Tour de Trance/Bangkok/Royal Hotel
Besides its qualities as a hotel, and as an alternative to the high priced Oriental, the Royal Hotel
offers a 24 hours room service and sexy mirrored old fashioned rooms (in the old sector). It also has an
after hours licensed coffee shop in the back of the lobby.
After a disappointing encounter
on Soi Cowboy, my babe and I found a tuk-tuk to drop us there. Most tuk-tuk and taxi drivers know the Royal
as Ratanakosinas it is written in Thai.
The cofeeshop is fully air-conditioned, which means you enter a freezer, but it's also the place where the
girls of Patpong and Soi Cowboy mingle with other Thai guests and westeners.
 That day
they had a couple of sing-along-singers on stage, who performed a true piece of Thai entetainment:
Three alternating Thai-singers (two women, one man) sang stone-melting Thai lovesongs, accompanied by a
shuffling rhythm box and an electric organ.
My babe and I chose a table close to the stage and the very attentive and friendly waitress, brought us a small bottle
(nueng baen) of Sang Thip with ice (nam kaeng) and Soda on the
spot. It cost no more than 160
bees.
I tipped the waitress for the singer with 100 bees, and soon we had the performers at our table. We
chatted, drank, and finally we started dancing to the songs
(slow-motion-slow-fox). Together with the
few other Thai guests we had a wonderful party, at the end of which we all ended up totally drunk at 4 o'clock in the
morning.
Do not miss this hotel. It's one of the oldest operating hotels in Bangkok.
During the bloody May
1992 protetest against General Succhinda's appointment as prime minister, the Royal served as a makeshift
hospital for injured demonstrators. © chang noi, 2001
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