This article was written by Veronica Hackethal

Grand Palace Photos by Veronica Hackethal

The legendary Bangkok humidity makes my clothes cling to my skin like flypaper and gnarls my hair into a halo of frizz.  The heat is victorious.  I am seeking refuge in The Oriental Hotel's romantic charm, aided by the past literary greats who have stayed here. The roster reads like a "who's who" of writers looking East for inspiration:  W. Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, James Michener, Paul Theroux, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Barbara Cartland, Alexander Fleming, John Steinbeck, and Thai author Kukrit Pramoj.  

In the Author's Lounge, I melt into hand-painted cushions covering delicate white rattan chairs, and immediately become self conscious.  For five days, I have been paying homage to the Porcelain God and downing shots of Gastro-Bismol (Thailand's answer to Pepto-Bismol, equally as ineffective).  This is the legacy of hastily eaten street food in China Town.  I had watched a woman immerse batch after batch of dumplings into a vat of boiling water. Overcome by curiosity, I had ignored my better judgment.  Now sitting in Bangkok's bastion of colonial luxury, a perennial favorite for "world's best hotel" in Conde Naste and Travel and Leisure, I shush the portable cacophony in my belly. Heads of state have stayed here:  Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, Vaclav Havel, the King and Queen of Sweden (and Michael Jackson, whose reign over Neverland may not count, but he stayed here, too.)  It took the literary talents of W. Somerset Maugham to make a big deal out of falling sick at The Oriental.  He nearly died of malaria here in 1923, and wrote, "I was almost evicted from The Oriental because the manager did not want me to ruin her business by dying in one of her rooms."

The Oriental used to be (still is, if you've got the money) the place to stay in Bangkok.  Of course the place is classy, but for many years it was also the only hotel in the city.  Thailand's haunting mystique began at least in 1688 when farang (foreigners, usually hairy), were expelled.  For one hundred forty years, the Kingdom of Siam was off-limits to foreigners, whence originated the western obsession with cracking its mystery.  Desire springs from forbidden fruit.  In the nineteenth century, when westerners were allowed back into Bangkok, the city was not equipped for visitors.  Seamen slept on board their ships because there were no restaurants, bars, or hotels.  In 1862 when Anna Leonowens began her teaching career in Bangkok, there were no hotels "suitable for a lady."  Leonowens' experiences inspired the 1956 musical The King and I.

No one knows exactly when The Oriental first opened.  The earliest record of a hotel situated along the Chao Praya river and named The Oriental comes from an inauspicious mention in the 1865 Bangkok Record.  It describes the hotel's destruction in a fire, but afterward, like a phoenix, The Oriental rose from the flames.  In 1885 an Italian architect was commissioned to build a grand structure, which today is the hotel's oldest section, known as the Author's Wing.  In 1976 the management put to rest the mystery over the hotel's age and officially declared its founding year to be 1876. 

In the nineteenth century, traveling to Siam meant either a long ship ride or an overland journey, both more strenuous than my five days of intestinal chaos.  At the end of the road, The Oriental offered travel-weary Europeans reminders of home:  Viennese orchestra, musical dinners, even a French chef.  Bangkok, criss-crossed by klongs (waterways) was becoming known as the Venice of the East.  The Oriental soon became one of the Grand Hotels of the world.  In 1911 Italian journalist Salvatore Besso wrote, "We reached Bangkok amid rain, thunder and lightening. The landing at the Oriental hotel in the darkness reminded me of the Royal Garden at Venice." 

I order afternoon tea hoping that the talent of authors past will rub off on me. I have the hope of bumping into a Pulitzer (Joseph Pulitzer III also stayed here.)  In recent years, the management has capitalized on the hotel's literary history by dedicating the Author's Lounge and the Author's Wing to its famous guests.  Being close to greatness is not without a price.  For $1500 USD a night, you can stay in the Joseph Conrad suite, complete with its own butler.  At night, quotations from famous authors about the wonders of sleep await guests on their pillows.

The waiter serves the tea with a gentle flourish.  I am thankful to Thai hospitality which seems to make him oblivious to my unruly appearance.  I fidget in my new cotton skirt, the waist taut over my rebellious bowels. Earlier, I had wandered within the maze of Siam Square, where in one stall a woman examined my 5'10 frame and boasted cheerfully, "We have big size."  I had never felt so gargantuan.  She pulled out a skirt patterned in sunflowers, which fit my new tropical-bacteria-induced ballerina's figure.  

The whirl of the last few days begins to settle like the leaves in my teapot.  The drivers, the traffic, the Thai brides forced to marry Western men.  It seems all too much.

It is then that The Oriental's surroundings creep into my consciousness, comforting my body and mind. Imagination takes over.  In the lounge, ghosts of writers past sit busily scribbling into journals.  Under the banana palm, Noel Coward lounges in a polka dotted silk dressing gown, writing, "There is a terrace overlooking the swift river where we have drinks every evening watching the liver-colored water swirling by and tiny steam tugs hauling rows of barges upriver against the tide.  It is a lovely place and I am fonder of it than ever." 

Hunched in the shade of Siamese umbrellas, John Le Carre and Graham Greene hatch conspiracy theories.  James Michener hides in the corner, studiously reading a history book with his typewriter close at hand (he sometimes spent 12-15 hours per day for weeks on end at the typewriter).  Barbara Cartland, author of 723 romance novels, makes a grand entrance in her signature pink frilly dress and heavy makeup.  In the nearby Bamboo Bar sits the swashbuckling Joseph Conrad.  In 1888, he showed up in Bangkok to take command of the ship Otago, which may have provided inspiration for "Lord Jim."  As he waited for his crew to recover from illness, Conrad spent many a night in The Oriental's bar.  He wrote, "We talked of wrecks, of short rations and heroism . . . and now and then falling silent altogether we gazed at the sites of the river."

In a malarial fever on a divan at The Oriental, a shaky W. Somerset Maugham wrote: "And because I had nothing to do except look at the river and enjoy the weakness that held me blissfully to my chair, I invented a fairy-story." 

For a moment my belly falls silent, and it dawns on me that the creative allure of The Oriental lays in its location along the Chao Praya.  "Maenam Chao Praya" means "mother of all waters" in Thai, and perhaps it could mean "mother of creativity."  These days the river is cement gray, murky, polluted, and slow flowing.  Its very opacity inspires imagination:  anything could lie in its depths.  On its banks lie golden temples next to bungalows on stilts.  Scrawny children play in its waters.  Its shores provide a calm, cool breeze, a gentle respite from Bangkok's humid hustle and bustle. 

Sitting next to the Chao Praya in the shelter of The Oriental, I begin to recover, which is when the questioning starts.  Chronicling the end of colonialism in Southeast Asia, W. Somerset Maugham wrote about the creative allure and mystique of the East, "I was in Bangkok.  It is impossible to consider these populous modern cities of the East without a certain malaise.  Painters have not painted them.  No poets, transfiguring dead bricks and mortar with their divine nostalgia, have given them a tremulous nostalgia not their own . . . But when you leave them it is with a feeling that you have missed something and you cannot help thinking that they have some secret that they have kept from you."

Perhaps it is this mystery that keeps writers coming back for more. 

Revived by the tea and the air conditioning, I leave The Oriental and after a time find myself along a semi-deserted patch of the river.  I round a corner and within a few feet of me a naked man bathes in the water.  He waves to me and holds up a small black turtle.  He seems not at all self-conscious about his nudity.  The turtle's neck stretches long and reptilian.  I hurry away.  To this day, this image confuses me, as do others from Bangkok.  Yet I return to them in my mind, wanting to know more.   

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