Still, I get the feeling, as I roll over the final stretch of concrete,
that this particular snake still plays host to a writhing underbelly of
counter-culture; a chattering old Siam with its steaming street food
counters, hustle and bustle, betting and buns. But, it’s only a feeling
and I wonder if the new is finally beginning to tarmac over the old.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve visited Bangkok.
Certainly, more than I’ve fingers and, in all probability, I’m
exhausting my toes. It’s a city of stunning and stark contrast, yet
a city where I’ve partied with men’s magazines at the zenith of lad
culture, wooed my wife with its culinary delights, taken my daughter
on her first eye-popping shopping extravaganza and sweated through
a dozen fetid monsoon meetings. Yet, still, those self-same toes have
barely set foot on the same streets twice.
It seems I can strike off one more pinky as my home for the next
few days is to be the recently opened Riverside AVANI, a property
slightly down river and away from the clutch of usual five-star
suspects that loom over Sathorn. I arrive early on a night flight,
cotton wool fuzzy and a few hours out of kilter, so aside from a gentle
dawn chorus of ‘saw-wah-dee-khab’ my entrance is unassuming and
more than a little sleepy.
That is, until the lift door pings open onto the property’s eleventh
floor reception area and I’m greeted by a cacophony of light, a three
storey, triple aspect cathedral of glass that stares back down at
the city. It’s an eye-opener, a double shot espresso of visual cortex
overload. Suddenly, I’m not so sleepy at all.
Not that I haven’t seen the city from up in the Gods before.
A decade back, Thai friends stole me away to the rooftops of the
Banyan Tree and the Lebua State Tower in a bid to remove any
third-world prejudice that I might foster. I didn’t and I was truly
impressed, but there’s something tangible about this view; it’s a
sweeping, panoramic view of the Chao Phraya River, but up close and
personal. Not quite so distant in the firmament.
A working river where the sweat of the industrious intermingles
with the flashes of cameras and tourists in seated, chugging
riverboats. Where flotillas of tiny, straining tugs push unending black
flat containers of rice and god knows what else, up and down the 370
kilometres of the river. Where the skin and bone of Long-tail boats
flit up and down like dragonflies, buzzing the shore and stinging the
banks with their rainbow hulls.
It’s life. Life on the river, and it’s wrapped around the reception,
Pantry coffee shop and Skyline restaurant like a brown silk scarf
endlessly flapping from end to end.
Fortunately, the same is true of my room and I’m treated to the
same enviable view of the city from dusk until dawn. Again, it’s
glass that dominates from floor to ceiling—space and light being a
theme that echoes the entire architectural philosophy of every floor
of the property.I’VE A CONFESSION TO MAKE:
A LOT OF CITIES START TO
BORE ME AFTER A COUPLE
OF DAYS. CABIN FEVER SETS
IN AND I GET ITCHY FEET.
NOT SO BANGKOK. I STILL
GET THE SAME LIME TWIST,
GIN ‘N’ TONIC TINGLE OF
EXCITEMENT THROUGH MY
STOMACH AS THE PLANE
KISSES THE TARMAC
AND THE GREEN BROWN
SHIMMER OF PADDY
FIELDS DISAPPEARS FROM
VIEW, BEHIND SERIOUS
AIRPORT BUILDINGS.
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