i've hesitated for quite a while to give my feelings on this...but to save someone from making what was for us, a huge mistake, i'll chime in here.

we had booked seven nights at the mo last october as the last part of our month in thailand. it was to be the highlight of our trip and we were very much looking forward to it.

after the first night, my husband sought out the general manager and was able to get him to release us from our stay. i hiked over to the library to use the free internet and found a reference to the chedi here on flyertalk. that post saved our holiday.

we moved to the chedi and had a perfectly wonderful experience. i would go to the chedi again tomorrow (hubby is still talking about the free mini bar, i was thrilled by the free laundry). i would not go to the mo again on someone else's dollar. it wasn't about the money.

for us, the mo was like disneyland...too manicured, too perfect, too fake. sitting in our upgraded villa watching the water buffalo and the guys dressed in coolie outfits work the rice paddy was somehow insulting and embarrassing to me. yes, they were just uniforms, but somehow...it didn't work for me.

the architecture was wonderful. the poorly dressed people from the tour bus wandering the grounds taking pictures while we were there were not. i suspect the folks were staying there, they were from the convention that was there during our stay. (lovely welcome, we saw the 'welcome bayer 2006' sign as we pulled up. i have nothing against convention hotels, or high end resort hotels, but one hotel can't serve both masters.)

the thai food at the restaurant on the mo grounds was lacking in originality and flavor. maybe we just ordered wrong? we like food thai spicy. the bartender couldn't make a decent martini for mr kk--important if you're a high end resort hotel catering to farang, right?

because of the rice paddies, the mosquitos were rampant.

the floor on our villa was dirty, which was weird. the bathroom was spacious and lovely...the outdoor shower was sexy, but unusable due to mosquitos. the design was odd, i thought, in that we had an upstairs and a downstairs, but you had to leave the room and go outside to go downstairs to the sitting room/kitchen...so you had to get dressed to do that. would probably be a great layout if you had kids or others sleeping in the other room, but if you wanted to use all the space for yourself it kind of killed the mood to have to get dressed to go to the other part of 'your' villa. also, the kitchen had no plates or anything other than glasses when we were there...it's either a kitchen or it isn't!

because so many people are sooo happy with the mo, i haven't wanted to rock the boat. i'm not saying it's a terrible place, but it was not a good place for us. we also like to be part of the local culture, and there was no easy way to do that from the mo's location. you could only get a cab with a large surcharge, sanctioned by the guys working the desk, and there wasn't much to walk to from the hotel. my thai is too limited to do any haggling over the phone. we didn't like the sterilized shops on the grounds. (they were fine, but not as the only walkable option.)

for some reason, i was incredibly insulted that at the rate were paying, the hotel wanted an additional $20 or so a day for internet access. (this is why the free stuff at the chedi was so exciting. in addition to what i mentioned above, our rate came with two free bottles of wine, a dinner at the restaurant, a separate tapas evening at the restaurant and a 'lovers bath' spa treatment.)

i should add that for this vacation, money was no object. but for us, value for money was.

the chedi and the mandarin oriental are two completely different hotels, theoretically catering to two different sorts of clients. the chedi is a city hotel, it's in the city, and you hear street noise. it's not as sanitized, and it's not billed as exclusive. it was, for us, a much better fit, although we originally wanted the exclusivity the mandarin oriental promised...but couldn't really deliver.

i haven't stayed there, but if i was looking for exclusive in that area, i might try the four seasons chiang rai tented camp, which if memory serves is a few hours away.

i have a lot of pics of the chedi and some i took at the mo if anyone wants to pm me.