From the alley leading to my villa at the Siripanna Villa Resort, I spied a swimming pool hidden behind green hedges. Without dropping my bag, I immediately went looking for its entrance. Going through it, an elevated pool, mazelike in its unique design, greeted me. It also made me want to drop my backpack and strip. I wanted to swim through the pool’s meandering pathways right there and then.

Siripanna Villa Resort & Spa is our home for two nights in Chiang Mai. From the lobby, I can already see that this is no ordinary resort; its architecture and interior design is fashioned after the Lanna tradition of northern Thailand and it looked awesome—and not to mention, expensive.

►LANNA WHAT?: LANNA FOLKLIFE MUSEUM

From the lobby, we were led to our rooms through the lush alleyways of the resort. We were each assigned to their Royal Lanna Villa which surrounds the central pool area, one of the six types of luxurious rooms that the resort offers.

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The villa has its own pavilion which they refer to as a Thai sala. It has a couple of comfy seats and a table, perfect for a cup of coffee while blogging. The area is screened from its neighbors by shrubs and reflecting pools. It was really was quite nice, if I say so myself.

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But my villa was even grander. With a total floor space of sixty square meters, it has its own living area and a very spacious en suite toilet and bath. The king-sized bed is huge; I can literally sleep twenty different ways without falling off. Thai paintings and furniture grace the whole room, giving it a very local feel.

The room is equipped with a 42-inch monster TV and strong Wi-Fi connection (with additional fee). Coffee and tea are readily available, and so are four free bottles of mineral water per day. There’s a mini-ref, so I simply popped my supplies inside. Convenient!

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The only thing I found wanting about the room was the lack of power outlets near the bed for me to charge my phone on every night. I literally have to crawl on all fours just to reach a socket below the fixed side table where the bedside lamp is plugged in.

Siripanna’s bathroom is amazing. While the décor is pretty minimalistic, its recessed circular tub was just the bomb. It even has a cascading water feature on one of its wall. Pretty neat stuff!

While sorting out my baggage, I found a package sitting on the table of our room—a local rice-planting outfit. It then hit me, our host explaining what Siripanna means—radiant rice fields. Early the next morning, we found exactly what that means.

Donning our planter outfit, we marched towards an open field right within the resort. We are going down and dirty, we are planting rice!

I’m not a stranger to this kind of activity, having spent many a summer on my mom’s province in Nueva Ecija. So it was a breeze for me. I forewent with the boots and went barefoot to the muddy paddies like a real Thai farmer would. Bah!

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After washing a bit, we trooped to the Slee Banyan—Sirripana’s open-aired restaurant—where a breakfast buffet was waiting.

I usually prefer eating al fresco and good thing that there are seats outside the restaurant. It was just unfortunate that it was drizzling a bit that time so I have to settle for a seat inside. I shared my table with a family of Chinese tourists; we couldn’t understand each other, but we definitely knew how to smile. And that was enough.

They have the usual breakfast fares like sausages, eggs, and bacons (crispy? you bet) but I love the fact that one can also go Thai. My plate looks like a complete mess of the two mixing together. I love their local noodles and soup but I also cannot live without crispy bacons.

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One of the things that made its mark on me while staying at Siripanna Villa Resort was their Panna Spa. For more than an hour, we were treated to a relaxing hardcore Thai massage. I’ve tried this kind of massage before, but the pretty, petite lady who did my body was really just going gung ho! I tried to suppress my grunts, fearing looking too much of a wuss.

Still, it felt rejuvenating afterwards. I think.

On our last day, we again marched towards Siripanna Resort’s field. This time we weren’t wearing no costume, so I’m thinking, no more rice planting. What awaited us though was a table full of food. We were told that a group of Buddhist monks were coming down to the resort for a traditional alms giving ceremony.

The process was explained to us; it must be rice first, then the fruit, then etcetera, etcetera. I didn’t know these things can be so complicated!

As the brightly garbed monks started to line up to our table, I quickly glossed over on the arrangement of the food, a bit nervous that I might mess it up. It went pretty well, actually. I smiled at the monk afterwards, and we nodded our silent greetings of hellos; a really cool way to conclude our stay at Siripanna Resort.

Siripanna Villa Resort & Spa ►ROOM RATES
Address: 36 Rat Uthit Rd., Tambon Wat Ket, Amphur Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Contact Number: +66 (0) 5337-1999
Email: info@siripanna.com  
GPS Coordinates Map: 18.773719, 99.015101

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