Day 1.
Bangkok is one of the biggest, noisiest and dirtiest of cities on the planet. It's inconvenient, annoying and hot. It is also undoubtedly one of the most charming and exciting. Each time I come here I get to see another side of life lead by the fun-loving, friendly Khon Krungthep. More often than not, despite their obvious political and economic difficulties of the oppressed or the very poor, I come away thinking theirs is generally a fairly good life and that they all have a good time of it. Maybe this says more about the fact that I'm just happy to be here, that I don't have to drive in this place and why so many other Farangs (people of European ancestry) decide this is the right place to relocate. La-la-la...
Most modern hotels in Bangkok, like modern airports and modern shopping malls throughout the world, are so boringly predictable and so unutterably dull and formulaic that the only way one can deduce if one has awoken in London, Dubai or Rio is from the pictures on the wall. Their only virtues are that their cleanliness is close to sterility.
The Baan Chantra Hotel, however, is not modern -writes he using one of the hotel's guest-only iMacs. It is a very modest venture situated on the busy Samsen Road (isn't every road in Bangkok busy?) in Dusit near the Old City. Quite simply, it is a charm: an old family house with creaky teak floorboards and where the owners have linked past and present, traveller's amenities with traditional Thai values –we feel like honoured guests!
So, before we have even taken one step outside we already know we were in the beautiful city of Little Bangkok, the city where the hard-working Khon Krungthep exude a genuine, smiley warmth and hospitality, where the tinny kitchen radio plays Simon Bates "Our Tune" (the theme from Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet, by the way) and where the green curry Thai breakfast may be as spicy as a spicy green curry can be! The city growls into life, but here is Little Bangkok -the intimate, soft underbelly.
Modesty is, of course, beguiling and despite being surrounded by the ubiquitous tin-roofed homes that characterise much of this City of Angels (see this Youtube on pronouncing the full ceremonial name –most just use Bangkok or Krung Thep), the owners of the Baan Chantra have done a wonderful job of staying in touch with the reality of this city's crazy life by being supremely self-assured and calm. Oh, I don't know -blame Buddhism or something...
It feels like we've been put up in someone's home (it's an official no-smoking hotel, cor-blimey!) and the lovely owner even got up at half-past midnight to welcome us personally -bless. One of the loveliest features are the dated, sepia photos on the stairway that show proud family moments now all gone. All-told, staying here's not a bad start.
