Dogster: Boom Boom, Boom Boom - Bangkok
 

This is not what you think it's gonna be. Sorry. Here goes....

BRAAAP! BRAAP! WAA! WAA!

It’s 10.00 a.m. on the 46th floor of A Certain Hotel in Bangkok. Dogster is just out of the shower. He’s shaved, sparking and heading rapidly for breakfast.

BRAAAP! BRAAP! WAA! WAA! WEE-OO! WEE-OO!

There’s a recorded voice broadcasting in the corridor. Unfortunately my invisible friend is talking in Thai which doesn’t help at all. There’s an unnervingly calm Asian tone in her voice. I think that’s why they chose a woman.

BRAAAP! BRAAP!

Then she says everything again, I think in Japanese. I can’t hear what she’s saying anyway over the alarm.

WAA! WAA! WEE-OO! WEE-OO!

I’ve opened the door by now. The noise is deafening. The corridor is empty.

My sweet Thai voice of doom is now apparently talking in English. I still can’t understand anything she says. It’s early in my day. I don’t function well first thing in my morning. That, and her sublime mangling of English pronunciation have combined to create a perfect storm of mystery. There’s just one word I understand.

‘Emergency’.

BRAAAP! BRAAP! WAA! WAA!

Two maintenance men hurry past my open door and disappear into the wall. They see me but don’t look at me. It’s clearly every maintenance man for himself. There’s a surreal quality about these two passing shadows. Perhaps I’m dead.

Then my friend the recorded announcement starts all over again. In Thai. Then in Japanese. Then in Thanglish.

‘This is an emergency. Go direcry to the something or other. Do not use the errevators.’

WEE-OO!

This sound is not the loudspeaker. This is Dogster screaming silently. WEE-OO!

Then, while I’m standing in terror, screaming my silent scream, she says it all again; in Thai, in Japanese, in Thanglish. This time I realize the ‘something or other’ is in fact the emergency stairwell. So that’s where the two men went. They were Maintenance Angels sent to show me the way.

BRAAAP! I’m standing in the corridor. BRAAAP! I have a moment of rational thought. Take the room key with you. Back into the room. WAA! Take your wallet. WAA! Go back into the corridor. WEE-OO! WEE-OO!

Another moment of stunning intelligence. Get your passport.

‘This is an emergency. Go direcry…

Back into the room. Grab the documents. Back into the corridor.

‘Do not use the errevator…’

There is not a soul anywhere. Just me and my blank, blank mind. I have one thought - Emergency Stairwell. Go there now. Do as you are told.

No, I tell a lie. I have other thoughts: Towering Inferno. Twin Towers. 9/11. Why is there nobody else around? Can I smell smoke? This is surreal.

BRAAP! My adrenal gland squirts out a pint of terror. BRAAP! Squirt. BRAAP! Squirt.

BOOM BOOM, BOOM BOOM!

What’s that noise?

Oh, it’s my heart.

So, I’m standing in the stairwell heading down a grey concrete canyon towards I know not what. There is nobody on the stairs either, just a strange box on the wall. All the little red lights in this little white box on the blank grey wall are flashing like Patpong on a Saturday night.

Down, down the stairway of disaster. Down, down to doom. One flight. Two flights. In each deserted stairwell is another flashing white box. The alarm has faded. The voice is far away. Now I’m in a cone of concrete silence.

Remember those staircase pictures of 9/11? Where are my heroic firefighters? Where are the other people? Where, indeed, am I? Nowhere.

I wasn’t counting the steps. I wasn’t counting the floors. I was just a rat on a mission, scuttling off my sinking ship. Down, down, Patpong flashing over and over again. For some reason my eyes saw only that tiny row of flashing lights. On. Off. On. Off.

Down. Ten flights of stairs. Well, actually twenty. Forward and back, back and forward, zigging and zagging through my concrete canyon.

Nobody. Not a soul. Just Dogster and death on the stairs.

A distant ‘BRAAP! A distant recorded female voice, ‘Errevator… Emergency…’

BOOM BOOM.

Be still, my beating heart….

Zig, zag…

There, on the 34th Floor, looking up at me coming down, is a young lady in a pink pastel uniform. She motions to me and disappears into a doorway. I zag one last time, hurtle through the door, into the corridor. Boom boom. Squirt.

There’s three people outside the errevator. One is a fat farang, completely unconcerned, standing waiting for the lift. One is an Indian gentleman with a look of terror on his face. One is a small Japanese lady. She doesn’t look too thrilled either. All but one of us have run down rather a lot of stairs. Two house-keeping girls in those pink pastel uniforms are standing looking at all of us. They haven’t been running at all.

‘Hee hee hee,’ they giggled, ‘Hee hee hee.’

I know Thai girls giggle when they are embarrassed. Strangely, at that particular moment, this was not what I wanted to hear.

‘Fi Dlill’

What?

‘Fi Dlill. Hee hee hee.’ Both are smiling broadly.

The Indian, the Japanese and the Dog don’t see the joke.

‘Fi Dlill!’ One woman hands us a leaflet. I scan it briefly. My eyes are filled with blood, sweat and tears. I can’t focus on the fine print. I don’t remember what it said but I’d assume it went something like this:

‘The management will be holding an emergency fire-drill at 10.00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Please do not be alarmed. This is a regular blah blah blah…’

This would be the leaflet NOT delivered to Mr. Dogster’s room the previous evening.

‘Hee hee hee,’ the pink pastels went, ‘hee hee hee’.

That’s when the Dog began to bark.

So did the Japanese lady. In impeccable English she told them to stop laughing. They smiled widely and shook with hilarity.

‘Hee hee hee hee hee.’

In impeccable Australian I shouted at them. It’s probably just as well they spoke neither language.

The Indian man just looked like he was going to cry. This only made the pink house-keepers smile and giggle even more. The farang stepped into the lift with a look of obese disdain and sped down to Reception.

There was a very long wait before the next elevator arrived. Enough time for an articulate Japanese, an incoherent Indian and a very dangerous Dog to wife the smile off the house-keeper’s faces - in our calm, multi-cultural way.

Next stop was Reception.

‘Duty Manager. NOW,’ said Mr. Dogster, in his calm, Australian way.

They knew not to argue. Neither did the Duty Manager. Neither, a little while later, did the General Manager, an elegant French gentleman of impeccable composure. We had a calm, cross-cultural discussion in the Club Lounge. Matters were smoothly settled to Mr. Dogster’s satisfaction - but, I suspect not to the General Manager’s.

This is why The Certain Hotel in Bangkok will remain anonymous.

Oh lordie, dogster. How frightening. Can't wait to read the rest!

I suppose the tag to this story SHOULD be that, when I got back to my room, there, lying on the floor, was the leaflet. It would be more of a Dogster story that way. Alas, for the Head of Housekeeping, responsible for delivery of said document, this was not the case.

I looked. I looked again. No leaflet. I believe she was executed at lunchtime.

Boom boom, Boom boom.

Adrenalin swirled through my body for the rest of the day.

Boom boom, Boom boom.

Finally, twelve hours later – and about two sentences ago, my beating heart was finally stilled. It’s thudding away at a normal pace now.

Boom.

Boom.

Bangkok.

Perhaps it’s time to go home.

I think I know which hotel.... it seems to be your current home away from home... unless you've relocated.

What a disaster! Stay calm, doggie. Think of stories to write to your waiting fans here. Don't think about disasters.

Carol

46th floor? Must be the Banyan Tree! Ask for a complimentary 6 hour massage and scrub to help ease your nerves.

Heehee, Dogster. I was on the 45th last month...and no Fi Dlill or plobrem with the erevatol. You deselve massage happy ending for that :D

Great story and fantastically written-riveting!

Just one more reason to stay on a lower floor!

I am less than 48 hour away from hearing that Thanglish. What I would give for a Fi Dlill right now.

Soak it up dogster and enjoy. How long will you be in Bangkok ?

Only to dogster!! But what would a trip be without some good tales, which are always the worst experiences? (One advantage of the down-market hotels I tend to frequent - fewer stories and no Fi Dlills - probably no Fi alalms either.)

Ah Dogster, how I've missed your tales (tail?)
Hurry home now and get to writing. We want more.

Lol. Thanks for your kind words.

It wasn't the Banyan Tree. Carol knows...

But this wasn't written as revenge, guys. WHERE it was doesn't impact the story one jot... the only thing that matters is that it was high up in the sky.

Really, the whole thing stemmed from the tiniest of oversights: one piece of paper not delivered to one room on the 46th floor. Apparently everybody else [bar two] staying in the hotel carried on calmly, as if nothing had happened. I love the way things can spiral wildly out of control from the simplest of errors.

As readers of some of my other odd adventures will know, usually it's ME who makes the mistake. My sins of pride, carnal extravagance, gluttony and overwhelming stupidity set me up for a fall constantly. Literally in some instances.

For once this wasn't some kind of karmic payback - well, I don't think it was.

And thank you particularly Kerryasi, for noticing the prose. The stories I like writing most are the ones that just pop out fully formed. They have a certain freshness that appeals to me [apart from a couple of repetitions that I've just noticed and a spelling mistake] I wish they were all like that.

And it's true, thursday: ONLY to Dogster. This was by NO means the worst experience. Wait till you hear about the rest of the trip.

I'm wondering how common this is in Bangkok. Two summers ago in Sofitel Silom they had a practice evacuation drill, with no advance warning that I can recall.

OK the "new" Centara then. Hope you're enjoying all the rain we're getting right now!

I love your "stories". You make my day so much better. Many thanks! At a certain hotel in Tokyo we experienced a real, quite rocky earthquake. I checked out the emergency exit...it was a slide..from the 40th floor! I decided to wait it out in my room. Travel is an experience.