TRAVELER

In March of 1978 at Bangkok’s Oriental Hotel I declined the receptionist’s offer of a room at the swank newly opened tower. I asked to be lodged, instead, in the hotel’s fabled old building. I followed the porter who carried my luggage past a maid in uniform who said “sawadee ka.” I reciprocated with my own greetings: “sawadee krup,” self-consciously using the proper male speaker gender ending. Never mind my accent, the heretofore reserved porter was delighted and felt free to speak to me. The suite the maid was cleaning, he said, was where the writer Joseph Conrad used to stay when in town. I was given another suite on that same second floor of the 19th century building. This one had been used by Somerset Maugham>>>Full text