A number of years ago, Praew and I went on vacation to a resort named Agalin in Loei, a province in the north of Thailand.

It was one of the most beautiful vacation experiences we ever had. The entire resort was several rai in size, and it was covered with amazing gardens. The rooms had an “English cottage” feel, and while there were long hedge rows and lanes between the cottages, the gardens seemed to be a bunch of passageways where each turn took you to another area with a different style and sense. There were hedge mazes, orchards, sculpture gardens, and hills to sit on and relax and read a book.

We went during the tourist low season and we were the only guests at the entire resort. Waking up in the morning, there was a mist covering the grounds, and walking around we had the whole place to ourselves except for the occasional gardener. It looked like it could be straight out of a Jane Austen novel. (The temperature still had the feel of the tropics, though.)

We always wanted to go back, although it is was far from airports and the like, we never found the time.

Well, the owner sold the resort and built out a garden restaurant near his home in Bangkok. The food was superb, but the garden alone made the trip worthwhile.

It is located in Samut Prakan near Sukhumvit 113:

While it might seem quite far those of us living on the Thonburi side of Bangkok, it is still only about 30 minutes by expressway from Rama 2 Rd.

We both ordered their special drinks. They come in a nice arrangement of syrup and soda that you mix together yourself allowing you to make it just the way you like it:

I ordered a prawn glass noodle pad thai wrapped in an egg that was one of the best upscale pad thais I’ve ever had:

Praew went with one of their specialty dishes. Chicken stewed in Thai herbs with a side of rice:

And the garden is always there when you look out the window:

But the high point of the trip was walking around the garden afterwards. Khun Amnart, the owner was kind enough to give us a tour, and the garden reminded me of all the things we liked about the resort. Every few meters you come to a turn, and every turn reveals another secluded spot with its own character and style.

Here are some pictures that don’t do enough justice to the feeling of just walking around:

You can see the way that the garden is built around the pond. In truth, our trip to Agalin resort all those years ago was one of the bigger inspirations for our own land development project, and I hope that once the construction is finished on our land, we will begin to build out gardens and plant more trees to get the feeling of green that Agalin resort had and the restaurant still has. I was quite honored that Khun Amnart took the time to show us around and am still inspired by what he built. And while Praew and my tastes tend to run in the “let the plants run wild” direction, Khun Amnart has a taste and style in his garden that I think anyone who visits will appreciate.

Come for the food, stay for the garden! 🙂

(And this is definitely a good date place, so I would recommend bringing a date.)