has three restaurants and bars, including fine-dining degustation (both Western-style and Thai) at Samsarn, and all-day dining at Sala Mae Nam, as well as the Elephant Bar and Opium Terrace, which is adjacent to what I'd rate as one of the world’s most stunning hotel pools: in a three-day stay that was action-packed with activities, I was still tempted to have 10 swims. There is also the Canopy experience, an open-air dining car that’s elevated 52 metres above the grasslands, with 360-degree views of the Golden Triangle – vaguely terrifying for anyone with vertigo and definitely an experience to be (nervously) shared. The same goes for the Sky Bike, a zipline activity that ferries two passengers vertiginously high above the jungle at a glacially slow place and is not for the faint-hearted. There are, however, happy rescue elephants wandering freely below, if you are game enough to look down.