More Asian assignations
Our next encounter with Asia was Phuket, pronounced forget and probably best forgot. It is Thailand’s version of Bali and attracts countless Australians and Europeans to its once attractive and now spoilt by overdevelopment, beaches. Patong, is ugliness defined. Whatever charms it once possessed (and they must have been myriad) were swept away by the tsunami of capitalism. After hectoring our taxi driver to take us to the authentic Phuket, we eventually arrived at Palai Bay, for lunch at the Phong Phang Seafood Restaurant. Housed in a giant barn, which was open on all sides, it was good as it gets in terms of a view free of Merriots and the food was authentic Thai and of Michelin quality. Pity that we were not able to experience more of the undeveloped Phuket.
Singapore was next, which was hard to digest in four hours, and most of which was spent negotiating the island-city-state’s MRT. When we eventually emerged overground in an area of reminiscent of a set from Metropolis, it was twenty-five minutes walk to our destination, Raffles Hotel. This most archetypal of colonial hotels still looks the part, though like much else in Singapore its priorities now, judging by the presence within its precincts of Cartier and Leica, are now shopping not sleeping. We had set our stomachs sert on eating in the hotel’s Writers’ Room—we had visions of seeing Rudyard Kipling’s fountain pen and Joseph Conrad’s pocket dictionary—only to be turned back by a surly commissionaire—yet another brush with authority. Colin did not meet the dress code! Proof that the ethos of the Queen Mary 2 still dwells on land. In the end, we had to settle for the Hotel’s bakery. We didn’t see Somerset Maugham’s blotting paper but the tea and muffins were very scrumptious. Having downed the last drop of Royal Darjeeling Ftgfop1, it was time to be shipped back to Athena, just in time for afternoon tea.
