Blanchards' Oriental Travel Journal: Reviews and Best Entries

Ambassador Hotel

Saturday 5th September, 1994

The Ambassador was one of the first hotels I ever stayed in in Bangkok. Before I had stayed at the Montien, the Menam and the Oriental so at the time this was a step down but nevertheless a pleasant one.

The Ambassador is located strategically in the centre of the Sukhumvit Tourist strip but still very close to the Silom business area and most major hotels. This place is BIG! With about what seems a dozen or so food outlets and hundreds of rooms, a cavernous lobby, this is a city in itself. Just finding the breakfast room in the morning entails a major expedition. But the charm of the Ambassador has always been the zoo in the carpark.

With due disrepect to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals, the carpark (was) bordered by old cages inhabited by various birds and exotic animals. The cars actually back into the cages, adding a blast of monoxide to the already fumigated animals having to live in the Bangkok pollution already. Pride of place always went to the Pink Flamingos, who had a slightly bigger space than all the rest. A brighter future was afforded to the birds in the aviary which surrounded the aviary restaurant inside; again as is par for the course for Bangkok hotels, is enormous and makes you feel that you actually eating in an enormous bird cage. The Ambassador also sported the Flamingo discotheque, which was probably the darkest disco in Asia. Basically this meany you could go along without a shave and freshen up after a hard day on the Bangkok streets and not worry whether anybody would see you. Finally, it had a big outside hawker centre with some of the freshest shellfish in town, and the best green curry, with low prices but Ambassador guaranteed hygeine.

Alas the old Ambassador is gone along with the zoo, the hawker centre and even the Flamingo discotheque. A new Bangkapi resturant is now in the new gleaming building next door, but you can't eat your Tom Yum while looking out at the street life in Sukhumvit. Some things never change and Noi and Suzy still command the bar at 5 am in the morning, still offering idle chatter for the price of a drink.

A fine institution hits the dust. No doubt the prices will rise and the Ambassador will become yet another faceless monument to the package traveller. Viva la progress.

PS. If anybody knows where the Pink Flamingos have gone let me know. The maids, front office and duty manager don't.