Well Hotel Bangkok - It’s your lifestyle

Thailand-based hotel management company, Well Hotels & Resorts, opened the first of its four properties in Bangkok in late 2015 with a focus on lifestyle and wellness. Located in the heart of Bangkok on Sukhumvit 20, just a short walk to shopping at either EmQuarter or Terminal 21 and BTS Asok and MRT Sukhumvit.

With just 235 4-star rooms and suites across five categories contained in two low-rise buildings, Well Hotel is almost boutique by Bangkok standards. We liked the bright and airy public spaces which are something of a sanctuary from the cut-and-thrust of this lively neighbourhood surrounded by high-rises, cafes, convenience stores and the ubiquitous massage salons.

Executive suite (supplied)

Well-equipped (pun intended) with business and event space, Eat Well Café & Restaurant, The Bar & Grill, Pool Bar, 24-hour in-room dining, Well Spa, fitness centre and swimming pool. To further reinforce the wellness theme, both Executive Rooms and Executive Suites are fitted with private exercise bikes and a Well Fit Box with yoga and stretching kit including mat, block, massage ball, exercise ball and resistance band and - yes - an electronic scale.

Well Hotel certainly has a youthful and ‘hip’ persona, but that shouldn’t deter guests from all walks of life. Perhaps just gauge your own ability before launching into an energetic routine.

www.wellhotelbangkok.com

Amara Bangkok - an extra sparkle in 4-star

Bangkok’s new wave of 4-Star hotels shame many properties of the same rating in other cities around the world. Bright, modern architecture and design, great locations as well as services and amenities more in keeping with the upper echelon bring a little bit of luxury within reach of regular business and leisure travellers.

Amara Bangkok is not a name that immediately springs to mind when scouring the internet for decent accommodation in Bangkok. The brand grew up in Singapore and has roots back to the 1930s when founder, Teo Teck Huat, started his family construction business. Today Amara Hotels & Resorts also own this property in Bangkok, opened in 2015 and another in Shanghai, opened in 2018.

Amara Cabana Room (supplied)

The swank 250-room hotel is located in the vibrant neighbourhood of Surawong, parallel to Silom and Sathorn Roads and just a short walk to Patpong Night Markets. Rooms come in Deluxe, Executive, Club and Cabana and Suite, plus there’s a rooftop infinity pool and bar on the 26th floor, a Grand Ballroom and two function rooms, a 24-hour Sky Gym, and Amara’s own 24-hour mini bar boutique in the lobby.

We liked the compact rooftop Club Lounge as well as the basement eatery, Element, that offered a surprising variety of Southeast Asian cuisine in a space that did not feel at all underground. Importantly, service standards were excellent and our few queries handled promptly and politely.

Bangkok.amarahotels.com

Thailand Hotels -- How good is Bangkok Room Service?

Shelley Berman: on Thai room service 

The following sketch 'Ruin Sorbees' was the subject of much viral circulation by that new-fangled thing called the Internet back in 1997, and was also a popular article when it appeared in the (now sadly demised) Far Eastern Economic Review in Nury Vittachi's column. There has been much conjecture over whether it was an actual taped conversation between a guest and room service, or just a fictional skit, and whether it was one of the Bangkok hotels or one of the gazillion hotels in China.

At the time I was compiling the Hardship Posting series of books about Asia, I asked Nury and he clearly disowned authorship of it.

The truth is something like this ... it was written by Shelley Berman, and appeared in his book A Hotel is a Funny Place, a long, long time before the internet came around. I suspect it is based on Chinese rather than Thai hotel service, just because of the wording but either way it's a great giggle.

Read it out loud -- preferably to some friends after a few drinks -- for full enjoyment of this.

“Morny. Ruin sorbees”
“Sorry, I thought I dialed Room Service”
“Rye, Ruin sorbees. Morny! Jewish to odor sunteen?”
“Uh, yes, I’d like some bacon and eggs”
“Ow July den?”
“What??”
“Ow July den — fry, boy, pooch?”
“Oh the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled, please.”
“Ow july dee baychem-crease?”
“Crisp will be fine.”
“Hokay, An San Toes?”
“What?”
“San toes. July San toes?”
“What?”
“San toes. July San toes?”
“I don’t think so”
” No? Judo one toes?”
“I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what judo one toes means?”
“Toes! Toes! Why je Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlish mopping we bother?”
“English Muffin! I’ve got it! You were saying “Toast”. Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”
“We bother?”
“No, just put the bother on the side?”
“Wad?”
“I mean butter- just put it on the side”
“Copy?”
“Sorry?”
“Copy…tea…mill?”
“Yes. Coffee please, and that’s all.”
“One minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease baychem, tossy singlish moppingwe bother honey sigh and copy…rye?”
“Whatever you say”
“Tendjewberryjud”
“You’re welcome.”

Amazingly, Shelley Berman is in his 7th decade of show business now with a bunch of awards such as Grammys and Emmies to his name. And even has a facebook fan page.

Till next time, tenjewberryjud, and share with us YOUR best and worst room service experiences ...

Conrad Bangkok - a serious business hotel with a playful attitude

So picture this. I am languishing in a huge bathtub, bubbles foaming up to near the ceiling, when I spot a little blue plastic elephant. I find that when I submerge him in the water, he fills up and you can use his trunk like a water pistol. Squiiiiiiiiiiiiiirt! Great fun.

Suddenly I am 4 years old again, sharing a tub with my giggling siblings. But wait a minute ...

I am a professional, fully grown (some would say over-grown) man, with a mortgage, the weight of the world on my shoulders, a monkey on my back, and my nose to the grindstone. Yes, you see, our modern business lives are nothing but a cunningly disguised game of Twister!

But this little frivolity -- a blue plastic elephant, made in China probably -- allows me to forget that for a little while.

And that brings us to the magical difference of The Conrad Bangkok. It has been voted Bangkok's best business hotel already in its rather short history. But it never forgets that, at heart, we are all human. Additionally there is a red silk elephant placed on my bed, a little leaflet explaining it's made from traditional southern style fabric design, and explaining a little about its southern temperament.

And then there's the PlayStation 3 in all their suites.

When it comes to business, though, you'll find the Conrad pushing the envelope. Try Thailand's fastest hotel internet speed, 50 mega-kilo-bitty-widgety-somethings of raw surfing power. Free in all rooms, and most areas of the hotel. How fast? So fast your emails are sent before you even write them, jing jing.

And the executive lounge, bristling with Macs with screens that would make ground control at NASA envious ... and I'm sure some of those space cadets would surely envy the array of yummy hors d'ouevres freely for the taking in the executive lounge too. (Er, Houston, we have a problem ... it seems like some travel writer guy has eaten all the smoked salmon.)

As for location, it is nicely located near the BTS line in downtown Ploenchit (lower Sukhumvit Road embassy and business area), with shuttles running frequently to the station.

Not that you'll be in a hurry to leave your room, mind you. Each is artfully and tastefully done out with Herman Miller desk chairs, and Thai finishing flourishes; dark woods, silk fabrics, and ... well, elephants. Squiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirt!

Le Fenix: more a beach party than just a Bangkok hotel

I thought I was seeing things. This, in itself, is not unusual in Bangkok, but let me explain …

Entering the lobby of Le Fenix Sukhumvit Hotel with its playful splashes of orange and red, I felt I’d walked into scene from Alice in Wonderland. You see, there was a gent standing there whose head looked like it was actually poking up through the ceiling, jing jing. I did a double take.

Sure enough, I wasn’t far wrong. It turned out to be a syncronous moment in which the world’s tallest man happened to be standing under the world’s lowest ceiling. And as though that wasn’t funny enough, he turned out to be a Dutchman dressed for whatever reason like Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.

As I said: unusual sights are in themselves not really unusual in Bangkok.

Le Fenix is full of such quirkiness …

The place itself is comfortable enough, designery enough, to carry off its mid-range value boutique hotel positioning. A see-through swimming pool  on an upper floor that gives revelers on soi 11 below a bottom-dwellers’ eye view of you doing your laps (or lap dance) in the pool for instance.

This hotel is slap-bang in the middle of some great BKK party venues, such as Bed Supper Club (50 metres down the road) and Q Bar (longstanding Bangkok favourite) you will literally fall into if you trip on the stairs coming out of Le Fenix.

And clearly not a few guests had been sipping liberally from the cup of Bangkok's notorious nightlife. A couple of Japanese or Korean girls spent a good 15 minutes trying to get the key in the door of the room next door to mine, giggling all the while, until they realized they were either on the wrong floor or had been using their ATM card instead of their key card. Another Western couple stumbled in around 6am full of good cheer and bon homie, just as I was grumpily heading down for breakfast and an early red-eye flight.

But now, with The Nest, there’s no need to even leave the hotel for one of Bangkok’s coolest nights out. This rooftop bar serves 200 baht cocktails (that’s about $6 to you) and after a few you really feel like you are on the beach in Phuket or even in Ibiza or the Carribean. The beach sand floor creates a let's-get-ready-to-party chilling mindset while the DJ spins loungey sort of stuff.

It’s open from 5pm if you want to catch the sunset and twilight glow over the burgeoning Bangkok skyline, and open till 2am,  to add an extra leg to the Bed and Q Bar routine. 

And popular too … I had to wait for at least 3 full elevator loads to pass my floor before I could get in at midnight.

Thailand travels just got cheaper -- hot hotel deals from Agoda

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Travel Easy 45% Thailand sale, Agoda have come out with their special hotel sale prices for the Kingdom too.

Click on http://www.agoda.com/asia/thailand.html now to save on your holiday to Thailand.

They have 3103 hotels in Thailand listed, jing jing, so choose from these exotic destinations:

• Bangkok
• Phuket
• Pattaya
• Chiang Mai
• Hua Hin / Cha-am
• Samui
• Krabi
• Koh Phi Phi (Krabi)
• Koh Chang (Trad)
• Koh Samet

Hmmm, just looking at that list I realise I've never been to Koh Chang yet. 

Time to pack the bags and head out ...