Orientalism

I was running late for lunch at the Oriental Hotel---where Jack and Jane were staying and Joe was to meet me and them at one o'clock yesterday---so I hired a moto guy to take me there. Moto taxis are the speediest way to get around Bangkok. You hop on a motorcycle behind the driver and hang onto a rod down behind your seat. The driver is helmeted and he carries a helmet for passengers. The negotiated fare is about the same as car taxis, but motos are quicker because the drivers weave in and out of traffic, rhumba-ing between cars stalled at the lengthy red lights. It feels perilous but exciting too. And it works---you don't constantly see moto riders hurtling through the air and landing on their skulls---though it's not for everyone. Farangs rarely use motos, and when I arrived at the Oriental the guard waved us to a halt at the bottom of the driveway, as if I might be one of the bellhops arriving for work.

Jane told us the Oriental was the best hotel she ever stayed at. The modern tower of rooms is architecturally undistinguished on the outside, seventies cement-and-glass-box, but inside it's another story. It's all polished marble and hand-carved teak and flowers everywhere. Some of the service is unnecessary. Young people dressed like characters from The King and I grin, bow, saw-wah-dee and wai you mercilessly as you come through the front door. But Jane said the actual useful service in the hotel was unfailingly thoughtful and efficient. Thais are good at service. It's in their feudal-society DNA going way back, and they do it easily for foreigners since Thailand was never colonized and there are no lingering resentments. Plus, they tend to be genuinely nice.

It was too hot to eat out on the terrace restaurant by the Chao Phrya river, so we ate inside in cool comfort and watched the diners outside shift in their chairs and sweat. The Thai dishes we had were authentic and hadn't been "adapted" for Western tastes, though nearly all the diners were farangs. Every time one of the staff performed a service---replacing placemats that had a few crumbs on them, bringing us our mango with sticky rice dessert---they smiled at us. These smiles looked genuine---Thais really do smile easily---though at the Oriental, where the training must be ferocious, sometimes the grins fall off the Thais' faces a bit prematurely as they turn away. I am guessing that on some days these people must come to work just wanting to scream. They are Buddhists, yes, but they are also human.

After lunch we walked over and took a look at the "author's wing." This is what remains of the original Victorian-era hotel. It is possible at great expense to sleep in a room allegedly once occupied by Maugham, Coward, Gore Vidal or James Michener. (On your toes, Jeopardy fans!) The old building has been gotten at by a "decorator," so there's no sense that anybody ever had malaria here. The quiet, out of the way "reading room" does contain actual books. There are titles from Conrad to Paul Theroux, though the first book you encounter upon entering the room is Sidney Sheldon's Nothing Lasts Forever.

As Joe and I exited the hotel at the main front door, one of the Rodgers and Hammerstein characters spoke to us. "Kah" is a Thai word that you add at the end of a salutation to make it more polite, as in "Saw-wah-dee (hello) kah." (Men add Kahp instead of kah.) This young woman grinned at us and said---I swear this is true--"Have a nice day kah."

Gluttons that we are---and guests of Jane, bless her heart---we returned to the Oriental for dinner at 7:30. This time we were ferried across the river on the hotel's own boat---with its winged teak roof, it looked like a Siamese royal barge---and dined on the terrace of the hotel's traditional Thai restaurant. We sat under a full moon as the long-tailed boats sailed by and the Bangkok skyline glittered. The curries were superb---prawns with pineapple, duck red curry, vegetable green curry, a zingy Massaman---and the mango with coconut milk was just as luscious. Jane was in good shape, as were we, after her medical adventures, and it was perfectly lovely evening for the spoiled brats (i.e., Joe and me) and Jane and Jack too.

The slightly swishy young hotel doorman who hailed a cab for Joe and me at 10:30 looked at our Pinnacle Hotel taxi card and laughed. I said, "Yes, it's true, we don't belong here," and he chortled again and smiled.