JOE FROM SECURITY

Originally published in The Australian newspaper, June 2012.

I had heard about the very personal service at our grand old Bangkok hotel and this looked like yet another example of it…

On the morning of our first day in the intimidatingly huge and dense city, the hotel’s teakwood shuttle boat drops my wife, daughter and self at the nearby BTS Skytrain station, the best way to beat Bangkok’s notorious traffic. We are trying to find somewhere to buy tickets in amongst all the concrete pillars and tiny unmanned booths. Our open map, open mouths and openly confused expressions probably give us away as tourists so it’s not long before Joe from Hotel Security sidles up to us. He is a stocky man in his late forties who has an air of efficiency and authority; his buttoned-up white shirt is well-pressed and remarkably sweatless, considering how incredibly hot it is even at 10am. “I saw you at my hotel,” he explains before asking where we are headed. I explain that we want to take the Skytrain to Siam Station and visit the many highly air-conditioned malls concentrated around that part of Bangkok. “And we’re going to the maquarium!” my daughter, Sylvie, says, referring to Siam Ocean World, the huge aquatic wonderland located beneath the Siam Paragon mall.

Joe looks genuinely pained as he tells us that unfortunately that won’t be possible since the whole area around Siam Station is cordoned off because the much-revered Thai royal family will be shortly passing through. Maybe they’re going shopping or maybe they’re visiting the nearby Jim Thompson house for a touch of historic culture – Joe doesn’t say. He then takes our map and circles the hell out of a police station and draws a big rectangle around half of Bangkok, an area which he insists will be inaccessible until midday.

Joe from Hotel Security further explains that he himself is on his way to St Louis Hospital, around the corner, where his wife has given birth to twin boys just a few days earlier. We congratulate him on his good news, shaking hands and clapping him on the back. On our map he kindly and helpfully points destinations outside the forbidden zone, practically insisting that we get ourselves along to these places and buy ourselves some “typical Thai souvenirs”. My wife, Sally, mentions that she isn’t interested in cheap silk, fake gems or bad tailoring, and Joe seems a little offended. “What about the maquarium?” Sylvie asks. “Can we still go?”

Joe grimly shakes his head.

It is around this point in the conversation that I notice a long, thick scar across Joe’s throat, almost but not quite covered by the collar of his shirt. Also, he has begun to sweat. Sylvie has grown bored and is sitting on a upturned bucket among cigarette butts and rotting vegetables near a filthy canal, where two half-naked men are fishing. I find the whole scene fantastically exotic and intriguing but I can see how a wife’s and daughter’s perspective might differ. It’s safe to say that things have gone somewhat off-track…

With our plans foiled we don’t know what to do, where to go, or how to get to we-don’t-know-where. A short walk beneath the elevated Skytrain track takes us to Charoen Krung road where I flag down a pink taxi and point to one of the areas that helpful father of twins Joe from Hotel Security has circled. It’s a rack of streets off Rama V Rd called Soi 1, Soi 2, Soi 3 and Soi 4 but Sally overrides me in favour of Muji, Hermes and five million litres worth of sea creatures. I try to explain to the taxi driver that the area around Siam Station might be blocked off and suggest he use the two-way radio to get some more solid information. He doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about and about fifteen minutes later drops us at the Siam Paragon mall which is in no way cordoned off or even slightly inaccessible unless you count some not-very-heavy traffic.

I begin to have doubts about Joe’s story – even about the twins (especially about the twins) – and wonder if he’s receiving kickbacks from Sois 1-5 in return for dissuading people from habituating the “new” Bangkok , typified by the recent explosion of luxury malls, and keeping the “typical Thai souvenir” trade going. Or maybe he was just mistaken.

Back at the Mandarin Oriental nobody’s heard of Joe from Hotel Security and it seems pretty clear that we have been semi-duped by a “typical Thai scam” – as an actual member of hotel staff informs us – albeit one that’s quite harmless, even a little charming in its clumsy ineffectiveness.

Brilliantly positioned on the banks of the carp-infested Chao Phraya River, the Mandarin Oriental’s beautiful original building dates from 1876 and has hosted many renowned writers including Joseph Conrad, Tennessee Williams, Graham Greene and John Le Carre. The elegant hotel is spread over three wings and boasts almost 400 superbly appointed rooms as well as six restaurants.

For writerly reasons I am attracted to the Author’s Lounge, on the ground floor of the historical Authors’ Wing. I love its distinctly Colonial ambience and style, with white-washed rattan furniture, Siamese umbrellas and tall bamboo and palm trees standing on either side of a double staircase that leads up to the suites. It’s a great place to sit with a drink and wonder what Tennessee might have made of Joe from Hotel Security. Maybe “I have never depended on the kindness of strangers”.

The Australian newspaper.