While I have visited The Oriental, Bangkok for more than 40 years, the last time I spent the night here was in December 1988. I was half-way through a 55,000-mile, around-the-world, 55-day odyssey to compile a guidebook of my favorite hotels for British Airways, to be seat-pocked in their first class sections for more than a year.

For the previous three weeks, nearly every night I had been in a different country, and a different hotel. My schedule had not allowed time for any of the hotels to do my rapidly accumulating laundry. But while tonight I was to be in the River Wing of The Oriental, and tomorrow was off to Amanpuri in Phuket, I would return to stay in The Oriental again the next night. Finally, time to get my laundry done!

I arrived from the airport late in the evening. I asked the lad who showed me to my room to wait a moment, so I could give him my laundry, and explained that I wouldn’t need it until the day after tomorrow when I would be staying in the Authors’ Wing. He took it with a smile.

An hour later as I was about ready to turn out the light, there was a knock on my door…same lad, bigger smile. He handed me several tissue-paper-wrapped boxes, each with an orchid where the ribbons met…my laundry. Amazing!

This was the entry for my British Airways Hotel Selection (published 1989)

The Oriental, Bangkok

“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 love my first floor room. I was working on a novel; the difficult early stage was past.” From Alec Waugh’s 1969 biography of Bangkok.

I love my first floor room. I’m in the Noël Coward Suite. It’s full of books of his lyrics, his memories, and autographed photographs inscribed to The Oriental he loved so much. The décor is as outrageously chic as he was. I am working on a hotel collection; the difficult early stage has past.

The Oriental has always inspired; not only Waugh and Coward, Maugham and Gary; but also Conrad and Michener, and Green and le Carré. In such company, my pen slows; the setting is mystical…

“Long after the sun set, there was a blood-red glow in the background, and the trees were silhouetted against it. They were lace-like and graceful and unreal. The picture reminded you of a Japanese print. At last the fitful breeze swayed them a little more and there sprang into sight, only to disappear again, a white star…” Somerset Maugham at The Oriental.

“Wide is the river and it flows swiftly, brown and moody, through the heart of the city. Both the old village and the old hotel seem to be watching the wild waters with the serene detachment of those who have survived so many worlds, so many passing ships. The city is Bangkok, the river’s name is Chao Phraya, and the hotel is The Oriental.” Romain Gary.

More recently, nearly 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.

But to me The Oriental isn’t an hotel at all. It’s a blithe spirit, materialized by the most beautiful and gentle people in the world, just to give them the opportunity to coddle one in unselfconscious affection and perfection. All else is irrelevant, each detail mundane; The Oriental simply couldn’t exist anywhere else.”

Travellers’ Advisory: If you want contemporary fixtures, request the River Wing rooms ending in 11 or 12. Otherwise, the suites in the original Authors’ Wing will make you feel positively Pulitzer!

(End of the entry)

When the book was published, I sent a note to the general manager, Mr. Wachtveitl, to give him a “heads-up.” He replied:

March 19, 1989

Signed
Kurt Wachtveitl
General Manager

[* Not part of Mr. Wachtveitl’s letter, but included for clarity: the hard-copy Letters from Abroad morphed onto the Internet as Edward Carter’s Travels.]

At the time, I thought, how charming, how polite, how humble…I wish I had met him.