There is probably no other person in Southeast Asia’s luxury hotel scene with as much artistry (and clout) as Bill Bensley. The American’s creative mind is responsible for properties stretching from an emerald rice fields-turned-uber swanky resort in Chiang Mai to his own brand adrenalin-raising zipline resorts in Cambodia.
In recent years, Bangkok-based Bensley has brought to life a trainspotter’s dream hotel in Khao Yai, Thailand’s first national park. The area stretches over 2,000 square kilometres of (almost) pristine forested land, resembling—in vegetation and aspiration—an Asian version of California’s Napa Valley, down to its wineries.
“I love storytelling via hospitality as one has a captured audience. Some listen, some don’t. That is the beauty of it all! When I travel, I especially love to learn. So I try to teach guests something new and interesting in each and every one of my new creations. This beauty spot of forested mountains and waterfalls, just three hours from Bangkok, tells the tale of a bygone era. The era of King Rama V, when Khao Yai was a gateway for railroad travel to the northeast of Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia,” recalls Bensley of what is possibly his favourite project to date.
So as he mentions, at InterContinental Khao Yai Resort, the architect-landscaper-designer-interiors maestro has conjured into physicality a ‘trainscaped’ narrative of stationmaster Somsak and his universe of railcars, antique curios, five lakes with accompanying bevies of white and black swans, and a series of luxury-fuelled restaurants, bars and accommodations that are both Agatha Christie and Harry Potter, in equal measures.
The resort’s 45 rooms and 19 sumptuous railcar suites (with individual dipping pools) are tactilely symbolic of the golden industrial age. The ‘carriage’ rooms at InterContinental Khao Yai Resort are strikingly and wondrously true-to-type, down to the colour-coordinated cosy corners one invariably finds on trains. Cushy bedding and five-star hotel perks and fittings, including the ring dial cable telephones that teleport guests away from the wireless age are further touches of convincing “hey mom, I’m sleeping in a train hotel” authenticity.
The heritage rail cars, on the other hand, are 3D rejigs of Louis Vuitton advertising campaigns if they’d been shot in Asia. These are repurposed from actual railcars that Bensley and his team found across Thailand. Now, with names such as ‘Chiang Mai’ and ‘Vientiane’, these suites are decorated in deliberate colour schemes that veer from punchy to monochrome. The result? Accommodations that appeal to luxury-minded cosplay-slash-trainspotter guests (and their pets), ones who perhaps need a break from the same-y minimalist city chic or the barefoot luxury beach villas that Thailand has in profusion.
“This is the first time such a big hotel operator backs upcycling on such a big scale,” Bensley says. “I hope that more follow suit and follow the lesser tread path of major upcycling and recycling, as it brings huge appeal to any project and so much character. I would love to see an upcycled plane hotel, a grounded ship, or—and this is something I have been pitching for years—a 100% recycled hotel.”
But, guests soon discover that InterContinental Khao Yai Resort is much more than upcycled interior specialist-approved rail cars. Bensley presents an entire ecosystem of train-inspired experiences. This begins at the resort’s lobby, better known as Khun Somsak’s office where check-in is done. Meanwhile, at Somying’s Kitchen, the American diner-inspired Thai restaurant (with a menu of international crowd-pleasers), you eat off metallic plates as one would in the past century if you dined at the home of a stationmaster’s mother. Expect homestyle Thai dishes including stir-fried rice noodles prepared Nakhon Ratchasima-style, grilled whole chicken served with Korat-type papaya salad, along with caramelised Pak Chong-grown bananas served with palm sugar, coconut and dollops of mascarpone.
For dinner, proceedings are elevated several notches. Poirot, the resort’s fine dining French railcar establishment, is a literal time-travel capsule. Diners are transported to the rarified age when travelling by train was a glamour-tinge expedition, and not today’s hop-and-flop-on-your-seat-in trainers type of thing. Although inspired by Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, the elegant restaurant doesn’t (thankfully) extend the book’s tropes beyond its dark-panelled wood, luminous ceiling, and art deco-nuanced setting. The menu is a faithful recreation of classic French dishes with not a whiff of anything ‘fusion’, including onion soup, and beef burgundy—wagyu stewed in red wine, bacon, and served with a side of yummy pureed potatoes.
Over at Papillion, the adjacent three-carriage bar, post-prandial drinks such as a classy kir royal or a straight up Manhattan will surely be liquid sustenance for guests’ imagination of being onboard a locomotive chugging along somewhere between Istanbul and Venice. That is, until the next morning, when the swans on the lakes begin trumpeting as day breaks over Khao Yai.
