The Oriental Hotel

My last night in Bangkok, I am irresistibly drawn back to the Oriental Hotel. The last time I spent the night here was in 1989. A passage from Alec Waugh’s 1969 biography was tucked into the blotter on the desk in my room:

“I arrived at sunset and it was completely dark by the time I was in my taxi. There was no familiar landmark that I could expect to recognize. My heart contracted. Whatever else had changed, I prayed that the Oriental would be the same. My prayer was granted. Eleven years before, when I had stayed in the old wing I had had a broad balcony with large chairs and a desk at which I had done my writing. I believe that the room I had then is now refurbished as a luxury suite, with Thai silk hangings. Yet the feel of The Oriental is still the same.”

“I loved my first floor room. I was working on a novel, the difficult early stage was past.” ©Alec Waugh, 1969

The next morning, I penned the following for the Bangkok entry for First Class Selections, the guidebook I wrote for British Airways in November of 1989:

“I love my first floor room. I’m in The Noel Coward Suite. It’s full of books of his lyrics, his memories, and autographed photographs inscribed to the Oriental he loved so much. The decor is as outrageously chic as he was. There are Thai silk hangings. I am working on my journal, the difficult early stage has passed.” ©Edward Carter, 1989

Not only has the Oriental inspired Waugh and Coward, Maugham and Gary, but also Conrad and Michener, Greene and le Carré. Virtually every person who writes about travel has voted the Oriental ‘The Best Hotel in the World.’ They praise the truly distinguished cuisine in each of its seven beautiful and diverse restaurants, rave about its fascinating shops, and describe its very comfortable rooms. I did too…in 1989.

The raves continue, but what most of today’s writers don’t talk about (I wonder who’s picking up the tab?) are the hoards of tourists that throng the terrace, overflow the swimming pool, and generally muck up the lobby.

When I dropped in last April, I decided that too many writers had written too much, and the resulting masses had destroyed the delicate balance between private sensibility and public accessibility. But I had to go there tonight; it might be my last evening in Bangkok for quite a while.

I ordered a Mai Tai in the venerable Bamboo Bar. The drink was not the same as that invented by Vic Bergeron at the original Trader Vic’s in San Francisco decades before, but it was good, and the bamboo-bound menu listing it and dozens of other wondrous concoctions is worth the visit itself. I convinced the waitress to let me buy it. (Things being the way they are developing there, it is probably now being touted as a “must have” souvenir.) The jazz fiddler and pianist were lively, but then a guy at the next table lit up a really smelly cigar, and I was outta there. Two drinks and one menu came to $75.00 including tax and service.

We dined at the far end of The Verandah, by request, and I had the best steak I have ever had—grain-fed Australian beef, really terrific! With two glasses of wine, dinner for two was $100 including 7% tax and 10% automatic, service charge.

The Oriental, tel: (2) 236-0400
355 rooms and 41 suites from $250.
email: bscorbkk@loxinfo.co.th,
http://www.mandarin-oriental.com/bangkok/contact.html

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