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Radisson Blu Plaza, Bangkok

17/3/2017

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Radisson Blu Plaza Bangkok
I’m a little lost. You know like in the opening scene of the movie The Beach, when Leo DiCaprio arrives in Bangkok (“Good Time City!” – I’ve been here about 83 times and I have never heard anyone call it that. Nobody even calls it The Big Chilli, despite the best efforts of the Tourism Authority)?

Anyhoo, he’s wandering down Sukhumvit Road – probably between Sois 1 and 27, where I’m most familiar with and the market stall men are shouting things like “Hey, wanna see the waterfall?!” and “Hey, wanna stay in my hostel?!” and then it escalates quickly to “Hey, wanna drink snake blood?!” and again, I’ve never been asked that. He gets all disoriented and then drinks snake blood so to not look like a chicken. Some other stuff happens. I don't remember.

I’m like that, except kind of in reverse. I’ve stayed all up and down Sukhumvit Road in all manner of hotels but never in anywhere swanky. I’m wandering, dazed, around the Radisson Blu Plaza Bangkok in a Leo-like state of shock, and would have a similar reaction to the snake blood question if someone in the lobby shouted, “Hey, wanna drink a prosecco cocktail?!” I know I’m on Sukhumvit, I just didn’t know it could be…well….nice.

I’d bundled in with my rucksack and my wheezes from the very close Asok Sky Train Station, around the winding driveway (the hotel is tastefully set back from the tuk-tuk and cab-smoked main road) and the staff were very polite about not pointing out that I looked like I’d be more at home in a hostel. No prosecco cocktail or snake’s blood offered, but a glass of water and the most impressively swift luggage transfer up to my room (I hate giving my case away usually but I was too tired to resist).

The rooms don’t make a big song and dance about being in Thailand or a sense of place because that’s not really the wheelhouse of an international business-class hotel and it always feels a little weird when they go overboard. It’s a solid, European-style, clean room with an understated design. If you want Thai boxing gloves and black and white photos of river markets, there are plenty of other options, and if you forget where you are, go for a walk.

I preferred to go for a drink after all that talk of snake blood, and yes, they have a typically great rooftop bar 30 stories up (the website says this is “almost” sky-scraping – I’m not sure what the minimum height is for actual sky scraping). The wines are described as “juicy”, which is funny as well as technically very accurate. If beers are more your thing, they also have a tap room with the none-more-American name ‘Brewski’, as well as some standard-issue hotel cocktail nooks.

The two restaurants take on Tuscan and Chinese cuisine respectively, but sadly I only got to nose into the breakfast buffet, which was perfectly wonderful, as are most breakfast buffets at high-end hotels in Thailand. The best part is that have to cater for so many rich people from very different countries, so you can have a curry or dim sum with your coffee.

The best part is being in a place like this but also being able to trot out and walk into the noodles and chaos of Sukhumvit. I’ve grown up a little bit, but not so much that I don’t like to be in the thick of it and get shouted offers of waterfall tours (nobody really shouts about anything this innocent and pastoral on Sukhumvit Road).

As with most Bangkok hotels on this level – if you haven’t stayed in a prestige internationally-branded hotel chain, then this is the city to do it in. For the price of a night in a London Travelodge, you can live like a prince, and still walk to hang out with the paupers if that’s your thing. You know, like Leo. 

Rooms from around £120/$140 a night, though website offers have gone as low as just over £100. Go to the website HERE. 


Paul Oswell was a guest of Radisson Hotels. 
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W Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

18/1/2017

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One of the first things you notice when you travel to Asian cities is how the Western corporations appropriate the local traditions to fit in. Usually it’s about as culturally comfortable as your dad wearing a bindi to a Hindu wedding (this analogy doesn't work if your dad is Hindu, of course).

In Bangkok, for example, the sight of Ronald MacDonald doing his forced clownish bowing outside the Thai outposts of his fast food chain never fails to illicit a cringe though maybe it’s better than him not doing it? I don’t know, you’d have to ask a local, but to me it feels a bit ‘white person wearing native headdress to Coachella’.

Starwood are a western brand but with their much-vaunted W Bangkok hotel, they’ve thrown themselves into placing this property with so much gusto you can only really admire it. Just walking into the lobby is an assault in the senses as vivid Thai imagery comes at you from every corner.

Some 80,000 crystals have been employed in huge collages amid the black marble backdrop and foreground of young fashion bloggers looking at their phone screens. A tiger fights a phoenix for…reasons? A lobby nymph does explain it to me but my old ears lose the thread beneath the curated trip-hop.

The other motifs include Thai Boxing – lobby drinking booths are fashioned over traditional ringside fixtures – and pimped-up tuk-tuks with artistic light installations. It’s kind of spectaular, like if young people had a go at redesigning Vegas.

In London or New York, you’d expect a hefty dose of disdain from the staff if you didn’t show up wearing Skrillex t-shirt but that famed Thai hospitality shines on through and the staff can’t help but be wonderfully helpful.

If you’ve stayed at Ws before, you know what you’re in for with the rooms – bold colours and tech-forward amenities with local touches that double as expensive souvenirs. The latter in this case is a delightful pair of oversized gold Thai boxing gloves (no, YOU danced around in your pants pretending to be Rocky).

Adjusting the lighting and temperature from a tablet still feels wonderfully futuristic to me, but I remember Friendster, so what do I know? In short, the rooms are great and if W prices are a bit too rich for you in Western cities, then the value on parade in Thailand provides a good opportunity to try it out.

Across the forecourt is a very different experience altogether. Still part of the hotel, the House on Sathorn (named after the road/neighbourhood we’re in) is a painstakingly-restored 19th century mansion that was formerly the Russian embassy in Thailand. It has beautiful, wood-framed colonial dining rooms and an expansive courtyard which had a DJ even at 10am when I looked around (possibly still there from the night before).

The to-be-expected modern freebies are all present and correct – fast, free WiFi so that stream of Instagram updates of you wearing your pants and huge boxing gloves needn’t suffer, and a breakfast buffet (if you book that rate) that is on a par with the city’s most sumptuous. If you’re into that sort of thing, the spa is pretty space-age and the rooftop pool delivers what all rooftop pools are supposed to in terms of views and a feeling of quiet superiority.

The immediate neighbourhood, Sathorn, took a few years to catch up to the W but there should now be enough cafes, bars and restaurants to keep those fashion bloggers happy. I didn’t see a bowing Ronald MacDonald, but it’s probably just a matter of time.
 (PO)
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Anantara Siam, Bangkok 

27/9/2016

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The last time I was in an Anantara property, around a decade ago, I took a weird driving test. It was in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai, and out in the forest, the hotel’s resident elephant expert taught me as best he could how to steer an elephant, with – let’s be honest – mixed results.

Memories of that (very ethically run) camp came flooding back as I checked into the palatial Anantara Siam Bangkok, coinciding with a curiosity about the city credentials of a brand I’d previously associated with grand resorts.

The Anantara Siam Bangkok is downtown, but, like, posh downtown – that stretch round the corner from Chit Lom where the Royal Bangkok Sports Club is and the Grand Hyatt and the St Regis. You’re in a fairly average shopping district and then you turn down Ratchadamri Road and it’s like one of those lifestyle magazines you only see in airport lounges.

Its previous incarnation as the Four Seasons, and some characteristics remain, though it’s been given a colourful flourish. The marble staircase steals the show in the lobby, which is no small feat considering the silk murals and frescoed walls and intricate mandalas on the ceilings. I’d arrived pretty late, and though welcome drinks are never that much of a chore, I didn’t stand on ceremony and hightailed it up to my room.

The view would have to wait until morning, and I just had chance to note the solidly 5-star décor – nothing too flashy, marble bathroom, dark woods with colourful silk accents – before conking out.

The next morning, I got the full postcard treatment, the panoramic greenery of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club’s horse racing track and golf course spread out before the hotel, like you’d paid to be in a particularly nice stand. I’m a fan of the shambolic chaos of Bangkok, but this landscaped oasis works as well.

I went to stretch my legs, and was grateful for the handy smartphone that comes with the room, my jetlagged fug meaning my already poor sense of direction was way off kilter, the online maps helping me find my way back for further exploration of the property.

The hotel restaurants and shops are largely collected around a large indoor tropical garden, and it’s here that we can finally address the elephants in the room. They’re here largely due to an apparent partnership with the famed Jim Thompson House, hanging on the walls in colourful silks and carved from dark teak.

Thompson, of course, is the mysterious (he disappeared without a trace) importer/exporter of Thai artefacts and his empire is now a museum and retail one. The main court at the Siam enjoys a healthy dollop of his tasteful décor, some of the arcade walls also home to some striking contemporary local art.

It felt rude not to eat a lunch that Mr Thompson might have approved of, so despite the international dining options available, I lunched at the Spice Market. The deep-fried fish cakes and crab meat salad leading into a spicy sour orange curry, a new one on me but something I’ll look out for again.

​Sadly, that was the extent of my one-night stay and I left the Anantara without having taken any elephant driving tests, instead just wishing that I could steer my tuk-tuk driver with anything approaching the same amount of control. No, sir I do not want to drop in on your cousin’s jewel shop on the way to the next hotel, but thanks for offering…
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SO Sofitel, Bangkok

3/8/2016

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Fern (“Like the plant!”) the bartender/greeter wants to show me a magic trick. I’ve only been in the hotel for five minutes and it already seems like a notably sophisticated and grown-up environment, so a bit of child-like whimsy with the presentation of a welcome drink is unexpected. It’s just a few fruit juices that change colour as you add them in the glass, but she sells it as a childhood ritual that rural Thai children enjoy growing up and it’s an endearing touch to a usually-perfunctory moment.

I’d already been visually amused by the staff uniforms, colourfully fruity numbers across the board with pantaloons and wraps and tunics all looking like a crosspatch designed by Christian Lacroix. I find out very soon afterwards that the uniforms ARE in fact a Christian Lacroix creation, meaning he’s the one designer I can apparently pick out of a line-up. Must be all that Ad Fab watching.

SO Sofitel is a new brand, with only a handful of properties worldwide, and there’s a lot going on, conceptually. Indeed you could say SO many themes and layers that it takes a while for them to sink in.

The rooms are divided into three elements – Water, Earth and Metal – with Fire comprising the main restaurant. Four famous Thai designers were let loose on each, resulting in very distinct aesthetics, though the rooms in each element conform to the same basic designs.

My Water Room on the 22nd floor poked me in the nose with lemongrass as I entered, which wasn’t altogether an unpleasant experience (depending on how you feel about lemongrass, I guess). High-end Asian hotels love their glass bathroom walls, and this room is no exception. The reflective surfaces are arranged in such a way that it looks like there are six of you as you enter, which can be discombobulating the first few times.

A paperless ethos means that everything from hotel information to room service is accessed through the TV, though it doesn’t go as far as letting you order food this way – you still have to call your order in, though it’s reassuring to have it verbally confirmed. If hell exists, I imagine it’s probably waiting for a room service club sandwich that never actually arrives.

I casually loitered around the other elemental sections and they each had their own feel, from capacious atriums to wooden sculptures. Overall, the public spaces come across as evolved and urbane, and there’s a solemnity about the colours and shapes. It’s not overpowering, though, because the colourful staff in their flamboyant outfits are there as light relief – it’s a weird balancing act but somehow it works.

Bangkok does do rooftop bars exceptionally well, the bar here is no exception. There’s something about the undulations of the city – enough low rise to afford expansive views, but enough high rise to make it interesting. The bar at SO has the standard-issue glass walls around a terrace that is forever serenaded by the strains of ambient house. My New Orleans sensibilities recoiled at their French 75 cocktail being served in what was essentially a large test tube, but the scenery was suitably distracting.

Breakfast in the Red Oven restaurant is a suitably grand affair, if only because of the park view that lords over the proceedings. Buffets, even at high-end hotels, can often be clamorous affairs but something about the dynamics in this room result in a tranquil start to the morning. Perhaps the adults-only design means that less families book into the place, or maybe they screen the children and only accept the best behaved. 

​SO Sofitel balances its elements confidently – the unabashed masculinity of the colours and overall design is mocked by the cheekiness of the uniformed staff but like any good double act, it’s a pleasing mix. Levels of service stood out even for Thailand, with levels of friendliness as unexpected and satisfying as a barroom magic trick. 

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Eat, pray, laugh

6/6/2016

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Lydia Nicholas

​If you love the wind in your hair on tuk tuk tours but feel the need for a little more freedom and speed, Vespa Adventures allow you to hitch up behind an experienced driver who’ll weave through crowded streets or whiz through the countryside, all the while shouting interesting tidbits about the scenery. You’ll get a whole new perspective on the region.
 
There’s a tour of the temples which promises new angles and insights from the company’s founder, who was raised by the last Chief Monk of the complex. The After Dark Foodie Tour offers feasts of spiced wine, beer and bugs, exploration of night markets and an evening shrine.
 
I went on the Countryside Life tour, mixing the best of both worlds, including copious local food and ruined temples, as well as getting an idea of everyday local life. We started with a demonstration of the terrifying job of climbing trees to harvest palm wine (with tasting of said cold, sweet juice of course), then scootered away to a local market.

The crowd pouring past stalls overflowing with fresh fruit, veg and meat was both universal and totally local. The gossip and haggling and shouting could be in your home city half a world away, but the young monks in orange singing prayers for offerings are completely Cambodian. There was delicious caramalised sticky rice wrapped around tiny sweet bananas in banana leaves straight from the barbecue, rice and beans in bamboo, as well as sweet, hot, rice flour waffles...excuse me a second...
 
Ahem.
 
The tour whizzes through a monastery and onwards and upwards to a ruined temple on a wide open plain. Your guide, like mine, might try to explain what the place really is while you’re driving with the wind in your ears but it won’t work because if it sounds impossible, it is impossible.
 
The ruined temple, it turns out, stands in the centre of a reservoir, an enormous artificial lake that took 80 years to dig by hand. Something clicks as the guide explains that, “No, the edge is not over there where the grass and flowers begin, that's just the dry season bloom. No. That line, the treeline in the distance there. So far away that it’s just a grey smudge. There.”

Honestly, it somehow makes the scale of the Angkor complex, the thousands of years of cities and infrastructure and art feel more real, the hugeness of it all hitting home. Then it’s time to zoom off on the scooter over the wide flat basin, wrapping a scarf around your face to see more local cooking and crafts, many of which won’t have changed from the time the lake was dug.
 
In the evening we head to Phare, a Cambodian circus. It’s worth arriving early to see the beautiful art on sale and to watch the story of the organisation play out on screens above the stage as you find your seat.
 
Phare’s 20 year mission has been to offer education and employment in the arts for disadvantaged families and orphans while supporting the rebirth of Cambodian arts. It began as an arts school for children in Battambang, many of whom had fled or suffered under the Khmer Rouge, but the founders soon realised that for many of the children they served, physical arts were a more effective therapy than fine arts, and the circus was born. The fine art school is still going strong, as the piles of beautiful paintings on sale in the foyer will attest.
 
The circus itself is lively and fun - the one I saw had a single plot about a ghost terrorising a group of schoolboys, who seek all kinds of solutions for their inconvenient haunting problem. The plot gives space for lots of physical jokes, and for abrupt and refreshing changes of tone. The slow, elegant, luminescent rope work of the painted white ghost tumbling through the dark contrasts wonderfully with the brightly coloured, characterful schoolfriends’ haphazard attempts to defeat it using (and always eventually throwing, flipping over or balancing on) whatever school equipment comes to hand.
 
The design is colourful and fun, and the tricks build up gradually, from relatively simple juggling and flips interspersed with a lot of slapstick at the start to truly astonishing acrobatics near the close. Circus and physical arts fans won’t see anything they haven’t seen before, but it’s glorious fun, with great jokes and some jaw dropping moments, and costs a fraction of what you’ll pay for circus elsewhere in the world. Absolutely worth a visit, especially in the knowledge that you’re supporting an incredible organisation.
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Take it as a gibbon

2/6/2016

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Lydia Nicholas

Believe it or not, you can run out of patience for temples, even in Siem Reap.
 
The Flight of the Gibbon is advertised EVERYWHERE in town. It might seem impossible that repeated, controlled falling can justify the lavish reviews and the prices, but it does. It really does. Who wants to jump off of a wooden platform 60ft up a tree to zipline down a budget rope?

Flight of the Gibbon will pick you up from your hotel early for a solid few hours of quality ziplining. You’ll turn up expecting some ziplining, but it’s worth clarifying quite how much there is. They have you ziplining for so long that there’s a break in the middle for a drink and a doze in a treehouse.

After eight ziplines and multiple skybridges of swaying planks and rope bridges you’ll find coming down to earth a strange change. The excellent design keeps bringing new vistas and views; there are short, steep lines which take your breath away, and long ones where the guides will challenge anyone who seems to be getting the hang of it to try out dances and poses, to grab a selfie or to simply stare and take in the height, the view and the ocean of treetops that seem to stretch forever.
 
Even if you enjoy climbing or heights in other circumstances it’s hard to know how you’ll feel climbing up a solidly built but swaying spiral staircase up through a tree canopy haunted by the unplacable screams of birds and insects. Fortunately the guides are slick professionals when it comes to safety, keep the group moving fast without ever feeling rushed and are sensitive coaches and entertainers who know how to spot and manage a group’s fears with no hint of patronizing anyone.
 
On our way up they distracted one couple who were struggling by pointing out birds (what do you mean you can’t see it, it’s right there! No, there!) that we only realised at the top of the stairway didn’t exist. When a reviewer who will remain nameless found the view between the planks of a skybridge a bit much, the two guides got her involved in their mocking of one another’s hapless love lives.
 
The view of the forest from above is extraordinary, and Flight of the Gibbon is actively involved in improving it. In 2014, they released a pair of gibbons that they'll be proud to tell you have already had a baby - the first of all those released by conservationists that year. Pictures of mum and dad and growing baby gibbon adorn the site’s entrance.

Apparently, zipline groups spot the family every now and again, but even if you’re not one of the lucky ones, there’s a lot to see in the treetops and the day ends with a ten-minute walk through the forest during which guides will weave in facts about the smaller forest life into funny stories.
 
A huge, multi-course mid-afternoon lunch for the group is included, where you and the three to eight (group sizes vary) new friends you’ll have made that day can get your stories straight about exactly how brave you all were.

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Say wat?

1/6/2016

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Image by Sam Garza via Creative Commons
Lydia Nicholas

​A lot of things might bring you to Siem Reap. There are the bars selling beer for 50 cents for starters, and then of course, there's the temples. Oh, the temples.
 
It's difficult to do textual justice to the complexes that fill the jungle just 15 minutes’ tuk-tuk drive from downtown Siem Reap. You can tumble out of a restaurant serving cold beer for said 50 cents at 11am (which you will because somehow the beer takes the edge of the brutal heat better than coke can, don’t ask why) only to be standing under two hundred gigantic, ancient, and (importantly if you have been enjoying more than one of those cheap beers) wonderfully serene, gentle faces of the Buddha at Bayon temple by 11.15.
 
Angkor Wat itself is so enormous that it shocks you despite the ubiquity of its silhouette as you wander around the country. As you explore the halls and admire the extraordinary carvings of kings riding elephants into battle under a dozen parasols, the shock might even cause you to lose yourself, imagining the royal processions across the causeway and over the wide hand-dug moat.
 
The region’s more recent history makes itself known in the bullet holes peppering carvings of dancing girls at the temple entrance. Clambering through the hallways of the relatively tiny Banteay Srei, you will keep emerging from dark passageways into sun so bright that you’ll struggle to focus on the impossibly delicate carvings of complex myths that adorn every pillar and arch.
 
Finding Ta Prohm and Ta Som half-swallowed by jungle will feel similarly unreal. If they feel like a film set it might be in part because, as every local will keep telling you, Lara Croft was filmed there, but it is more likely because of the whole trope of movie jungle temples that they obviously inspired. Like someone coming to Lord of the Rings too old, having read literally any other fantasy of the last 50 years, you might swallow a comment on cliche.
 
A day with a good tour guide will confirm that most of the monuments, like so many all over the world and throughout history, essentially represent a series of generations of violent men struggling to outdo one another.

​A good guide - and every one I met or overheard was good - will point out details of a temple being rushed to be ready in time for a king’s funeral, describe how the terrace of Elephants would have been packed with ordinary people looking down on royal ceremonies and succeed in making the whole thing seem more human, and that's an essential factor when presented with something so wondrous.

(You can rent a tuk-tuk by yourself for the day for $15, or take a group tour in an air conditioned car with a knowledgeable, funny guide from Siem Reap Shuttle Tours
 for $13-15.)
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The Home of New Hopes

28/4/2015

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In January 2013, I was sent to Nepal for the weirdest of reasons: to write about conference facilities in Kathmandu. Yes, not exactly cutting edge reportage but whatever gets you there, right? I counted myself pretty lucky - I stayed in a plush hotel and by day, a couple of local guides took me around the Boudha Stupa (one of the holiest places in the world for Tibetan Buddhists) and Durbar Square  (pictured). Despite the mud tracks that sometime passed for roads in what is a capital city and the obvious disparity of wealth, it was hard not be charmed. There's a Monkey Temple. Who doesn't love monkey temples? Sociopaths, that's who. 

After almost a week (during which I'd also hopped over to Pokhara), I was desperate for some nightlife, and one evening, I headed to the expat neighbourhood of Thamel. After an astonishingly great Whiskey Sour in Maya Cocktail Bar, I wandered into a music venue, where some kids were playing feedback-heavy versions of 90s rock songs. I heard English voices across the table, introduced myself and was soon talking to, and trading shots with, Nicole Wick Thakuri. I found out that she was a Swiss national who had lived there for years, and ran an orphanage called Nawa Asha Ghira (NAG). As we said our goodnights, she asked if I'd like to see it the next day. It was too weird an offer to turn down. 

The next day, a rusty taxi lurched out into the suburbs, a side of the city outside the tourist bubble. My hangover was firing up nicely, and as we pulled up, I told the driver I wouldn't be long. Let's get this courtesy call over with and I'll be on my way. I wandered into the compound, dozens of children eyeing me, one of the older ones asking in perfect English if I needed help. I told her I was here to see Nicole and I was lead to an outlying building, the admin centre of the orphanage, where Nicole, with consumate timing, was making tea. 

I got the full story, unfettered by bad Nirvana covers in the background. Nicole had arrived here 20 years previously and started with 6 kids in her living room. Now there was a compound looking after hundreds of children who would otherwise live on the streets. Some lived here, some came for the day. If you're currently thinking that this woman is kind of amazing, then yes, you're right. I told Nicole I needed to tell the taxi driver I was going to be a while. 

Some of the older kids showed me round. They wore Manchester United shirts and were obsessed with football and music. It became clear that NAG was more than an orphanage. It was a legitimate school with trained teachers (and classrooms for everything from English to woodwork), it was a sporting academy (their basketball team was currently dominating the local kids' league), it was a shelter and a food bank and a social life for the city's worst off. 

Only they didn't seem downtrodden. Economically, yes, but here was a genuinely loving and creative and nurturing environment that - thanks to Nicole's self-professed weakness of not being able to turn away any stray (cats included) - had, over two decades, grown into a functional lifeline for the capital's street children, forming bands and gaining skills and not living in the slums. 

As far as I know, Nicole and the children survived the earthquake and are making the best of things in trying conditions, taking in as many people as they can, offering their neighbours use of their mobile phone chargers and sleeping under makeshift tents. All being well, they'll recover and life will resume, but as with most disasters, the poorest are hit the hardest. It's not my story to tell. I just got to hang out for a day and feel the optimism. Now they need money. You can do that HERE. Kathmandu needs you to keep on being that House of New Hope. 

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Everybody's stalkin' at me

24/2/2015

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Poor The Tourism Authority of Thailand. They should really stop trying to Make Social Media A Thing for them. After the perma-cringe of I Hate Thailand, which itself followed the bizarre and insulting Extreme Makeover promotion, they've maintained the weirdness levels of their sinister series of invitations with 'Love En Route'. 

To save you a click, this NINETEEN MINUTE promotional film follows the whacky adventures of an unnamed American who travels to Thailand to forget an unspecific episode of heartbreak, ostensibly by stalking a young Thai woman (Pim) and vaguely coercing her into the world's most awkward friendship. 

Yes, to get over what was presumably a recent failed episode of stalking in some other country, the American starts to show up at each place that Pim takes a photo of and via the medium of pained expressions and never leaving her alone, somehow worms his way into her affections. Because what unaccompanied female traveler doesn't like an entitled dreamer plotting her every move without her knowledge, tracking her down and then forcing her to talk about her emotions while staring at rural mist? 

Hey, ladies. THIS GUY: 
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He's like Christian Grey for the backpacking community - instead of bellying up to the DIY store you work at, he'll be peaking at you from behind a reclining Buddha and driving his Volkswagon Pass-Ag straight into that holiday you planned so that you could take time to yourself and reflect for one minute. Sadly, The Need With No Name has decided, from the soulless luxury of his Bangkok hotel room, that "It would be nice for us to meet". So that's THAT settled, then! 

Shifty Shades of Grey sets off in hot pursuit, finally tracking her down on a boat where he can sidle up to her in full SCUBA gear. He asks if she's the owner of the Instagram account (of course let's presume she speaks English, not sure what his plan was if she didn't) and EVEN IN THIS FANTASY WORLD she tells him she isn't because everyone on the project presumably feels we at least need a nod to how insanely creepy this is. He's got the wrong girl. Only he knows he hasn't because HE KNOWS EVERY LITTLE DETAIL ABOUT HER AND PROCEEDS TO PROVE IT. 
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Thai boat operator, one of he few voices of reason in this film, calls laughing boy out, but only so he can go on to defend himself. "I'm not a stalker. I'm a follower," he says, quickly avoiding eye contact. The first phrase he then asks the boat guy to teach him in Thai is, "Come with me and you will be safe". He practises this before invading her space, captive as she is on the boat.
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We then learn that Pim is on her trip to remember her recently dead sister. We see Pim pour her sister's ashes into the sea, and then enjoy 1.3 seconds of quiet spiritual reflection before Stalking Heads is all I FOUND PLACES FOR US TO GO FOR DINNER YOU HAVE TO COME WITH ME NOW YOU WILL BE SAFE. He then manipulates a crowd of street urchin children and says his outrageous Thai lie about not flirting. Art direction note: Pim has now taken to wearing an Iron Mike Tyson t-shirt, a particularly worrying development. By monopolising the only car out of town, our hero has in any case inserted himself into Pim's journey of remembrance, and off they go hiking, presumably because at this point it's way too tiring to resist. 
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En route they stare into rural mist and Pim cries about her sister and he casually takes a surreptitious photo of her crying. But it's OK because NOW YOU WILL BE SAFE and Pim realises she is in love while a baby elephant holds her selfie stick. Our hero's feelings are more ambiguous, though he does say he thanks Pim for helping him fall in love with Thailand, so she does get SOME credit. Just time for a balloon ride before the denouement of awkward at Bangkok Airport, where Pim's feelings are winkled out with the now-customary levels of tact.  
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Put on the spot, Pim Cup impressively stays strong and keeps her counsel for all of a minute before blabbing it all out in a soppy Instagram post to give our now-departing Man in a Cyan Star Trek Uniform justification for the entire trip, and presumably the impetus to go ahead and stalk other vulnerable women the world over. How do you say COME WITH ME NOW YOU WILL BE SAFE in every language, Google? 
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I kind of hate I Hate Thailand

5/12/2014

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Full disclosure: I really like Thailand.

I’ve travelled there around 20 times, seen most of the country, had some really memorable experiences and promoted it in countless travel features as somewhere I recommend – I was even recognised by the Thai government for doing so and was given an award which, though relentlessly waning in relevance, is something I’m still proud of.

This video recently came out. It has been hailed as a masterstroke of reverse psychology and an impressively inventive way for travel marketing to go viral. It’s also been panned as cheesy, patronising and portraying a fantasy world.

Shall we watch?:

I think it’s important to remember the context here. Thailand is a recently-converted military dictatorship. It’s fine, I think, to approach this with a ‘love this country, hate this nation’ attitude, but the sub-plot is worth bearing in mind. The country is also reeling from the murders of two young backpackers – a horrific incident that was bound to have implications for tourism there.

Context aside, I think it’s a tweak heavy handed, especially considering the agency (and the Tourism Authority of Thailand) chose to film it in a way that looks as if they’re trying to disguise the source of the film. I’m sure they hoped that some people would watch it and think it was user-generated (no obvious branding/logos/mystical eastern soundtrack).

Fair play: for an official tourism video, it actually IS pretty edgy. How many promotional films for destinations have you seen where the lead guy says the word “fucking” in the first 30 seconds and then goes posh-white-boy raggo on a passing taxi with a brick? Is this a sly dig at foreigners by the Thai authorities (because if so it’s probably a fair one – I’ve been to Phuket and it’s essentially Magaluf in the tropics).

There are obvious signs – the way the camera switched to a third person filming things, the dodgy acting, the fairytale romance – but it’s a laudable attempt, especially considering the absolute excrement that tourist boards have been cinematically responsible for.

I think my problem with it is more with the subtle messages. Reddit user astronoob summarises the narratives of the video with impressive accuracy:

“I hate Thailand because I didn't keep track of my belongings! I love Thailand because I showed this hot woman my dick and now we're totally having sex!”

Hey, at first that island girl is all straw-haired and rural-looking (giveaway cheekbones, mind), and then in the end she’s made up and chic and talks great English and kicks water at his camera like a true Manic Pixie Dream Girl. James don’t care she endangered his GoPro! He’s in love!

“I lived the way of the Buddhist.” Ehhhhhhh….let’s just leave that there. 

And I’m not sure how James is staying there for two years in what looks like a pretty casual teaching job. I might be wrong but I think those freshly-tightened visa laws make that a logistical impossibility (unless he’s building up to burning that passport as he looks at it wistfully).

Is it even possible to promote an entire country without inherent cheesiness? Maybe it’s not. Maybe James and the Giant Beach is as good as it gets. At least there’s some curse words.

I love Thailand. I lost my bag there once. I just kind of hated myself for being an idiot. I’m glad it worked out differently for James, though. He seems like the kind of entitled farang things WOULD work out like that for. Now he's a Buddhist, I'm sure he sees things this way, too. We can only hope.
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