
Four Seasons hotel Bangkok : “Home, sweet home”
The first accomodation I ever stayed at in Thailand was in summer 2005, shortly after the tsunami December 2004, at Club Bamboo Phuket, a charming small boutique resort. I only had to pay a tiny rate per day for a sweet bungalow on a quiet hill close to Patong beach.
Hotel staff seemed to know some of my preferences and was calling me by my first name already on the second day. The Thai hospitality I experienced in general was extraordinary.
There I truely recognized for the first time how far your money/buying power can go in South East Asia. The luxury you can afford is remarkable : It is buying power heaven ! A buying power price index for a European is about : in Thailand 4 times what you could afford in your own country, in Indonesia it is about 5 times and in the Philippines I would say you have to multiply everything with 6 to get to German price levels.
One thing is for certain : you can also have the same fun travelling around in SEA not being on the far luxury end. A decent budget is required however if you want to avoid uncomfortable situations. Like I often said before : I would rather decrease the time frame of travels than reducing a minimum daily budget. I often also include budget hotels in my video guides because a stay there can be a positive and different experience as well.

I look very stupid on this pic but the pool guard is just a true character and damn funny somehow. He doesn’t speak much English but he is a helpful and friendly person who takes his job serious. The staff at Four Seasons appears to be pretty constant. I love to see the same faces when returning to a prefered hotel. First, people/staff feel familiar, second they know you already and your preferences. Moreover I see no point in tipping staff well when being unsure if you return or if you see the person again. Tipping I mostly see as an investment for optaining future privileges : it only makes sense with a constant staff.

The area of the whole hotel is actually quite large. I underestimated it at first, later when doing more comparisons, I learned to appreciate the rich diversity of the hotel’s facilities and places.

The executive lounge is not spectacular but nice. I met some open-minded and talkative guests there. Breakfast I often don’t eat because of my late nights but I tried it there once and had a surprising fun chat. I mostly really like their guests I chatted with so far.

This room is really the bomb. Maybe it isn’t as flashy as the one I had at Mandarin Oriental Jakarta, but I like it MUCH more. It got charms and a warm atmosphere. One afternoon I was just lieing on the sofa, and looking through some of their large picture books and sometimes watching the skytrain passing from the window.

Moreover this room totally centers the working desk which is great. Well, I guess I am a workoholic. My SEA trips aren’t “vacation” anymore. When not getting fried my ass in Germany 24/7, I got so pervertic to build up some projects in SEA which will keep me busy. 2011 will get big. It got more difficult for me to enjoy massages when the adrenaline is constantly kicking in. Short-time this won’t be the road to happiness, but long-term it is the right path to walk on. The crazy some of the stuff might look you see in my videos, it is all part of a plan honestly speaking, since a long time ago already actually…
http://www.vimeo.com/13619036

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