You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
This picture at the First House Hotel in Bangkok is not the worst anti-view we've ever seen. Sure, the walls are a bit grubby and the roof looks a bit unsteady, but there's a tree and something like a temple in the distance. But the caption that comes with the photo helps add it to our anti-view catalog:
When we found that there was a huge dent in the mattress there and that the bathroom smelled very bad, we moved.
Apart from the smelly bathroom and dented mattress found in at least one room, the First House Hotel actually features air-conditioning and cable TV in every room, with the air-con being a definite must have in steamy Bangkok. For a standard room for two you pay 1700 Baht (just US$54) for the privilege; dented mattresses and less-than-beautiful views all included.
Seems America isn't the world's only litigious society. There's Thailand, for example.
In Bangkok, the The Oriental has been slapped with a defamation lawsuit by the Thai Attorney General, following a libel claim from another hotel competitor, the lebua. Seems that an internal email memo sent by The Oriental's General Manager Kurt Wachtveitl last year to his hotel managers accused the lebua of poaching 26 staff members from yet another 5-star property The Peninsula Bangkok.
Oh the humanity! Can you imagine some employee actually wanting to work elsewhere, and perhaps for more money. But Wachtveitl's email, which has been reportedly sent to several other Bangkok hotel managers, was leaked to the public. Like that never happens in America.
Gone are the days when being a green hotel meant guests slept in tents in the middle of a forest: these days you can be green even in the middle of a bustling metropolis like Bangkok. The Old Bangkok Inn is a small ten-room place that's got a number of neat strategies going to be environmentally friendly.
The owners of the hotel decided from the outset that they wanted to be environmentally sound and from the renovation of the original house to the hotel you see today, there were many decisions made to stay low impact. For example, only salvaged wood was used in the renovations and all the fixtures, linen and curtains were locally produced.
When you mention Manolo Blahnik, Four Seasons and elephants all in the same sentence, our ears will totally prick up.
Recently, the luxe shoe designer pledged his support to the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation by doing what he does best, designing a (limited-edition) shoe.
Available as of March in the US the Blahnik designed D'orsay pump with patent brown trimming and patent brown 90mm heel will feature Congo leopard print pony (fake) leather. The shoes will exclusively be sold through Footcandy Shoe Stores in California but can be shipped anywhere in the world. It will retail at approximately $600 with proceeds going to the GTAEF conservation project.
Luckily for us, unluckily for our wallet, there is a FootCandy store just a few miles from our house. As for the shoe, we don't have a picture of it yet but it will look something like this.
Now you must be wondering, how does the Four Seasons play into all this?
One more luxury resort to tempt us is open on the Gulf of Thailand. Belonging to the Design Hotels portfolio, the Alila Cha-Am just opened on February 1st. It's only two hours south of Bangkok which makes it pretty easy to reach, yet the quiet of the beaches and pool villas sound like more than a world away from the bustle of the city.
Design is, of course, an important aspect of the Alila Cha-Am. Thai architect Duangrit Bunnag, well known in his country, has designed the 79 villas and rooms and there's a focus on "clean lines and strong geometric forms", which sounds pretty modern, but the materials are mainly wood, limestone and marble, and that seems to ground it back in normality, too.
You want to feel like you're somewhere you can relax, not on an architectural hunting expedition. By the way, they're claiming that the beach this resort fronts is the longest beach in Thailand--but we can't confirm or deny this.
Special packages at Alila Cha-Am--and at other Alila resorts--are known as Alila Experiences and they sound intriguing: along with culinary and cultural excursion, they also offer intimate couples' celebrations and "active lifestyle pursuits". We're curious to know more about all of these, but not yet sure that we want to sign up for one. In the meantime, low-season room rates are starting at $176 a night. Not bad at all.
Banyan Tree Phuket does not have an attached wildlife sanctuary. However, Banyan Tree Phuket, like our other resorts has embarked on numerous CSR initiatives including:
*Gibbon Conservation – Supported the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project to help retrieve captured gibbons and retrain them to live in the world again
*Laguna Phuket Sea Turtle Conservation Ceremony – Organizing an annual carnival to raise awareness for marine conservation
Asian hotel blog Agoda recently put out its list of the top ten eco-friendly hotels in the Asian region, and it makes for interesting reading. The Banyan Tree Phuket in Thailand, for example, made it into the number one position both because of its attached wildlife sanctuary and the fact that this hotel was built by transforming an abandoned tin mine. And each of the remaining nine hotels has a similar kind of story.
Interesting for us is the Anantara Resort & Spa Golden Triangle, also in Thailand, because it includes an elephant conservation center and guests can experience elephant trekking and forest living skills courses, all with a green bent. In Myanmar, the Popa Mountain Resort (home to this amazing view) gets on the good green list because it's been carefully designed to fit in with the surroundings, and uses biodegradable products and its own specially adapted recycling processes too.
And down at number ten on the list, but still worth an eco-visit, the Alia Ubud in Indonesia is a champion in waste recycling. It's proud to say it recycles 80% of its water consumption, which isn't bad at all for a hotel with one of our favorite infinity pools.
A recent Bangkok Post article claimed that the Oriental is the first place in the region to offer WiFi access to its guests wherever they are in the hotel complex. And even better, they say, it's all using a 802.11n network which, if you're not quite geeky enough to know, means that the range and bandwidth is a whole lot better than previous technologies. And as manager Paul Jones said:
Today's business travelers demand more than simple connectivity--they value voice, video and data options which are efficient, convenient, highly secure and most importantly can be accessed anytime, anywhere in the hotel.
Hear, hear! And dare we point out, it's not even just business travelers who are demanding good connectivity. Thumbs up to the Oriental Bangkok for getting a decent WiFi network in place and we hope that many more follow.
Coming soon to the beautiful island of Koh Samui, Thailand: the luxury Park Hyatt Koh Samui, a joint venture between First Oriental and the wealthy Liptapanlop family.
With a plan to open sometime in 2009, the Park Hyatt Koh Samui will include 90 hotel villas, plus 24 residential villas available for purchase. The hotel villas will be mostly suites with just one bedroom, although a few with two or three bedrooms will be available. The villas for sale are all two or three bedroom deals.
As well as a private pool, sun deck and terrace for every villa, the result will include several restaurants and cafes plus a spa and wellness center.
The exact location of the Park Hyatt will be along Thong Krut Bay, on the south side of Koh Samui. There's another island nearby--co-owned by the resort owners--where guests will be able to access a private beach, and tie up their yacht if that's their preferred mode of travel. Nice.
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by amandak
