Our team just completed a team building project in RarinJinda Welless Spa Resort Hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We will highly recommend it for small group sizes of 30 pax and below if you are looking at somewhere exotic for your team building retreat.
Chiang Mai is about 1 hours flight up north of Bangkok. if you are flying direct from Silk Air, the flight should be about 2 hours plus. RarinJinda Resort is a small boutique hotel, retrofitted from a 140 year old Thai teak wood home. As with the small boutique hotel, Anantara Resort in Koh Samui that we featured some time back, you will be amazed at the artistic talent of Thai designers.
The small boutique hotel has excellent service and the staff are very accommodating. Most of them speak simple english and are more than willing to go out of their way to help their guests. One good example is that we informed them to remove all the tables during one of the tea breaks of the participants and they were managed to bring in about 6 staff to get it done in about 5 mins.
The rooms in the hotel are huge and tastefully designed, with the balcony over looking the pool. There toilets are also larger than most hotels with windows that open out to give you a full view of the bedroom and television set.
The only short coming is that seminar room in the hotel can accommodate about 5 banquet tables comfortably with some spaces at the front and back of the room. There are also not much open space within the resort itself, which means your teambuilding activities have to be either entirely withing the function area of outside of the resort.
If you are thinking outdoor team building activities, yes, we can do our popular synergy race around the resort at various locations if you prefer the outdoors. We can also get the participants to visit the day market, which is about 5 mins away on foot. You’ve got to try the baked rice sausage (refere to close up of picture below) - it is made with rice and some interesting seasoning, which gives it a slightly sour taste and it is served pipping hot, I loved it!
Rarinjinda Resort is also strategically located within walking distance from the Night Market in Chiang Mai (10 mins walk), where there are countless shops selling tshirts, thai handicrafts, modern hand crafted gifts and human photocopiers (talented artists who can duplicate &/or enlarge your favourite photos into large art pieces in charcoal or paint). If you take the “tuk tuk” taxi, it should cost only about 40 to 50 Bhat (roughly $2 to $2.50) to get to the Night Market. The “tuk tuk” can squeeze about 3 average size adults or 2 large males.
The street food in Chiang Mai is also similar to that of Bangkok, a huge bowl of thai beef noodles costs about S$2. There are also many interesting food & snacks at the night market “food court” as well as near the market across the bridge, on the other side of the Ping River.
If eating street food is not your cup of tea, you MUST try out this nice restaurant that is right outside of the Rarinjinda Resort - The Good View Bar & Restaurant. It is the hotel with good view, nice designs, and good food. It is a large restaurnat that can accommodate about 100 people or more. It serves fresh Sashimi and international, Thai cuisine, European cuisine, and Japanese cuisine. Did we mention cheap and fresh Sashimi?
It’s menu is very creative and tastefully prepared, some food pictures can be seen here (mostly taken from my handphone). The seafood were very fresh and we found the deep friend morning glory with spicy seafood sauce to be extremely interesting, we love that sauce!!! There is also the Dragon Fruit, Pineapple & orange smoothie that is worth trying.
The food is so appealing in terms of presentation and taste that we ate at the2 nights in a row. The bill for both nights is around S$60 per night. The view at the restaurant - as the name suggests - is rather nice, as it overlooks the Ping River. The restaurant also clevery uses candle lamps on all it’s tables and somehow, combined with the river in the backdrop and music from the live band just gives a relaxing feeling not found elsewhere. Unfortunately, my camera was meant primarily for the team building session so it was not designed to take the captivating night scenery at the restaurant. Not to worry though, just search for “good view restaurant Chiang Mai” and you should find it on the web. We have enclosed a shot of the door and another of the logo for your reference, we also read on their website that they have a branch in Bangkok, along Chao Phraya River! We’ll definitely pop by the next time we go to Bangkok.
Other interesting pictures can be found here:
All and all, RarinJinda Wellness Spa Resort is a great location if you are looking at a short getaway and be sure to book early for the venue and the flights to avoid disappointment. Room rates are at about $200+ per night, it includes daily breakfast.
