Bangkok

This hose seems to be for cleaning commode.

The spacious commode  at the Silver Gold Garden Hotel in Bangkok comes with a special feature: It has a gooseneck shower head. No, wait. I got it wrong. The shower comes with its own commode and a wash basin.

Let me try again. There's this room, 57 by 65 inches, with a slightly sunken tile floor that has a drain in one corner, and you do your business there: shave, poop and shower. Just remember to close the door.   Also remove the toilet paper; the squares tend to stick together after they get sprayed. Oh, and put the bath mat and towels outside the room so they stay dry, too. The round mirror is on hinges and tilts—short or tall, one size fits all.

Mirror, and shower system

Jay and I reached Bangkok from Seattle at midnight, Sunday morning, itching for some sleep after about 18 hours of flight time including a Tokyo  layover. I was at that part of the cycle where I couldn't sleep, so I ate the Pink Lady apple that had made it through Japan and Thai customs (Japan was a layover and Thailand didn't care) while I studied the accommodations. For 790 Thai Baht (about $24) I got a bedroom that was fairly pristine. There was only one mosquito, and it ended up smushed against the tile in the bathroom. From about five feet down, the entire bathroom was tile and in almost perfect condition. The bedroom floor was also tile and very clean. I laid down a large bath towel to do my back exercises the next morning and got a good close look at how clean the floor was while I was working my core muscles.

A remote operates the air conditioning. The bed is firm. The fridge is a Mitsubishi, 20 x 22 x 47"—much  larger  than those tiny beverage fridges you frequently see in stateside hotels.

There was a bookshelf that held the TV; a small writing table, and a armoire with a locking drawer that keeps honest people honest. The bed rolls and is comfortably firm. The TV shows are in French, English and Thai. I got glimpses of Toy Story, Aliens vs Predator; dancing girls—the kind of stuff you can find anywhere on late-night TV.

While I was figuring all this  out, it was 2 p.m. your time, ten hours earlier.

I rinsed my well-sweated safari shirt in the sink; wrung it out, finished my Tom Clancy mindless formula novel and went to bed. When I woke up the shirt was almost dry. My compression socks dried even faster. They had done yeoman service, leaving compression marks that showed they had kept my legs from swelling on the long trip. (But they didn't prevent the early-morning charlie horse a few hours later.)



The $24 fee included breakfast in a detached restaurant. They served a nice meal of toasted white bread (probably a holdover of French colonialism) with strawberry jam, a something-poached egg, salad, ham and some kind of ham wiener carved to look like a flower, mango juice and Lipton tea. (I came to Thailand for Lipton tea?!)

 I  had ambled over there after several hours sleep  and met a Danish couple who told me that they had been walking by the river, less than 100 feet away, and spotted a crocodile several feet long that also was looking for a meal. Well, it's Thailand. What would you expect?

Next to the restaurant was some lush vegetation that included a colorful orchid and a tree that dropped some fruit with a thunk right as I was walking under it. Lots of places for a croc to lay in wait for the cat  that was rolling lazily in front of the restaurant.

I went looking for the crocodile, but only found a woman kneeling by the river on a platform just above the water, where she was hand-washing her laundry.

It was time to amble back for the airport shuttle. Next stop: Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Love,
Robert

 Author’s note: This blog is produced independently of Sustainable Communities International. Observations, opinions, errors and omissions are solely the responsibility of the writer.

No croc in sight