The Marriott Surawongse was a brand new property when then-Miss Sachi and I celebrated our first anniversary there in back in 2018. She wasn’t Platinum then but we got a cheap rate as it was opening week. I think it was our first five-star experience together, or close to it. I recall being impressed by the nice room and high-quality service.
Fast-forward and it’s now 2025 and we are a jaded, old couple who have seen it all and have a reputation at every club lounge in Bangkok. Yet, I find myself again huffing and puffing to check in before five PM, when cocktail-hour starts.
I arrived by motorcycle-taxi, which is the most ignoble arrival, worse than walk-in. “May I take your luggage sir?” “No, I don’t have any. But you can hold my helmet while I pay this chap his thirty Baht.” Luckily, my driver had the discretion stop short of the door and let me walk in with my head held high.
Today was special, it was February 14, a date that lives in infamy for most husbands, but I was the one being treated this year. Treated to a couple of hours of free-flow booze, if this check-in queue would move a bit faster and I could join the missus in the lounge.
Only ten minutes late but we toasted with sparkling wine. “It’s the Australian one, I can tell,” Mrs. Sachi said and she was right. We have been scraping the barrel of Bangkok’s cheap-yet-supple wines and can pretty much identify any of them by taste now. It helps that we now patronise the wine merchant that supplies a lot of these hotels. The bubbly in question is Bushtail — a fine, if simple, tipple with a nice tang offset by a slight sweetness and can be got at Bt350 when on special.
I can’t say that we are disappointed, we open this stuff on a whim but our apartment doesn’t have a view anything like this. Thirty one floors below you gives a hell of a view and there’s no buildings even close to as high. You can even see bits of the river. The windows are huge and it’s a corner so one really gets a sense of being on top of the world. Vertigo even.
Looks like the folks who running this lounge are paying attention because there are two reds to try. The Chilean Resevvado cab-sav has a bad nose but there’s a Wolfblass shiraz which isn’t too bad. If I may go on a short rant: it’s not more expensive to keep two types, or more, of red or white wine at a lounge and it makes the visit far more pleasant. You can tell a really good place because they’ll have three reds and three whites and you can have a splendid time sampling them all.
The buffet is OK but I was unlucky and found the meat a bit tough and cold. One should never look a gift-horse in the mouth but a gifted hotel buffet may contain horse. That said, I was very happy to put the very decent cheese and mango-sticky rice in my mouth, many times.
With a good lining to the stomach, it was time to tackle those cocktails.
The Mai Tai was pretty good and the barlady had not stooped to over-sweetening. The trouble with cheap cocktails and especially the free ones is that they’re made for people who don’t like to drink. Either that or it’s to cover up the taste of cheap hootch. That said, my Gin Fizz didn’t taste much of gin at all so they’re either very good at their craft or are getting worried that I’m going to get drunk and cause a ruckus.
Luckily, I have a plan-B.
I had a go at the Chilean chardonnay and sauvignon blanc but they both tasted the same to me. Mrs. Sachie spotted a bottle of Malibu and went off-menu for a pina colada.
It wasn’t bad but I wasn’t tempted to get my own, I’d spotted a bottle Baily’s.
Having arrived late, I didn’t get to explore our room before bedtime and it turns out that Mrs. Sachie had, through charm, bribery or blackmail, secured us a suite.
It’s just below the lounge, so great views.
While our suite of rooms are not bigger than our apartment, there are two bedrooms, which means that Mrs. Sachie could snooze at her comfortable 27 degrees (Celsius) like a lizard contented on its hot stone in one while I could crank the aircon down to 16 and huddle under the high-thread count doona in the other.
Oh yeah, it was Saint Valentine’s night and we had a nice hotel room. I probably should have made more of an effort. The thing is though, it was a Friday, we both work and we were both exhausted. Life isn’t the 2018 romance that it once was and we are both at an age when a damn good night’s sleep is blessing enough.
Ow! Ow! Stop that, it hurts! Owwww! Yes that hurts more. I’ll probably leave a mark!
Yes dear, I’ll make it up to you next year.
