Luxury Hotel @ Paddy Village

Which came first, the luxury hotel or the rice paddy?
I am constantly in search of an authentic experience when I travel, whether it is the perfectly tied muslin wrapping around the lemon at breakfast or arriving in Manhattan after dark and seeing the lights of the Chrysler Building and the spectacular skyline.
But my fascination with the genuine is more than a personal interest.

As the publisher of a guidebook for discerning travelers, I also have a professional obligation to expose a fake.
Sometimes, even I am fooled. On a recent visit to the Park Hyatt Chicago, I immediately noticed a large reproduction of Gerhard Richter’s “Piazza del Duomo” taking pride of place in the lobby.
Fake art is one of my pet peeves. Judging by the clientele present in the hotel that day, I doubted that any of them would even know what a Richter painting was.
But for me, this impostor was jarring and annoying. My irritation only escalated when I found that the cover of the welcome card in my room showed an image of the same faux painting in the foyer, as if it was the real thing.
I happened to have a meeting the next day at Hyatt’s corporate headquarters. One of the board members asked me how I liked the hotel’s Richter.
“The Richter?” I said incredulously.
“Yes,” he said. “It was supposed to be sent to Milan, but we decided to hang it in the Park Hyatt here in Chicago.”
It turns out the Richter was real. The Hyatt had bought it at an auction for $4 million but had to keep it in the country for tax reasons.
I had hoisted myself on my own petard.
Perhaps the worst “gotcha” happened in Thailand recently. My wife and I had been lured to the Regent Chiang Mai by brochures with spectacular photography of the destination.

The photographs were totally enticing: images of water buffalo, Thais in their flat hats bending over the rice paddies. It’s something few upscale hotels can offer - luxury and authenticity.
After we checked in, we called the concierge to arrange for a tour of what we considered one of the most exquisite farming techniques in the world.
Planting rice paddies is farming in miniature. Each paddy resembles three very slim, short leaves, delicately placed into the flooded soil. And there happened to be a paddy right outside the property.

My wife and I wanted to know how it was done, how the beauty and the symmetry of the paddies was sustained in row after long row.
“Your construction of the hotel is a wonder,” I told the concierge. “I can’t believe you managed to build a hotel in the middle of these paddies.”
The concierge looked up at me and paused before answering.
“Oh, no, sir,” he apologized. “The paddies are part of the landscaping here. I’m afraid everything was brought in. Including the water buffalo