Night Prayers

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All cities have a fairly definite smell, but for most of the day the smell of Bangkok is covered by a dense blanket of smog that conceals it, making it hard to perceive. When it finally appears, well after darkness has fallen — when the city is quiet, when it has at last calmed down — it’s a tangible substance that floats in the air, moves along the winding streets, and penetrates the remotest alleyways. It may come from the canals of stagnant water, where it’s quite common to see people cooking or washing clothes; from the dried fish stands in Chinatown, the satay and fried food in Patpong and Silom Road, or even the live animals that wait in wicker cages in Chatuchak Market; or it may simply come from the vapors of the Chao Phraya, the brown river that crosses the city, invading it like an insidious illness.

Today it’s pouring rain. The waters of the river heave and ripple, as if about to engulf the sampans and canoes that dare to navigate it. That’s what I see through the window of my room on the fourteenth floor of the Shangri-La Tower at the Hotel Oriental. Shangri-La: the name means “paradise” but to me it suggests something else, “solitude,” maybe, or just “waiting.” Night has already fallen, and I’m drinking gin, my face glued to the window, looking out at a landscape distorted by rain: the Chao Phraya, the lights of Bangkok, the blue skyscrapers, the storm clouds streaked with lightning, the incredible metropolis.

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