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The Racha, Racha Yai, Thailand The Oriental Bangkok, Thailand Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, CA The Peninsula Bangkok, Thailand Anantara Golden Triangle, Chiang Rai, Thailand Hotel
Madera Washington, DC The
Melrose Hotel Two
Bunch Palms Chitwa
Chitwa Game Lodge, Sabi Sand, South Africa Ananda-in
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Maison Arabe
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The Mandarin Oriental Bangkok
As it was, I stayed in a deluxe room in the Garden Wing. Frankly, I consider myself a connoisseur of hotel bed views, and this is a world-class view. From my bed on the open second floor of this split-level room, I could see the river through the two-storey windows of the living room.
Should you want to know more of the past, I suggest you settle into a commodious wicker chair under an Author’s Lounge palm. Sip a gin and bitter, read Maugham’s The Gentleman in the Parlour, and late in the afternoon, repair to the library for tea. "You must try another cream puff with your tea," the gracious Khun Ankana urges. (Khun followed by the first name is the proper form of address in Thailand.) Perhaps, because the hotel’s history, I was invited to tea by the Oriental’s grand dame herself, Guest Relations Consultant Ms. Ankana Kalantananda. Surrounded by the library’s antiques and books, tea arrives on a silver service along with a tiered plate of crustless sandwiches, fruited crumpets and sweets.
Khun Ankana is as interesting as the Oriental itself. Trained in Paris, she was the first Thai woman to enter the hotel business. Barbara Cartland, the prolific British romance novelist thought so as well, basing a character after her in one of the two novels she set at the Oriental. "Everyday at eleven, I went to her room to lace up her corset," said Khun Ankana who was in charge of caring for Ms. Cartland at the Oriental. In responding to Ms. Cartland’s questions during the lace up sessions, Khun Ankana told her of her life, thus becoming a character in the novel that is dedicated to her. Khun Ankana has pampered Oriental’s guests from Queens to commoners for nearly seventy years—just one of the people that make the Oriental Bangkok the Grand Dame she is. Kate Crawford January 2007 LINKS WITH ATTITUDE The
Mandarin Oriental Bangkok on the web. |
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